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1. Introduction
Exploration and exploitation are distinct modes of learning (March, 1991). According to Benner and Tushman (2002, p. 679), “exploitative innovations involve improvements in existing components and build on the existing technological trajectory, whereas exploratory innovation involves a shift to a different technological trajectory”. Studies that treat exploration and exploitation as two ends of a continuum have shown that a balance between exploration and exploitation is beneficial for improving innovation performance at the firm level (He and Wong, 2004; Perretti and Negro, 2007). Messeni Petruzzelli (2014) studied this topic at the team level and reached similar conclusions.
Research on this topic has mainly examined the effects of exploration and exploitation on the average performance of innovation. Breakthroughs “are much more valuable than incremental improvements, both technologically and financially” (Fleming, 2002, p. 1059). Prior research regarded innovations of great technological importance as breakthroughs because these innovations have demonstrated their utility on the path of technological progress (Rosenkopf and Nerkar, 2001). These innovations, which can not only provide firms considerable knowledge advantages but also greatly improve the firms’ reputation, are essential for promoting the innovation competitiveness of enterprises (Gittelman and Kogut, 2003).
Singh and Fleming (2010) suggested that the mechanisms that increase average innovation performance could be different from the mechanisms that promote high-impact innovations (breakthroughs) and avoid low-impact innovations (particularly poor innovations). Although a particular innovation is achieved by a team of individuals, the existing literature mostly considers the effects of knowledge exploration and exploitation on breakthroughs at the firm level. Phene et al. (2006) suggested that an inverted-U relationship exists between knowledge exploration and breakthroughs and that a balance between exploration and exploitation is beneficial for generating firm level breakthroughs. However, Gupta et al. (2006) found that differences in the units of analysis of exploration and exploitation could lead to different conclusions and that the simultaneous pursuit of knowledge exploration and exploitation at the team level is more difficult than the firm level. Therefore, we argue that balancing knowledge exploration and exploitation may not be suitable to achieve team level breakthroughs.
Moreover, exploratory and exploitative activities per se are always influenced by individual characteristics (Mom et al., 2007; Jansen et al., 2009), team attributes (Khedhaouria and Jamal, 2015; Guan and Liu, 2016)...