Attaining competitive advantage is especially crucial for innovative firms. Due to increased competition, firms employ various types of innovation activities to position themselves against their competitors. Ambidexterity and strategic agility have been found to strengthen this position. Whereas scholars analyzed strategic agility’s and ambidexterity’s impact on organizational performance, ambidexterity’s impact on the competitive advantage of organizations remains largely unexplored. Tensions between exploration and exploitation within an ambidextrous strategy make it difficult to reap benefits in establishing competitive advantage. Contrary, strategic agility centers on organization’s capacities to quickly respond to shifting demand, hence, increasing its competitive advantage. Through a mixed-method approach, comprising of a literature review and quantitative analyses of 150 German mid-sized firms in the engineering industry, it is demonstrated how ambidexterity, exploration and exploitation, in conjunction with strategic agility, affect the competitive advantage of firms. In order to sustain, firms should either favor an exploration strategy of innovation processes to come up with radically new knowledge, products and services, or combine an exploitation strategy with strategic agility. A strategy of sole exploitation is not beneficial towards increased competitive advantage, while an ambidextrous strategy seems to even negatively influence the competitive advantage of a firm.

获得竞争优势对于创新型企业尤其重要。由于竞争加剧，公司采用各种类型的创新活动来将自己定位于竞争对手。已经发现双手灵巧和战略敏捷性可以加强这一地位。尽管学者们分析了战略敏捷性和二元性对组织绩效的影响，但二元性对组织竞争优势的影响在很大程度上仍未得到探索。在一个灵巧的战略中探索和开发之间的紧张关系使得很难从建立竞争优势中获得收益。相反，战略敏捷性的核心在于组织快速响应不断变化的需求的能力，从而增加其竞争优势。通过混合方法，包括对 150 家德国工程行业中型公司的文献回顾和定量分析，展示了双元性、探索和开发以及战略敏捷性如何影响公司的竞争优势。为了维持下去，公司要么倾向于创新过程的探索战略，以提出全新的知识、产品和服务，要么将开发战略与战略敏捷性相结合。单独开发的战略不利于增加竞争优势，而灵巧的战略似乎甚至对公司的竞争优势产生负面影响。与战略敏捷性相结合，影响企业的竞争优势。为了维持下去，公司要么倾向于创新过程的探索战略，以提出全新的知识、产品和服务，要么将开发战略与战略敏捷性相结合。单独开发的战略不利于增加竞争优势，而灵巧的战略似乎甚至对公司的竞争优势产生负面影响。与战略敏捷性相结合，影响企业的竞争优势。为了维持下去，公司要么倾向于创新过程的探索战略，以提出全新的知识、产品和服务，要么将开发战略与战略敏捷性相结合。单独开发的战略不利于增加竞争优势，而灵巧的战略似乎甚至对公司的竞争优势产生负面影响。