From ambidextrous learning to digital creativity: An integrative theoretical framework

Digital creativity (DC) stands for employee's generation of useful and fresh ideas through the use of digital technologies, which is one of the prominent consequences of effective digital technology use. Drawing insights from the tripartite view of technology use (ie, technology, individual and task elements) and the social role lens, our study proposes and tests an integrative theoretical framework to understand how female and male employees progress from ambidextrous learning in digital technology use to DC. We first interviewed five frontline employees and then surveyed 221 employees that were different from the interview sample from eight organisations. All participants utilised a similar version of internet-of-things (IoT) in their daily work. We find that (a) exploitative use has a stronger influence on DC for women than for men, while explorative use displays a higher impact on DC for men than for women, and (b) technology digital affordance (TDA), digital knowledge (DK), and task variety (TV) exhibit significant influences on both exploitative and explorative uses to varying extents. The post-hoc analysis reveals that exploitative use mediates the influences of TDA and DK on DC only for women; explorative use mediates the impacts of TDA and TV on DC only for men. Our study advances the understandings of the downstream impact of technology use in the digital context.

Automated summary

Our study proposes an integrative theoretical framework to understand how female and male employees progress from ambidextrous learning in digital technology use to digital creativity. We find that exploitative use has a stronger influence on digital creativity for women, while explorative use displays a higher impact on digital creativity for men. Technology digital affordance, digital knowledge, and task variety exhibit significant influences on both exploitative and explorative uses to varying extents.