Organizational alertness and IT-enabled crisis strategies: a quantitative study on exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how organizational alertness is related with IT exploration, IT exploitation, and IT ambidexterity as crisis response strategies and to assess their impact on competitive performance through market capitalizing and operational adjustment under external crisis conditions. Design/methodology/approach A research model is developed integrating organizational alertness with IT exploration for swift market capitalizing, IT exploitation for swift operational adjustment, and IT ambidexterity for the simultaneous IT exploration and IT exploitation to investigate organizations' strategic specialization in crisis response. Following a survey design approach, data collected from 166 organizations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland during the COVID-19 crisis are analyzed using partial least squares path modeling, mediation and moderation analyses. Findings Our results highlight the important role of organizational alertness in all three strategies in the crisis context. IT exploration enhances competitive performance through market capitalizing, while IT exploitation ensures operational stability but does not directly improve competitiveness. Contrary to previous research conducted in stable environments, IT ambidexterity generally weakens crisis responses unless both IT exploration and exploitation are highly developed. Originality/value Our study offers a novel perspective on IT-enabled crisis response strategies, emphasizing the role of organizational alertness in shaping organizations' specialization in either IT exploration or IT exploitation rather than balancing both. Prior research has primarily examined IT ambidexterity in stable environments and assumed universal benefits. Our conceptualization challenges this view by integrating alertness-driven strategic specialization with IT-enabled crisis adaptation and empirically testing it in a high-uncertainty crisis context. We extend ambidexterity theory by demonstrating its contingent applicability and highlighting when organizations should prioritize IT exploration or exploitation for effective crisis management.