Cloud technology adoption and business model innovation: the role of organizational ambidexterity in navigating technological dynamics

Purpose Cloud technology adoption (CTA) serves as a key enabler of digital servitization and business model innovation (BMI) in business-to-business (B2B) manufacturing contexts, shifting firms from product sales to data-driven and outcome-based services. Guided by dynamic capabilities theory, this study aims to explore how organizational ambidexterity mediates the CTA–BMI link and how technological turbulence and internal information technology (IT) capability moderate this pathway. Design/methodology/approach A moderated-mediation model is tested with survey data from 283 Chinese manufacturing firms. Ordinary least-squares regression and bias-corrected bootstrapping are used to assess direct, indirect and contingent paths. Findings CTA positively influences organizational ambidexterity, which in turn drives BMI. Ambidexterity mediates the CTA–BMI link. Technological turbulence amplifies, whereas internal IT capability diminishes the impact of CTA on ambidexterity. Originality/value This study advances B2B marketing and digital servitization scholarship by: (1) identifying organizational ambidexterity as the dynamic capability that turns cloud investments into viable business models and (2) showing how market turbulence and legacy IT capability jointly determine the returns on cloud-enabled innovation. The findings equip managers to align cloud technologies with ambidextrous routines and maximize customer value across shifting environments.