Coupling artificial intelligence capability and strategic agility for enhanced product and service creativity

Creativity is key for organizations’ ability to remain relevant in today's disruptive world. In this paper, we identify new ways in which organizations can use artificial intelligence (AI) more effectively for creativity. Drawing on the resource-based view as a background mechanism, we developed and empirically tested a new integrative model. We collected the research data via a large survey of managers distributed to 600 organizations in China. Our findings show that coupling AI capability with strategic agility can directly support creativity. It also mediates the effects of ambidexterity, customer orientation and competitor orientation on organizations’ creativity and performance when developing new products and services. In addition, our findings show that coupling AI capability and strategic agility can significantly improve firms’ new product creativity and new service development performance when there is a high level of government institutional support. Our findings provide theoretical and practical implications for academics and practitioners interested in managing AI for organizational creativity.