Exnovation as a strategic enabler: Unlocking technological innovation through ambidexterity and capability reconfiguration

Abstract

Progress in the digital age is not merely a matter of adding the new, but also of the deliberate cessation of technologies or routines that have outlived their strategic value. Positioned as a theory-building conceptual synthesis, this study advances the concept of exnovation as a primary catalyst of technological renewal, drawing upon a triangulated lens of dynamic capabilities, resource-based, and organisational learning perspectives. A hermeneutic synthesis of 108 peer-reviewed studies indicates that exnovation generates discretionary slack and cognitive space. Critically, these resources translate into durable innovation only under specific organisational contingencies. First, organisational ambidexterity must channel liberated resources into a calibrated portfolio of exploration and exploitation. Second, technological capabilities must be sufficiently mature to reconfigure and redeploy that slack. We formalize this triad as a moderated-mediation framework, repositioning exnovation as a deliberate, yet often overlooked, dynamic-capability maneuver within the innovation literature. The analysis produces a focused research agenda and exnovation-informed prescriptive instruments: a “sunset-and-springboard” governance protocol for managers and a capability-voucher schema aligned with the exnovation framework for policymakers. By clarifying exnovation’s generative role, this study fills a significant conceptual gap and provides a theoretically rigorous, practically actionable pathway for sustaining competitive agility and human-centric innovation in the Industry 5.0 era.