Drawing from the knowledge-based dynamic capabilities (KBDCs) view, this study examines the association of big data management capabilities with employee exploratory and exploitative activities at the individual level. Furthermore, it also investigates the mediating role of big data value creation in the association of big data management capabilities with exploratory and exploitative activities. The partial least square method was employed to analyse the hypotheses using data collected from 308 employees of 20 Chinese multinational enterprises. The existing literature gives scant attention to the role of big data management capabilities at the individual level. The main contribution of this study is that it conceptualises big data management as the ability to utilise external knowledge (generated from global users) under the resource constrained environment of an emerging economy. Furthermore, this study builds upon the existing literature on KBDC to explain big data management capabilities as antecedents to ambidexterity at the individual employee level.