Achieving Personal Ambidexterity in Practice

Abstract

In times where technological change develops exponentially, companies are under pressure to constantly reinvent themselves. However, it is still an open question how companies can explore new opportunities for innovation while at the same time exploiting their existing knowledge. Much research has focused on structural and sequential ambidexterity, meaning that exploration and exploitation are separated through structures or time. Little research, however, has been put on personal ambidexterity and how paradoxical demands can be handled by employees within their daily work environment. Therefore, we analyze how employees of a large European car manufacturer with distinct roles execute a highly explorative task – evaluating tournament-based crowdsourcing solutions. For this, we make use of participant observation, archival data, and qualitative interviews. The results indicate that certain cultural elements as well as leader behaviors form role perceptions of employees. If role perceptions are exploitative, employees feel negative emotions due to cognitive dissonance which decrease exploration quality. Nevertheless, we identified some individuals that were able to cope with cognitive dissonance through certain personality traits, competencies, support, and an adaptation of the task scope. This provides several implications for the implementation of personal ambidexterity within companies.