Human resource management in ambidextrous organisations – A systematic literature review

Abstract

The objective of this study involves identifying the key pillars and strategies for managing human resources in ambidextrous organisations. This seeks to grasp how these organisations foster sustainability, success and high levels of organisational performance in response to the demands raised by competitive markets. This correspondingly applied the systematic literature review technique to the Web of Science database. Following the identification of 121 articles, we applied the co-citation and bibliographic coupling analytical techniques in accordance with VOSviewer. This process identified four pillars to the strategic management of human resources in ambidextrous organisations: ambidextrous leadership, ambidextrous management systems, ambidextrous learning and ambidextrous organisational culture that, in turn, highlight various organisational strategies. In academic terms, this generates deep reflections on future lines of research and a better understanding of the relevance of the strategic management of human resources in ambidextrous organisations in addition to clearly portraying a structure underpinning the relationships identified among the pillars and strategies capable of attaining success.