Organizational Ambidexterity and Performance of Telecommunication Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The business environment in the 21st century has remained very competitive and firms that will survive must be innovative and efficient in their operations. In Kenya, there is one company that has dominated the industry with 66 percent market share and 77.4 percent revenue, while the others are struggling to achieve sustainable performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and performance in telecommunication firms in Kenya. The objectives of the study are firstly to investigate the extend to which exploration and exploitation strategies are applied in telecommunication companies in Kenya; to evaluate the performance of the companies; to propose strategic decision making approaches that can be used to achieve better performance in the telecommunication firms in Kenya. It analysed thirty one studies via systematic review and the findings were that there is a positive joint effect of exploration and exploitation when the two capabilities are employed simultaneously. Organizational ambidexterity has a positive influence on organizational performance and the study recommends that the co-existence of exploration and exploitation is paramount to organizational performance.