THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARCHITECTURAL AMBIDEXTERITY: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN AN AGE OF HYPERCOMPETITION.

Abstract

How does an organization, operating in what has been historically a relatively stable environment such as banking, use IT to transform itself as that environment changes to one of hypercompetition? We argue that a key contribution of IT in this context is its potential role in the development of architectural ambidexterity which we define as the capacity to manage complex and apparently conflicting task demands ' such as efficiency and innovation, commoditization and customization, control and entrepreneurship - through the dynamic reconfiguration of resources and capabilities. The concept of architectural ambidexterity is developed building upon organization design and dynamic capabilities literatures. Architectural ambidexterity is a collective ability that enables an organization to integrate know-how and processes and systems to enact forms of connectivity that ensure endurance and accommodation to an unpredictable future by building an overarching basis for stability, requisite uniformity, facilitatory flexibility and anticipative connectivity.