Transforming Organizational Ambidexterity: A New Converged Approach

Abstract

Shifting organizational environments contribute to high mortality of the organizations and to sustain competitive advantage, organizations must develop and manage capabilities to renew themselves; this requires simultaneous conduct of exploitation and exploration through two organizational approaches – simultaneous and sequential approaches of ambidexterity. Both are argued potentially viable; however, there is no clear evidence favoring either approach, which is the value-added theoretical contribution of this paper. We propose the Converged approach – reached through the Punctuated Equilibrium theoretical model and, hence, organizational ambidexterity is for the first time operationalized over two periods – period of incremental change and period of ferment. The Converged approach argues that the organization supports only exploitation during the period of incremental change, while during the period of ferment, the organization supports exploitation and exploration, integrating the advantages and mitigates the disadvantages of both existing approaches.