Ambidexterity Research Research Articles

Ambidextrous design and public organizations: a comparative case study

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how public cultural organizations use ambidextrous design to balance exploitation and exploration given their organizational structure that mainly stimulates exploitation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use an abductive methodology and, perform an in-depth comparative case study. The data sample consists of two Belgian public cultural centers located in the Flemish area. In all, 21 semi-structured interviews where analyzed using Nvivo.FindingsResults show, first, that although both cases have the same formal organization chart, their informal structure differs. Second, both cases have a different point of view toward exploitation and exploration. Third, no “pure” ambidextrous designs were found. Finally, the paper formulates theoretical propositions for ambidexterity and public sector research.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations of this paper are threefold. First, the authors only compared two cases, so generalization of the findings is limited. Second, although the authors managed to make contributions to ambidexterity and public sector research, theory building is not finished. Finally, researchers have to improve empirical evidence focusing on which design elements lead toward ambidextrous public organizations.Originality/valueThis paper makes a threefold contribution to ambidexterity literature and public sector research. First, the focus on public sector organizations is a rarely taken approach in ambidexterity research. Second, the specific use of ambidextrous design attributes to the limited public sector research that has focused on ambidexterity. Third, the focus on small organizations with limited resources is a rarely taken focus in ambidexterity and public sector research.

Managing ambidexterity in creative industries: A survey

This paper reviews and synthesizes the research on how creative industry organizations (CIOs) achieve alignment ambidexterity and adaptability ambidexterity. This survey highlights the dominance of the contextual approach among CIOs, which arises through practices and processes of internal orientation and external engagement. The survey suggests promising areas for future research in clarifying the contingency factors through which various ambidexterity solutions are adopted in CIOs. These contingency factors include different forms of ambidexterity, concerns about paradoxical tensions, and industrial characteristics. These findings have useful implications for other economic sectors. The paper argues for an enriched ambidexterity research agenda in which creative industries deserve greater attention.

The Influence of Transformational Leadership on Top Management’s Behavioral Integration and Organizational Ambidexterity in Dynamic Environment—An Empirical Study based on E-commerce Enterprises in China

As market competition continuously intensifies, how to cope with existing and potential market challenges in complex, dynamic environments is a major problem haunting Chinese e-commerce enterprises in their strategic planning. In order to solve this problem, the theory of organizational ambidexterity is applied in this paper to the strategic practices of Chinese e-commerce enterprises, and starting from the view of corporate leadership, the mediated role of top management’s behavioral integration (referred to as TMBI in the following content) in the relationship between transformational leadership behavior and organizational ambidexterity is discussed. In addition, against the practical background that Chinese e-commerce enterprises are facing highly competitive environments, further clarification is made herein by using environmental dynamics as the moderator variable for the mediated link. Through empirical tests on 198 samples of Chinese e-commerce enterprises, we find that: 1) transformational leadership has a positive influence on organizational ambidexterity, and TMBI plays a full mediated role in that influencing process; 2) environmental dynamics moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and TMBI, but don’t have a moderated effect on the relationship between TMBI and organizational ambidexterity. According to the research conclusion in this paper, the mechanism of transformational leadership influencing organizational ambidexterity can be better explained when two important factors, TMBI and environmental dynamics, are taken into consideration. The research in this paper provides not only important revelations for the development of organizational ambidexterity research as well as the application of relevant research achievements, but also supports for Chinese e-commerce enterprises’ effective strategic practices in theory.

How Is Ambidexterity Initiated? The Emergent Charter Definition Process

Ambidexterity research has presented a range of structural and contextual approaches for implementing a dual orientation across organizations. Much less is known about the preceding process through which organizations decide to adopt an ambidextrous orientation. In this paper we focus on this first step—the charter definition process through which the activities and responsibilities of an organizational unit are agreed. Most prior studies implicitly assume that senior executives at some point identify the need to become ambidextrous and subsequently design supportive structures and contexts to implement their choice. Based on an inductive multilevel case study of four alliances, we show how this mandated (or top-down) charter definition process can be complemented with an alternative emergent (or bottom-up) charter definition process in which frontline managers take the initiative to adopt an ambidextrous orientation in their part of the organization. This emergent process is important because it enables frontline managers to respond in a timely manner to changing requirements of which senior executives are still unaware. We use the findings from our case study to develop potentially generalizable observations on the level of initiation, the tensions, the management approaches to deal with the tensions, and the outcomes that characterize this emergent charter definition process. We then put forward a multilevel process framework of how organizations initiate an ambidextrous orientation, and we discuss theoretical implications for the general ambidexterity literature, the nascent dynamic view on ambidexterity, and the broader research on how charters in organizations evolve.

The Best and the Rest: How Firm Status Diminishes the Positive Performance Effects of Ambidexterity

This study seeks to explain bestseller success in cultural industries, combining ambidexterity and status research. We argue that the positive performance effects of ambidexterity decrease when hig...

A multilevel examination of high‐performance work systems and unit‐level organisational ambidexterity

This paper examines the process linking high‐performance work systems (HPWS) and organisational ambidexterity both at the unit and firm level of analyses by integrating strategic HRM, human capital and social capital perspectives. Multisource and multilevel data from 2,887 employees and 536 managers of 58 banks was collected. Results revealed that firm‐level HPWS were positively related to unit‐level employee human capital. Unit‐level employee human capital partially mediated the relationship between firm‐level HPWS and unit organisational ambidexterity. Furthermore, firm‐level social climate moderated the effect of firm‐level HPWS on unit organisational ambidexterity through unit‐level employee human capital. This paper contributes to HPWS and ambidexterity research by revealing the impacts of firm‐level HPWS and mediating mechanisms, as well as identifying boundary conditions for pursuing unit‐level organisational ambidexterity.

Organizational Learning Ambidexterity, Strategic Flexibility, and New Product Development

Although organizational ambidexterity has gained momentum in recent innovation research, previous literature still offers a confusing and partial picture about how to leverage ambidexterity for new product development because of two limitations. First, previous research mainly focuses on static resource endowment and thus offers little insight about how firms should dynamically reconfigure resource portfolios to leverage organizational ambidexterity. Second, conceptual confusion on the notion of the balance dimension of organization ambidexterity still exists.This study seeks to explore how firms should dynamically reconfigure resource portfolios to leverage organizational ambidexterity for new product development and to bring greater conceptual clarity to the notion of balance. By extending the static resource assumption, which is central to the extant debate in organizational ambidexterity literature, this research unpacks ambidexterity into a relative exploratory dimension and an interactive dimension. We further investigated the moderating effect of resource flexibility and coordination flexibility on the impacts of the two dimensions on new product development performance.Based on the dynamic resource management view and organizational learning theory, we proposed six hypotheses and collected data from 213 firms through a survey to examine the hypotheses. Our results indicate that relative exploratory dimension and interactive dimension have different effects on new product development. Specifically, the relative exploratory dimension has an inverse U‐shaped effect on new product development while the interactive dimension has a positive effect. Furthermore, we find that resource flexibility and coordination flexibility have positive moderating effects on the relationships between the two dimensions of ambidexterity and new product development performance. Our study contributes to the ambidexterity research in three ways. First, from a dynamic resource management view, this study extends previous ambidexterity research from a static view to a dynamic view by exploring the moderating effects of resource flexibility and coordination flexibility. Second, we extend the understanding on ambidexterity by bringing greater conceptual clarity to the notion of balance. Third, this research provides new evidence on the effects of ambidextrous learning on new product development performance in transition economy such as China, where ambidextrous learning is crucial for firms to adapt to a dynamic environment.

Ambidexterity under scrutiny: Exploration and exploitation via internal organization, alliances, and acquisitions

Prior research on ambidexterity has limited its concern to balancing exploration and exploitation via particular modes of operation. Acknowledging the interplay of tendencies to explore versus exploit via the internal organization, alliance, and acquisition modes, we claim that balancing these tendencies within each mode undermines firm performance because of conflicting routines, negative transfer, and limited specialization. Nevertheless, by exploring in one mode and exploiting in another, i.e., balancing across modes, a firm can avoid some of these impediments. Thus, we advance ambidexterity research by asserting that balance across modes enhances performance more than balance within modes. Our analysis of 190 U.S.‐based software firms further reveals that exploring via externally oriented modes such as acquisitions or alliances, while exploiting via internal organization, enhances these firms' performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Clarifying the Distinctive Contribution of Ambidexterity to the Field of Organization Studies

The concept of organizational ambidexterity has been applied to a wide variety of phenomena in recent years. Its growing appeal is a reflection of its versatility, but this versatility carries the risk of a lack of clarity in meaning and measurement. In this paper, we attempt to bring a sense of perspective to the field of ambidexterity by documenting its growth and usage in scholarly work. We chart the evolution of ambidexterity since its inception, analyzing the diversity in the views held on the topic. We conclude by discussing how ambidexterity research can benefit from greater focus, and we suggest some key areas where it can make a unique contribution.

Ambidextrous Governance in Supply Chains: The Impact on Innovation and Cost Performance

Ambidexterity has been gaining attention among supply chain scholars due to its potential for overcoming trade‐offs. Associated with these complexities is the choice of an appropriate governance mechanism in buyer–supplier relationships, which can include relational and contractual approaches. Extending ambidexterity research to the supply chain management domain, we focus in the present study on ambidextrous governance, which we define as the simultaneous pursuit of both relational and contractual governance elements. We investigate the effect of ambidextrous governance on innovation and cost performance. In addition, as this relationship is highly dependent on the ambidexterity that may be present on the firm level, we theorize about the moderating effect of organizational ambidexterity. We further consider external contextual factors as influencing the ability of ambidextrous governance to effectuate performance, recognizing that the former may not be as effective under conditions of greater demand uncertainty and product complexity. We delineate our hypotheses based on extensions of complementarity theory, and test them, taking a buyer's perspective, with data collected in a multirespondent survey of manufacturing firms. Our results demonstrate the positive relationship between ambidextrous governance and both innovation and cost performance, and highlight the critical role of organizational ambidexterity as an enabler for innovation performance. We furthermore detect mixed effects for the contextual variables considered—demand uncertainty and product complexity—as moderators, emphasizing that the impact of ambidextrous governance on performance is subject to dynamics that are more complex than originally perceived. With our investigation, we extend ambidexterity research to the supply chain management domain and offer important implications for research and practice.

Implementing a Low-End Disruption Strategy through Multiproject Lineage Management: The Logan Case

This paper analyzes how multiproject management can build up and develop a low-end disruptive strategy. It is based on a deep longitudinal analysis of a case within the automotive industry, namely, the Logan case developed by the Renault group. The results bring new insights into both the multiproject management and innovation strategy fields. On the project organizing side, it characterizes the complex and in some way ambiguous relations between the firm governance and the pilot project initiating the disruptive strategy. The case also formalizes project-lineage management as a way to expand the initial move into a diversified range of products and a multi-continent deployment, while keeping the key specificities of the pilot project. On the innovation strategy side, it demonstrates how disruptive strategy and organizational ambidexterity research fields can benefit from input from the project organizing domain.

Organizational Ambidexterity and Performance: A Meta-Analysis

A growing number of studies argue that organizational ambidexterity is increasingly important for the sustained competitive advantage of firms. However, organizational ambidexterity studies have been conducted in a wide variety of industries and methodological settings, and the empirical results have been mixed. The purpose of this article is to systematically examine the organizational ambidexterity–performance relationship to reconcile the mixed results of prior research. By conducting a meta-analysis of prior studies on organizational ambidexterity and performance, we find that positive and significant Organizational ambidexterity–performance relationships are to a large extent moderated by contextual factors and methodological choices: Organizational ambidexterity is particularly important for performance in nonmanufacturing industries and at higher levels of analysis. Also, the performance effects are stronger when “combined” measures of organizational ambidexterity and perceptual performance are used and when a cross-sectional or multimethod research design is applied. Our meta-analysis findings advance the field of organizational ambidexterity by revealing some of the moderators in the organizational ambidexterity–performance relationship, thereby providing a more fine-grained understanding of the effects of organizational ambidexterity on firm performance in prior studies. Our findings point to the gaps and methodological weaknesses in prior organizational ambidexterity research and propose avenues for future research.

Ambidextrous Firms: Managing Individual and Organizational Identities in the Quest for Performance

Ambidexterity research has repeatedly asserted that firms simultaneously engaging in both exploitation and exploration achieve above average firm performance. Yet, empirical findings remain puzzling and no consistent positive performance implication has been corroborated. While the majority of analysis on firm performance has been conducted on the firm level, we claim that a possible explanation for these mixed findings resides in the fact that the individual and firm level has yet to be considered though a multi-level model. Researchers have repeatedly emphasized the importance of the individual as the executor of exploitation and exploration and the need to reflect the escalation of conduct from the micro to the macro level. Based on identity theory, we develop a model that depicts how individual and organizational features interact and impact the performance effects of ambidexterity. Identity theory suggests that individuals hold a portfolio of role identities - frameworks that direct individuals’ behavior within an organizational setting. An individual’s preference to blur or separate role domains, through role segmentation or integration, affects an individual’s ability to move between multiple, possibly conflicting demands such as exploitation and exploration. Organizational identity, on the other hand, affirms that organizations similarly bear multiple identities, which are either holographically (equally) or ideographically (departmentally) reflected throughout the organization. In matching individual inclinations for role management and organizational identity structures, we claim that contextual or structural ambidexterity is not freely applicable to any type of organizations, inferring inconsistent performance effects.

A Revised Blueprint of the Ambidextrous Organization: Reuniting Structural and Contextual Theories

Organizational ambidexterity research has remained divided into two disparate streams. While structural ambidexterity scholars argue that exploitation-exploration tensions can be reconciled by creating separate structural contexts for exploration, contextual ambidexterity research suggests establishing behavioral contexts that allow pursuing both activities within the mainstream organization. In this paper, we argue that both structural and behavioral dimensions define organizational contexts and that it is the interplay between the two that leads to organizational outcomes such as exploitative and explorative processes. Based on a Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 15 work units in three ambidextrous firms, we provide a set-theoretic model of how structural and behavioral context elements are combined to organizational context configurations that enable exploitation, exploration, or both. Based on these findings, we integrate prior theorizing from structural and contextual ambidexterity scholars to establish a revised blueprint of the ambidextrous organization.

Projecting as a Dynamic Capability in Contextually Ambidextrous Organizations

Dynamic capabilities and ambidexterity research lacks in-depth studies that explain how firms routinize the modification of their exploration/exploitation-balance. Based on empirical case study dat...

Perspective-taking as an organizational capability

This article proposes perspective-taking as an organizational capability to facilitate the knowledge integration that is widely posited as crucial to organizational learning and innovation. Building on psychological research at the individual level, the article examines how perspective-taking might be scaled to an organizational capability that can vary in strength and character. The article discusses how individual-level antecedents can be shaped to produce perspective-taking at the organizational level, and shows how perspective-taking capability might be a useful concept for strategic management by examining how it adds to absorptive capacity and ambidexterity research.

INNOVATION TENSIONS AND ORGANIZATIONAL AMBIDEXTERITY: TOWARD A COLLECTIVE PARADOX FRAME.

Organizational ambidexterity entails coping with contradictory logics of exploration and exploitation. While a mindset of experimentation fuels radical innovation, specialization helps leverage existing products. Yet most ambidexterity research investigates supportive structures and strategies, rather than underlying mindsets. Through an inductive study of five, ambidextrous firms, we respond to this gap.