Organizational ambidexterity refers to the ability of an organization to both explore and exploit—to compete in mature technologies and markets where efficiency, control, and incremental improvement are prized and to also compete in new technologies and markets where flexibility, autonomy, and experimentation are needed. In the past 15 years there has been an explosion of interest and research on this topic. We briefly review the current state of the research, highlighting what we know and don't know about the topic. We close with a point of view on promising areas for ongoing research.

Organizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present, and Future

Organizational ambidexterity refers to the ability of an organization to both explore and exploit--to compete in mature technologies and markets where efficiency, control, and incremental improvement are prized and to also compete in new technologies and markets where flexibility, autonomy, and experimentation are needed. In the past 15 years there has been an explosion of interest and research on this topic. We briefly review the current state of the research, highlighting what we know and don't know about the topic. We close with a point of view on promising areas for ongoing research.

Organizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present and Future

This article is intended as a contribution to the ongoing conceptual development of Sustainability-Oriented Innovation (SOI) and provides initial guidance on becoming and being sustainable. We organize and integrate the diverse body of empirical literature relating to SOI and, in doing so, develop a synthesized conceptual framework onto which SOI practices and processes can be mapped. SOI involves making intentional changes to an organization’s philosophy and values, as well as to its products, processes or practices to serve the specific purpose of creating and realising social and environmental value in addition to economic returns. A critical reading of previous literature relating to environmental management and sustainability reveals how little attention has been paid to SOI and what exists is only partial. In a review of 100 scholarly articles and 27 grey sources drawn from the period of the three Earth Summits (1992, 2002 and 2012), we address four specific deficiencies that have given rise to these limitations: the meaning of SOI, how it has been conceptualised, its treatment as a dichotomous phenomenon and a general failure to reflect more contemporary practices. We adopt a framework synthesis approach involving first constructing an initial architecture of the landscape grounded in previous studies which is subsequently iteratively tested, shaped, refined and reinforced into a model of SOI with data drawn from included studies: so advancing theoretical development in the field of SOI.

Sustainability‐oriented Innovation: A Systematic Review

textPrior studies have emphasized that structural attributes are crucial to simultaneously pursuing exploration and exploitation, yet our understanding of antecedents of ambidexterity is still limited. Structural differentiation can help ambidextrous organizations to maintain multiple inconsistent and conflicting demands; however, differentiated exploratory and exploitative activities need to mobilized, coordinated, integrated, and applied. Based on this idea, we delineate formal and informal senior team integration mechanisms (i.e. contingency rewards and social integration) and formal and informal organizational integration mechanisms (i.e. cross-functional interfaces and connectedness) and examine how they mediate the relationship between structural differentiation and ambidexterity. Overall, our findings suggest that the previously asserted direct effect of structural differentiation on ambidexterity operates through informal senior team (i.e. senior team social integration) and formal organizational (i.e. cross-functional interfaces) integration mechanisms. Through this richer explanation and empirical assessment, we contribute to a greater clarity and better understanding of how organizations may effectively pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously to achieve ambidexterity.

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Structural Differentiation and Ambidexterity: The Mediating Role of Integration Mechanisms

Research in closed-loop supply chains (CLSCs) has grown rapidly over the last 10 years. The authors offer a critical review of influential CLSC research that takes a business economics perspective. Much of the research was inspired by practice-driven thoughtpieces, and this helped to keep research focused on relevant issues. However, CLSC research has several assumptions, such as perfect substitution between new and remanufactured products that risk becoming institutionalized. There is a strong need to carefully examine current industrial practice so that research remains focused on relevant problems. Deeper understanding of consumer perceptions of remanufactured products, product diffusion, and valuation of returned products are needed for the field to continue to add insights into developing sustainable economies.

Production and Operations Management

Ambidexterity is of central importance to the competitive advantage of the firm, yet to date there is limited understanding of how it is managed. The theorization of ambidexterity is inadequate for complex, practical realities and, in turn, this hinders the way in which it can aid the management of ambidexterity in practice. This paper asks: What are the mechanisms for achieving ambidexterity? The authors use a systematic review to develop a research framework which integrates intellectual capital resources (organizational, social and human capital) across various levels of analysis (organization, group and individual). This review extends understanding of the generic mechanisms (i.e. temporal, structural and contextual ambidexterity) that dominate the literature. This allows for a more fine-grained understanding of how ambidexterity is achieved and enables avenues for further research to be identified.

/pdf/mechanisms-for-managing-ambidexterity-a-review-and-research-4pyjj7zllh.pdf

Mechanisms for Managing Ambidexterity: A Review and Research Agenda

Research on ambidexterity has been focused primarily at the organisational level. There is little in the literature detailing ambidexterity in more complex forms of organising. While much is written on the ‘what’ of ambidexterity – its enactment has been shown to be beneficial – there is a gap in our understanding of the underlying mechanisms, architectures and dynamics by which organisations can achieve both exploration and exploitation. In this article, we use the lens of intellectual capital to extend current architectural theory. A case study of a project management office in an IT/IS multinational provides the context in which to qualitatively unpack the underpinning intellectual capital architecture, illustrating the interwoven application of human, social and organisational capital in a complicated organisational setting. We reveal the co-existence and mutual interdependence of multiple intellectual capital and process elements, further explaining the ‘how’ of this increasingly important area of study.

Unpacking the theory on ambidexterity: An illustrative case on the managerial architectures, mechanisms and dynamics

https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/files/138088488/IJPM_Ambidexterity_ver2_FINAL.pdf

Ambidexterity in projects: An intellectual capital perspective

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of complexity and its management from an OM perspective, building on and extending the systematic literature review published in this journal in 2011, and provide a foundation for exploring the interactions between complexities and responses.




Design/methodology/approach




The paper takes a subjective view of complexity, focusing on the “lived experience” of managers. It takes an updated systematic literature review, and demonstrates the comprehensiveness of a framework to classify complexities of projects. It reports the findings from 43 workshops with over 1,100 managers.




Findings




First, the complexity framework is effective in aiding understanding. Second, and somewhat unexpectedly, managers were able to identify strategies to reduce the majority of complexities that they faced. Third, the workshops identified a typology of responses to residual complexities.




Research limitations/implications




The framework has demonstrated its utility, and a gap in understanding emergent complexities is identified. The framework further presents the opportunity to explore the recursive nature of complexity and response.




Practical implications




This paper provides a framework that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. The authors demonstrate that complexities can be reduced and provide a means to assess responses to residual complexities, including potentially matching managers to projects.




Originality/value




This work extends the previous systematic review combined with extensive empirical data to generate findings that are having impact in practice, and have the potential to strengthen a relatively neglected area within OM. A research agenda is suggested to support this.

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Understand, reduce, respond: project complexity management theory and practice

The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of supply chain complexity and extend this with literature developed within the project domain The authors use the lens of ambidexterity (the ability both to exploit and explore) to analyse responses to complexity, since this enables the authors to understand the application of known solutions in conjunction with innovative ones to resolve difficulties This research also seeks to investigate how managers respond to supply chain complexities that can either be operationally deleterious or strategically beneficial,The authors develop a descriptive framework based on the project management (PM) literature to understand response options to complexity, and then use interviews with supply chain managers in six organisations to examine the utility of this framework in practice The authors ask the research question “How do managers in supply chains respond to complexities”?,The case study data show first that managers faced with structural, socio-political, or emergent supply chain complexities use a wide range of responses Second, over a third of the instances of complexity coded were actually accommodated, rather than reduced, by the study firms, suggesting that adapting to supply chain complexity in certain instances may be strategically appropriate Third, the lens of ambidexterity allows a more explicit assessment of whether existing PM solutions can be considered or if novel methods are required to address supply chain complexities,The descriptive framework can aid managers in conceptualising and addressing supply chain complexity Through exploiting current knowledge, managers can lessen the impact of complexity while exploring other innovative approaches to solve new problems and challenges that evolve from complexity growth driven by business strategy,This study addresses a gap in the literature through the development of a framework which provides a structure on ways to address supply chain complexity The authors evaluate an existing project complexity concept and demonstrate that it is both applicable and valuable in non-project, ongoing operations The authors then extend it using the lens of ambidexterity, and develop a framework that can support practitioners in analysing and addressing both strategically necessary supply complexities, together with unwanted, negative complexities within the organisation and across the supply chain

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Neil Turner

Papers

Mechanisms for Managing Ambidexterity: A Review and Research Agenda

Unpacking the theory on ambidexterity: An illustrative case on the managerial architectures, mechanisms and dynamics

Ambidexterity in projects: An intellectual capital perspective

Understand, reduce, respond: project complexity management theory and practice

A framework for understanding managerial responses to supply chain complexity