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Structural Differentiation and Ambidexterity: The Mediating Role of Integration Mechanisms
05 Nov 2008-ERIM report series research in management Erasmus Research Institute of Management (Erasmus Research Institute of Management)-
TL;DR: The findings suggest that the previously asserted direct effect of structural differentiation on ambidexterity operates through informal senior team and formal organizational integration mechanisms, and contributes to a greater clarity and better understanding of how organizations may effectively pursue exploration and exploitation simultaneously to achieve ambideXterity.
Abstract: 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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TL;DR: The authors examined the underlying mechanisms through which Yin-Yang cognition, an Eastern philosophy of paradoxical cognition, affects firm ambidexterity and identified strategic flexibility as a mediator.
Abstract: This study examines the underlying mechanisms through which Yin-Yang cognition, an Eastern philosophy of paradoxical cognition, affects firm ambidexterity. Based on strategic cognition theory, this research identifies strategic flexibility as a mediator. Moreover, we also identify three fundamental characteristics of Yin-Yang cognition based on an Eastern philosophy. Using a sample of 206 manufacturing firms in China to test our model, we find that two types of strategic flexibility (resource flexibility and coordination flexibility) are important channels through which Yin-Yang cognition influences organizational ambidexterity. We describe how these findings offer several theoretical and managerial implications.
7 citations
TL;DR: This paper introduces and makes available to the research community an agent-based model and decision support system that captures many of the key aspects and tradeoffs of the exploration–exploitation dilemma faced by firms in the new product development process, with a focus on organizations’ product investment decisions.
Abstract: Organizational ambidexterity, defined as the pursuit of both exploitation and exploration, has become an important topic in the study of organizations, especially in innovation management theory. Previous literature has not focused on the strategic (game-theoretic) aspects of organizational ambidexterity or on its decision-making aspects. Little is known about how or even whether the decision to adopt ambidexterity is competitively advantageous in the presence of diverse strategies that competitors may adopt. This facet of the subject is inherently game-theoretic; the value of a decision by one firm depends in part on decisions made by other firms. This paper initiates systematic investigation of these strategic aspects, including the overall performance of available strategies. Specifically, this study examines questions of ambidexterity-related strategy performance in the context of new product development. The main contributions are (1) to introduce and make available to the research community an agent-based model and decision support system that captures many of the key aspects and tradeoffs, which have been identified in the literature, of the exploration---exploitation dilemma faced by firms in the new product development process, with a focus on organizations' product investment decisions and (2) to report on results obtained from the model, calibrated with available data from the literature, augmented by new data collected from interviews with practitioners.
7 citations
TL;DR: A conceptual model is presented to investigate the effects of intangible assets and organizational capabilities on business-IT strategic alignment and concludes that a combination of social-network characteristics and organizational capability in order to generate strategic business- IT alignment is new.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a paradigm of organizational ambidexterity, which gradually integrates various angles and valences into partial solutions and eventually comes up with a complex construct incorporating different levels of organizational ambiguity and multiple patterns of ambidextrous behavior.
Abstract: Abstract Complexity is rapidly and inexorably leading the global economy towards new configurations and new dynamics; within this (ever fluid and unstable) framework, the strategic dualities that govern organizations and shape their strategic choices are not only multiplying but also interacting and generating unprecedented challenges: new pairs of (apparent) paradoxes occur, sophisticated interdependencies take place amongst them, and therefore new approaches in search for strategic solutions are imperatively asked. Against this background, the main goal of the paper is to suggest a paradigm of organizational ambidexterity – which gradually integrates various angles and valences into partial solutions and eventually comes up with a complex construct incorporating different levels of organizational ambidexterity and multiple patterns of ambidextrous behavior – able to (dynamically) position organizations on the coordinates of the complex global economy, while providing them with the essential tools needed to achieve strategic competitiveness. Thus, by addressing a major organizational challenge (strategic competitiveness) through the lens of complexity (seen both as defining feature of nowadays and science that provides the instruments to deal with it) and advocating for the solution of ambidexterity, the paper will enrich the theory of strategic management and will offer businesses an alternative to their strategic approaches.
7 citations
Cites background from "Structural Differentiation and Ambi..."
...…multiple levels of analysis and uncover how unit-level and firm-level or firm-level and interfirm-level characteristics contribute to achieving ambidexterity” (Jansen et al., 2009) – on the other hand; not least, “another promising domain for ambidexterity research is to move from the firm (or…...
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...) to the micro – a single organizational process, project, or phase (new product development, for example) – would enable study of the solutions firms find to resolve specific tensions” (Nosella, Cantarello, & Filippini, 2012) – on one hand, “future research may capture multiple levels of analysis and uncover how unit-level and firm-level or firm-level and interfirm-level characteristics contribute to achieving ambidexterity” (Jansen et al., 2009) – on the other hand; not least, “another promising domain for ambidexterity research is to move from the firm (or corporation) as unit of analysis to the firm’s larger ecosystem” (O'Reilly, & Tushman, 2013); The need for dynamic approaches and longitudinal studies, which “may allow...
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Proceedings Article•
01 Jan 2012TL;DR: In this study, the ways digital components increasingly challenge preexisting work practices in traditional product development are concerned.
Abstract: In this study we are concerned with the ways digital components increasingly challenge preexisting work practices in traditional product development. By drawing on an in depth case study of an auto ...
7 citations
Cites background from "Structural Differentiation and Ambi..."
...As a consequence, they continued to follow the traditional product innovation paths, focusing on early capture of requirements while exploiting internal industry and design competence (Andriopoulos and Lewis 2009; Jansen et al. 2009)....
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References
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TL;DR: This article seeks to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ, and delineates the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena.
Abstract: In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators.
80,095 citations
"Structural Differentiation and Ambi..." refers background in this paper
...A four-item scale ( = 0 70) measures firmlevel exploitative innovation (Jansen et al. 2006) and captures the extent to which organizations build on existing knowledge and pursue incremental innovations that meet the needs of existing customers (Abernathy and Clark 1985, Benner and Tushman 2003,…...
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the link between firm resources and sustained competitive advantage and analyzed the potential of several firm resources for generating sustained competitive advantages, including value, rareness, imitability, and substitutability.
46,648 citations
"Structural Differentiation and Ambi..." refers background in this paper
...provides organizations with competitive advantages over time (Barney 1991)....
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...Our study broadens the conceptual interpretation of organizational ambidexterity and suggests that it is difficult to achieve yet rare and not easily imitated, and 797 provides organizations with competitive advantages over time (Barney 1991)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities.
Abstract: In this paper, we argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities. We label this capability a firm's absorptive capacity and suggest that it is largely a function of the firm's level of prior related knowledge. The discussion focuses first on the cognitive basis for an individual's absorptive capacity including, in particular, prior related knowledge and diversity of background. We then characterize the factors that influence absorptive capacity at the organizational level, how an organization's absorptive capacity differs from that of its individual members, and the role of diversity of expertise within an organization. We argue that the development of absorptive capacity, and, in turn, innovative performance are history- or path-dependent and argue how lack of investment in an area of expertise early on may foreclose the future development of a technical capability in that area. We formulate a model of firm investment in research and development (R&D), in which R&D contributes to a firm's absorptive capacity, and test predictions relating a firm's investment in R&D to the knowledge underlying technical change within an industry. Discussion focuses on the implications of absorptive capacity for the analysis of other related innovative activities, including basic research, the adoption and diffusion of innovations, and decisions to participate in cooperative R&D ventures. **
31,623 citations
"Structural Differentiation and Ambi..." refers background in this paper
...Organizational integration mechanisms not only facilitate new value creation through linking previously unconnected knowledge sources (Cohen and Levinthal 1990), but also through providing opportunities to leverage common resources and obtaining synergies across exploratory and exploitative units…...
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TL;DR: The dynamic capabilities framework as mentioned in this paper analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change, and suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technology change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm.
Abstract: The dynamic capabilities framework analyzes the sources and methods of wealth creation and capture by private enterprise firms operating in environments of rapid technological change. The competitive advantage of firms is seen as resting on distinctive processes (ways of coordinating and combining), shaped by the firm's (specific) asset positions (such as the firm's portfolio of difftcult-to- trade knowledge assets and complementary assets), and the evolution path(s) it has aflopted or inherited. The importance of path dependencies is amplified where conditions of increasing retums exist. Whether and how a firm's competitive advantage is eroded depends on the stability of market demand, and the ease of replicability (expanding intemally) and imitatability (replication by competitors). If correct, the framework suggests that private wealth creation in regimes of rapid technological change depends in large measure on honing intemal technological, organizational, and managerial processes inside the firm. In short, identifying new opportunities and organizing effectively and efficiently to embrace them are generally more fundamental to private wealth creation than is strategizing, if by strategizing one means engaging in business conduct that keeps competitors off balance, raises rival's costs, and excludes new entrants. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
27,902 citations
"Structural Differentiation and Ambi..." refers background in this paper
...…capabilities, which are embedded in the distinct ways that organizations integrate, build, and recombine competences flexibly across boundaries, are fundamental to long-term strategic advantage (Eisenhardt and Martin 2000, Henderson and Cockburn 1994, Kogut and Zander 1992, Teece et al. 1997)....
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TL;DR: In this article, structural equation models with latent variables are defined, critiqued, and illustrated, and an overall program for model evaluation is proposed based upon an interpretation of converging and diverging evidence.
Abstract: Criteria for evaluating structural equation models with latent variables are defined, critiqued, and illustrated. An overall program for model evaluation is proposed based upon an interpretation of converging and diverging evidence. Model assessment is considered to be a complex process mixing statistical criteria with philosophical, historical, and theoretical elements. Inevitably the process entails some attempt at a reconcilation between so-called objective and subjective norms.
19,160 citations