Posted Content•
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.
Citations
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used Tessier and Otley's conceptual development of Simons Levers' control framework to propose an overhead cost allocation in a fashion textile company's design department.
Abstract: This paper discusses how cost affects Management Control System (MCS) choices and effectiveness in creative contexts from a cost and benefit of information approach. We used Tessier and Otley’s (2012) conceptual development of Simons Levers’ control framework to propose an overhead cost allocation in a fashion textile company’s design department. This is a two-step action study. First, we analyse historic new design data using social network analysis software to introduce the concept of innovation maps or family design maps (designs networks). Second, we apply an allocation methodology based on these families’ costs. Several problems regarding an absence of data and the quality of data resulted in that some families were wrong defined, but the cost model was implemented with appropriate data fixing and data recording. This is an illustration of the importance of technical controls, which affect employee perceptions to induce a negative attitude. Typically, diagnostic versus interactive data or rewards versus punishments in terms of the use of controls are more often discussed by scholars that quality of data.
1 citations
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a conceptual model that explains the relationship between top management team behavioral integration in the interaction with the entrepreneurial nature of small firms and the two dimensions of organizational ambidexterity (OA).
Abstract: This study proposes a conceptual model that explains the relationship between top management team (TMT) behavioral integration in the interaction with the entrepreneurial nature of small firms and the two dimensions of organizational ambidexterity (OA). Furthermore, it suggests that each of the two OA dimensions–balance dimension and combined dimension–has a different impact on firm performance. While the combined dimension of OA positively contributes to firm performance, the balance dimension of OA is more likely to have an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance. The present research, therefore, sheds more light on the conceptualization of OA as well as the relationship between OA and its managerial antecedents and organizational consequences.
1 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this article, a holistic and an alternative framework is devised to reach ambidexterity under the pressure of limited resources and complex market conditions, where the authors examine necessity of ambidextrous firms for small firms.
Abstract: The concept of organizational ambidexterity has gained momentum in research on business firms. Ambidexterity signifies a firm’s capacity to perform conflicting activities simultaneously (Lubatkin et al. 2006). Recent research criticizes the early idea that tradeoffs between exploitation and exploration as insurmountable and proposes that ambidextrous firms are capable of engage in underlined processes at simultaneously (Jansen et al. 2009; Lubatkin et al. 2006). Although increasing attention toward the concept of ambidexterity in recent years contribute to the refinement and extension of the concept, a review of the extant literature reveals that important research issues are remained unexplored (Jansen et al. 2009; Lubatkin et al. 2006; Gulati and Puranam, 2009). In fact, research suggests multiple paths to ambidexterity. Theory of ambidexterity proposes dual structure and strategies, differentiating efforts to focus on each exploitation and exploration (Guptha et al. 2006). Contextual ambidexterity incumbent emphasizes behavioral and social means of integrating exploitation and exploration (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004). Moreover, some studies provide evidence for a positive association between organizational ambidexterity and firm performance (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; He and Wong, 2004; Lubatkin et al. 2006) while very recent studies have examined moderate effect of environmental and organizational factors on the relationship between ambidexterity and its antecedents and performance outcome (Jansen et al. 2006; Kyriakopoulos and Moorman, 2004). Informal networks and leadership based have also been investigated as an antecedent of ambidexterity (Gibson and Bikinshaw, 2004; Gulati and Purahan, 2009). In response, this paper examines necessity of ambidexterity for small firms. Specially, a holistic and an alternative framework is devised to reach ambidexterity under the pressure of limited resources and complex market conditions.
1 citations
Cites background from "Structural Differentiation and Ambi..."
...Recent research criticizes the early idea that tradeoffs between exploitation and exploration as insurmountable and proposes that ambidextrous firms are capable of engage in underlined processes at simultaneously (Jansen et al. 2009; Lubatkin et al. 2006)....
[...]
...…increasing attention toward the concept of ambidexterity in recent years contribute to the refinement and extension of the concept, a review of the extant literature reveals that important research issues are remained unexplored (Jansen et al. 2009; Lubatkin et al. 2006; Gulati and Puranam, 2009)....
[...]
...exploitation and exploration as insurmountable and proposes that ambidextrous firms are capable of engage in underlined processes at simultaneously (Jansen et al. 2009; Lubatkin et al. 2006)....
[...]
...Ambidextrous provides better landscape for firms to realization of current profit and productivity issues while addressing the adaptability issues in the changing environment (Jansen et al. 2009)....
[...]
References
More filters
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,…...
[...]
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)....
[...]
...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)....
[...]
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…...
[...]
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)....
[...]
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