Speaker: Prof. Justin Jansen (Erasmus University Rotterdam)

Date: Monday, September 24, 2018

Time: 15.30

Location: room 5419-0009 (Kapteynborg)

Title: 

Organizing for Ambidexterity: Dynamically Balancing Exploration and Exploitation over time 

(Justin J.P. Jansen, Costas Andriopoulos, Michael L. Tushman)

Abstract:

Despite growing interest in organizational ambidexterity, studies providing a longitudinal perspective on how organizations balance exploration and exploitation over time are lacking. In our inductive case study of two new product design firms, over eight years, we find that organizations dynamically balance exploration and exploitation to respond to emergent opportunities and threats. Senior leaders use purposeful iterations to mitigate self-reinforcing tendencies, to unlearn behaviors and to ensure a balanced attention to exploration and exploitation. As such, they are able to take deliberate actions to steer and prioritize exploration over exploitation or vice versa when internal or external contingencies demand. Our emergent theoretical framework about the dynamic and multifaceted nature of ambidexterity has implications for our understanding about how firms may successfully respond to paradoxical demands over time.