Small information technology and management consulting businesses face increasingly contradictory strategic choices as they develop products and services for the marketplace. Building contextual ambidexterity is essential to the survival of small businesses as they seek to attain a desired balance of alignment and adaptability. Human Resource Management practices facilitate the development of ambidexterity within individuals thereby facilitating ambidexterity of the organization as a whole. Studies suggest that in order for an organization to be ambidextrous, its human resource management function also needs to ambidextrous. High-performance work systems are human resource practices designed to enhance the ability, motivation, and opportunity of employees with the overarching goal of attracting, retaining, and motivating human resources toward the completion of organizational goals. Based on Gibson and Birkinshaw’s concept of organizational ambidexterity, a qualitative case study of a small technology solution provider was conducted to explore the process by which CloudCo attempted to build contextual ambidexterity by implementing a high-performance work system. Findings show that executive management of small technology solution providers can build contextual ambidexterity and sustain a competitive advantage through the implementation of high-performance work systems but must overcome a series of important tensions to do so.

To align firm strategy with the changing environment has always been a challenge for executives. The business literature consists of different perspectives on how to solve the problem and whether to resist change, adapt or do both at the same time. Each got their own implications, inertia could lead to rigidness, adaptability might negatively influence reliability and ambidexterity is seen as a combination of both. The core is exploiting present capabilities meanwhile exploring future opportunities. To study these notions we have conducted a cross-sectional study including four Swedish service-firms which operates in either a stable or dynamic environment. Executives were interviewed and asked to elaborate on their strategies. By doing this we were able to construct a model who suggests when to adapt, when to resist change depending on environmental stability. We also observed that capital- and knowledge-intensity has been somewhat neglected in previous research and could be studied further.

This dissertation explains the existence, sources, and variability of intra-organizational conflict in a hybrid organization. It assesses the usefulness of "structural" and "cultural" explanations of conflict and ultimately advances an alternative explanation for the presence of and variability in conflict in a hybrid organization. Homeowners' associations are used as a case for understanding the development of multiple institutional logics and the relationship between institutional pluralism and complexity and the presence of and variability in conflict in a hybrid organization. Drawing from quantitative and qualitative research conducted on homeowners' associations in the Greater-Boston area, including 250 surveys and 56 in-depth interviews with board members of homeowners' associations, I show how the American history and ideology of homeownership has generated two multiple, permanent, and functionally contradictory institutional logics--one based on the market and the other based on the community--in homeowners' associations. Using institutional theory and the concepts of institutional work and ambidexterity, I argue that organizational actor's responses to the presence of institutional pluralism and complexity, as evidenced in their perceptions and practices, determine whether a hybrid organization is subject to more or less conflict. My findings lead to three general conclusions. First, many homeowners' associations experience significant conflict. Second, structural and cultural explanations of conflict only partially explain the presence of conflict in homeowners' associations. They do not explain the variability of conflict in homeowners' associations. Third, and most significantly, the micro-actions of organizational actors matter in situations of institutional pluralism and complexity. I propose that organizational actors' responses to institutional pluralism and complexity explain variability in conflict; organizational actors either "don't do" or "do" logics. Organizational actors who "don't do" logics respond to institutional pluralism and complexity by eliminating and compartmentalizing logics. They perceive multiplicity as novel and problematic and enact disruptive practices to contest and separate logics. This results in more conflict. Organizational actors who "do" logics respond to institutional pluralism and complexity ambidextrously. They perceive multiplicity as routine, and even beneficial, and enact practices to maintain multiple institutional logics via context-specific and purposeful practices including adjustment, improvisation, and switching. This results in less conflict.

Organizational subunits such as marketing, sales, human resources, and customer service invest in software as a service (SaaS) as a means to reduce information technology costs, speed time to market, gain access to new technologies, and improve application support and maintenance. For these reasons, SaaS has been characterized as a form of outsourcing, and one in which the internal IT function is losing relevancy because contracts are being executed between external application service providers and the affected subunits directly without IT oversight. Here we argue that SaaS is not outsourcing as it has been traditionally envisioned and enacted, and that through the generation of four types of functional slack it has demonstrated the ability to result in higher levels of IT innovation in support of a digital business strategy. A redistribution of IT resources from efficiency to innovation as a result of SaaS adoption was found that prescribed movement toward an equilibrium of ambidexterity between exploitative and exploratory activities. This research has established a number of firsts: 1) explored the production and combination of multidimensional slack, concentrated at a functional level; 2) demonstrated a previously disconfirmed positive relationship between IT outsourcing and innovation; 3) confirmed the feasibility of a theorized positive relationship between outsourcing and ambidexterity, and 4) discovered a new pathway within the realm of digital business strategy between a key external trend and an internal organizational shift of roles, responsibilities, and knowledge patterns. Further, our findings suggest that IT ambidexterity may be a better construct for investigating the impact of IT on firm performance than traditional measures of IT performance.

This thesis explores how organisations manage new product development (NPD) focused innovation across a portfolio of core, adjacent and breakthrough environments. The study focuses on the search and select phases of the innovation process, and how incumbents identify and validate a range of opportunities. Organisations face the paradox of how to establish search and select routines for focal markets, while also setting up routines to sense and respond to disruptive innovation signals from adjacent and more peripheral environments. The study builds on research into peripheral vision, and considers how organisations operationalise innovation search and select in disrupting environments. To analyse how organisations manage search and select in turbulent environments, the author conducted research in the disrupting higher education (HE) publishing industry using qualitative research methods. The study focused on ten case companies, and the researcher conducted 61 interviews with 63 individuals over a six month period across ten companies publishing 9,000 out of the world’s 32,000 academic journals. The interviewees ranged from CEOs and CTOs to production, operations, editorial, publishing, sales and marketing directors and managers. The analysis revealed 11 search and select capabilities that need to be in place to manage NPD effectively in HE publishing. The research identified five contextual factors that influence how search and select is operationalised in disrupting environments. A framework is proposed to enable the mapping of individual opportunities within a wider NPD portfolio. The project identified ten key market insight areas where firms in the HE publishing sector need to focus. The findings have implications for practice, especially for HE publishers, online media companies, and business to business service organisations. Further research is proposed into how the cognitive frames of boards and senior teams affect the structure and operationalisation of NPD portfolios; how visual media companies search for, develop (ideate) and select programme and film projects in the disrupting media sector; and how workflow mapping and the identification of jobs-to-be-done is deployed within the NPD process in different settings.

South Africa’s manufacturing performance relative to its’ peers and other local sectors has been in decline in the wake of globalisation and global value chains and reduced competitive advantage. Firms are central actors in the competitive advantage of competing value chains. In order to achieve and sustain competitive advantage firms, and especially manufacturing firms, have to continuously explore new market possibilities while at the same time leveraging existing competencies in an exploitative fashion. When firms pursue explore and exploit in combination the firms can be described as being ambidextrous organisations. When it is left up to individual employees of these firms to contribute to ambidexterity by deciding when to explore and when to exploit, and they are able to do this in combination, the individuals achieve what is termed individual ambidexterity. Although it is known that individual ambidexterity contributes to organisational ambidexterity, very little is known about the manner in which individuals achieve individual ambidexterity and what the outcomes of individual ambidexterity are. The current research project sought to gain a deep understanding of individual product designers’ lived experience of achieving ambidextrous outcomes in the normal course of their work in the earthmoving machinery manufacturing sector. A qualitative, exploratory research design was adopted and thirteen semi-structured interviews conducted with individual product designers. The interviews were analysed through thematic analysis to yield rich findings as reported here-in. Key findings reported relate to the key role managers and the individual’s own knowledge play in achieving individual ambidexterity, while the reported negative outcomes of individual ambidexterity are a key contribution to individual ambidexterity literature. As part of the analysis process a model was devised that allows for the identification of potential virtuous and vicious cycles of individual ambidexterity. Implications for stakeholders and the contribution to literature are also addressed. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Ambidextrous organizations are more successful as they manage to balance exploitative and explorative innovation. Organizations performance depend on the people both within the respective firm and externally, how the firm’s offerings are received. In order to stay relevant and competitive in a continuously changing environment the need for ambidextrous behavior becomes constant. The ability to handle, or at best anticipate, upcoming opportunities or set- backs to co-ordinate and combine exploitative and explorative innovations is a competitive advantage. As leadership drives performance – this puts both focus and expectations on leaders. The aim of this study was to explore ambidextrous leadership from a holistic view and more specifically; what triggers ambidextrous needs, how can ambidexterity be enabled and cultivated. Literature on ambidexterity comes in various approaches, where studies holding a holistic approach are few. Bridging the theories on ambidextrous needs with those on leadership and contrasting them to findings from this qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews. The conclusions indicated both theoretical evidence but also contradictory findings. The need for ambidexterity is unison, however, where literature focus on the paradoxical tension of managing both exploitative and explorative innovation, this is not an option for the leaders. Change is their reality having to be handled holistically. Predominantly digitalisation, globalisation and pace of change require firms’ ambidextrous initiatives in a perpetual cyclical movement through the dimensions of drive, lead and learn. Furthermore, there are additional parameters emerging as key for facilitating ambidexterity: as the impact of culture, communication and external monitoring alertness are highlighted.

Research in the international management literature has traditionally studied internationalization processes from an exploitation perspective. This exploitation-focused argument demonstrates an incremental process of international expansion with the internationalization of mature multinational corporations (MNCs). However, the situation is different for international new ventures, which may not have sufficient resources and economies of scale in their domestic countries before starting operations in other countries. After initial internationalization at a young age, international new ventures might choose to go to similar foreign markets to leverage and exploit existing knowledge for growth or they might continue experimenting with less related foreign markets. In this study, I propose that international new ventures benefit from using an ambidextrous strategy for long-term performance employing both exploitation and exploration. I use both traditional international management literature and international entrepreneur studies to develop the concept of international ambidexterity. I argue that new ventures are able to develop such a capability, defined as the capability to successfully balance international exploitation and exploration activities. This capability is founded on new ventures' initial activities but needs to be further developed and refined through international operations with both incremental and radical approaches. I also propose that the relationship between international ambidexterity and new venture growth is positively moderated by these firms' subsequent activities to explore technological knowledge. In order to theoretically develop and empirically test the concept of the international ambidexterity, I introduce arguments that support certain antecedents to developing this capability. Results from my analyses show that the benefits associated with international exploration through early internationalization are realized when a firm continues further commitment to exploitation capabilities so they can accomplish ambidexterity learning from narrower scope of international expansion. Additionally, domestic alliances and foreign alliances show significant relationships with new venture's international exploration. Therefore, inter-organizational learning can link to the social capital and network perspectives in international entrepreneurship research; mimetic learning can help investigating the social aspects of international entrepreneurship studies. Further, new ventures should be encouraged to build inter-organizational networks, domestically and internationally to pursue their growth. / Ph. D.

In today’s dynamic corporate environment where firms struggle to maintain a competitive advantage, ambidextrous firms focusing on both exploration and exploitation are more likely to survive and prosper in the long run. Scholars have identified and examined a number of antecedents of organizational ambidexterity, but extant studies have not fully explored the role of a firm’s absorptive capacity in developing its organizational ambidexterity. The relevance of the absorptive capacity concept is paramount since new sources of competitive advantage would very likely come from outside the organizations. In this research, I explore the relationship between a firm’s absorptive capacity and organizational ambidexterity by focusing on two levels of absorptive capacity and three dimensions of organizational ambidexterity. Using a survey of 5,600 companies performed by the Government of Chile in 2015, and then a subsample of panel data that includes 760 companies for the 2009-2014 period, I find that both strategic and operational absorptive capacity contribute to the incremental exploitation dimension of organizational ambidexterity. My study contributes to our understanding of the absorptive capacity construct and illuminates how it affects organizational ambidexterity. The study also provides managerial implications as to what kind of external knowledge to procure and how to leverage it based on the firm’s ambidexterity goals. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Research studies on innovation tend to focus more on Process and Product Innovations (PPIs), while both Organisational and Marketing Innovations (OMIs) have been under-researched. The lack of prior research on these non-technological innovations has been attributed to poor data availability. Theoretical opinions show that OMIs could be necessary prerequisites needed to optimally utilise and deploy these PPIs. Organisational Ambidexterity (OA) has emerged to be crucial in achieving long-term organisational success. Ambidexterity in an organisational context refers to the ability to concurrently exploit current competitive advantage and explore new opportunities with equal dexterity. For firms to remain competitive and adaptive to continuous change in the business environment, OA has been noted as a necessary attribute, but research on ambidexterity at the individual level of analysis is limited. There is a lack of understanding of how individual ambidexterity at the lower-levels of the organisation affects the overall ambidexterity of the organisation. This research explores organisational context antecedents of OMIs capabilities; Organisational and Employee Ambidexterity, and identifies how individual employees in Small and Medium-sized Manufacturing and Service Organisations could contribute to the capability of their organisation to concurrently exploit present market opportunities and explore new opportunities, towards sustaining their competitive advantage. This study involves a two-phase sequential mixed methods design beginning with a qualitative exploratory research involving 15 in-depth Nigerian-based interviews. The first phase facilitated preliminary assessment of organisational context, measured by the Cameron and Quinn's Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument. This phase also aided the understanding of factors that promote OMIs capabilities and the development of themes used to design the survey instrument for the second phase. The second phase involved a quantitative study of 398 shop-floor and 202 managerial staff from Small and Medium-sized Nigerian Manufacturing and Service Organisations. This phase was characterised by descriptive and inferential statistics through Structural Equation Modelling. This aided identifying the organisational context that promotes Employee Ambidexterity (EA) and the relationships between EA; OA; and OMIs' capabilities. vi Drawing upon information-rich evidence, this study identified enablers that could promote EA; OA; OMIs; effective innovations; and sustainable organisational growth. Statistical evidence from the research findings shows that Organic Structure and Knowledge Sharing, plus a Flexible and Family-like Organisational Culture: 1. enhances Employee Ambidexterity and Level of Engagement; 2. improves employees' contributions to OA, OMIs and SMEs' growth; 3. optimises the internal capabilities of SMEs in order to promote their sustainable growth; 4. enables SMEs to search for new market opportunities and strengthen current market positions concurrently; and 5. promotes viable Manufacturing and Service SMEs that are needed to offset the prevalent public sector job losses. A framework that relates: Individual and Organisational Ambidexterity; Organisational and Marketing Innovations capabilities; and Organisational Performance, has been identified in this study. While Marketing Innovation capability and Exploitative Orientation of Ambidexterity target the short term organisational benefits, Organisational Innovation capability and Explorative Orientation of Ambidexterity address the long term competitive advantage of the organisations. Besides advancing literature on the study of Organisational Ambidexterity by combining the individual level of analysis with the organisational level of analysis, this study identifies frameworks that promote effective innovation and sustainable organisational performance through shop floor employees' contributions to Organisational Ambidexterity and OMIs in SMEs. Outcomes of this research have been eye-openers for the case organisations on how to optimally utilise their resources (people, materials, knowledge, technology and other assets) to achieve sustainable growth and long term success.