Toward A Dynamic View of Organizational Ambidexterity: Promoting a Sense of Balance and Contingency Toward A Dynamic View of Organizational Ambidexterity: Promoting a Sense of Balance and Contingency

A substantial body of work has examined how exploitative and exploratory learning processes need to be balanced within an organization in order to increase innovation, productivity, and firm performance. Since exploration and exploitation require different resources, structures, and processes, several approaches to balancing these activities have been suggested; one of which is simultaneous implementation which is termed ambidexterity. In this paper, we adjust the lens and suggest that equally crucial issues to resolve are (a) defining ‘balance’ and (b) determining criteria for assessing ‘appropriate.’ We argue that balance does not necessarily require identical proportions of exploration and exploitation and propose different mixes of these two processes leading to different ambidexterity configurations. Three specific ambidexterity configurations are examined in terms of their distinct contributions to strategic objectives. In addition we argue that several contingency factors (organizational and environmental) influence the relation between particular ambidexterity configurations and performance. Therefore an ambidexterity configurations need to change and evolve to achieve optimum performance over time. We contribute to emerging research in contingency theory, organizational learning, and strategic management.