Formal integration archetypes in ambidextrous organizations

Abstract

Research suggests that organizational ambidexterity, an organization's capacity to pursue both exploratory and exploitative activities, is critical to firm innovation and performance. Extant research primarily emphasizes several firm-level informal integration mechanisms, such as creating a common vision and relying on social integration, for integrating structurally ambidextrous units. Research has largely ignored, however, the formal mechanisms by which organizations have integrated such units. In this inductive study, using archival and interview data from organizations in Silicon Valley, we address this gap by identifying the formal integration archetypes that enable core business units to collaborate with new venture units to incubate new businesses. The four integration archetypes that enable collaboration vary along two key dimensions: who initiates new ventures and when collaboration is solicited. We identify formal administrative and resource mechanisms that enable such collaboration. We combine the disparate literatures of temporal and spatial separation of ambidextrous structures, and demonstrate how these must be combined at the business unit and new venture levels of analysis to achieve integration. The practical contribution of this study lies in identifying suitable contexts in which each of these archetypes can be utilized by practitioners for reintegrating new venture projects developed in separate structures. Literature reviewThe theoretical tension between integration and separation dominates the literature on organizational ambidexterity (Tushman and Smith, 2002; O'Reilly Rongxin Roger Chen and Rangapriya Priya Kannan-Narasimhan 268 R&D Management 45, 3, 2015

Recombination for innovation: performance outcomes from international partnerships in China

“…Research on organizational ambidexterity (Junni et al, ; Junni et al, ) also provides some insights into these findings. An organization's capacity to pursue both exploratory and exploitative forms of innovation and to vary the balance according to changes in market opportunities and competitor behavior is critical to firm performance and survival (Chen and Kannan‐Narasimhan, ). Our study suggests that mutually exclusive innovation strategies/processes can be successfully reconciled, potentially explaining aspects of our findings.…”

Structural ambidexterity, transition processes, and integration trade‐offs: a longitudinal study of failed exploration

“…To facilitate cross‐fertilization between exploitative and exploratory structures without cross‐contamination (O’Reilly and Tushman, ), following the call for research by Raisch (), Lavie et al (), Gassmann et al (), and O’Reilly and Tushman (), recent research in ambidexterity has focused on the management of the exploration–exploitation interface. Of particular interest are integration mechanisms (or tactics) to loosely couple exploitation and exploration (Jansen et al, ) as well as related transition modes for ultimately reintegrating radical innovations back into the core business (Gassmann et al, ; Chen and Kannan‐Narasimhan, ).…”

Structural Ambidexterity: Exploring Alternative Pro-Ambidexterity Conducive Structural Designs for Recourse-Constrained Organizations

“…Consequently, the role of senior management is crucial to deal with integration challenges of exploration and exploitation and devise strategic measures for reconciling them at the organizational level (Burgers, Jansen, Van den Bosch, Volberda, 2008, Fourné, et al, 2019Jansen et al 2009;Mom, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2009). In other words, the integrative mechanisms required in pursuing structural ambidexterity to large extent a leadership issue than mere separation of units (Chen & Kannan-Narasimhan, 2015;Gassmann, Widenmayer & Zeschky, 2012;Hansen;Wicki & Schaltegger, 2018;Heracleous, Papachroni, Andriopoulos & Gotsi, 2017;Jansen, George, Van den Bosch & Volberda, 2008;Nemanich & Vera, 2009;O'Reilly & Tushman, 2011;Smith & Tushman, 2005). So far, pertaining to dual structure or structural differentiation's effect on organizational ambidexterity yield mixed results with positive (e.g.…”

“…Further, it has been argued that structural separation or differentiation approach can lead to the disjunction of different units, a failure to manoeuver efforts carried out by the units, and inability to take advantage of potential synergies of different units (Agostini et al, 2016;Asif, 2017). Further, structural differentiation can cause self-centered behaviors, where managers of different units may perceive direct competition with other units run for scarce resources (Asif, 2017;Chen & Kannan-Narasimhan, 2015;Gassmann et al, 2012). To mitigate such challenges, it has been suggested that behavioral integration in teams could be productive to reconcile conflicting expectations of different units that can translate antagonistic demands into a workable strategy (Fourné et al, 2019;Jansen et al, 2009).…”

“…Having said that structural separation is considered a key pathway to organizational ambidexterity, such approach can be less productive or even counterproductive for resourceconstrained organizations (e.g., Burgers & Covin, 2016;Fourné et al, 2019;Gatignon & Xuereb, 1997;Gupta et al, 2006;Hill & Birkinshaw, 2014;Lubatkin et al, 2006;Martin et al, 2019;Patel et al, 2013). For instance, numerous scholars (Chen & Kannan-Narasimhan, 2015;Gassmann et al, 2012;Gatignon & Xuereb,1997;Gupta et al,2006;Raisch & Tushman, 2016) argued that large firms having greater resource availability, are able to proceed for structural ambidexterity by creating subsets of their operations and staff, giving them due support to carry out either exploration or exploitation in more clearly defined boundaries within their respective units. Lubatkin et al, (2006) also supported this notion of structural separation appropriateness for larger organizations in perusing the OA.…”