Top Management and Organizational Ambidexterity Paradox: A Qualitative Research on Dynamic Managerial Capabilities

Abstract

Organizational ambidexterity refers to a firm’s ability to balance both exploitation and exploration activities. While explaining the equilibrium between exploitation and exploration activities in organizational ambidexterity studies, ambidexterity is usually considered as a skill or capacity and many researchers refer it to the framework of dynamic capabilities. Previous studies have extensively researched the outcomes of ambidexterity, instead in this study the antecedents or origins of organizational ambidexterity have been investigated using an inductive grounded theory method. İt is aimed to shed light on the vital role top managers have in developing an ambidextrous orientation of the firm. The participants of the study have been selected through purposive sampling, and data has been collected through one-to-one in-depth interviews the researcher conducted with individual senior manager participants of the study. The collected data was analyzed through an inductive content analysis approach of conceptualization and theory generation, through an iterative cyclic coding process. The findings of this study confirm the initial assumptions that it is senior managers who shape the ability of a firm to sense and capture opportunities for organizational ambidexterity and shape its ability to compete in dynamic markets by combining, integrating and reorganizing exploitative and exploratory resources and activities. The data analysis process managed to visualize or map emergent clusters of themes that relate to the research purpose of this study. From the inductive data-driven coding process, a framework of 5 main top-level themes as follows has been constructed; “Idiosyncratic Capabilities”, “Interpersonal Connectedness Capabilities”, “Organizational Capabilities”, “Market Dynamism”, and “Ambidexterity Activities”. This research concludes that strategic contradictions between exploitation and exploration could be resolved by senior managers who act as engines for organizational ambidexterity orientation. Furthermore, implications of the study are discussed, and limitations and directions for future research are outlined.