Dynamic ambidexterity: How innovators manage exploration and exploitation

Yan Chen

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

61 Scopus citations

Abstract

Firms must excel at both exploration and exploitation to ensure long-term survival and prosperity. However, firms often have difficulties in doing so because they have to accommodate the contradictory logics of exploration and exploitation. This article examines the logics of exploration and exploitation, evaluates the difficulties of accommodating both logics, and identifies dynamic ambidexterity as a new way to overcome these difficulties. To achieve dynamic ambidexterity, firms need to support structural ambidexterity at the corporate level, contextual ambidexterity at the business-unit level, and sequential ambidexterity at the project level. I believe that the notion of dynamic ambidexterity and its managerial practices can help firms manage exploration and exploitation and ensure long-term survival and prosperity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)385-394
Number of pages10
JournalBusiness Horizons
Volume60
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2017

Keywords

  • Exploration and exploitation
  • Innovation culture
  • Market orientation
  • Organizational ambidexterity
  • Strategic management

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