Moving to ambidextrous organization: A systematic literature review

Abstract

The existing studies support the positive impact of organizational ambidexterity on a firm’s performance and its ability to succeed in the dynamic environments resulted from the COVID-19 pandemics or contexts characterized by a variety of rising tensions. In business organizations, ambidexterity manifests itself in maintaining a balance between exploration and exploitation strategies. Achieving ambidexterity is a challenging managerial task. The purpose of this paper is to identify behaviours of firms to increase their ability to develop and maintain ambidexterity as well as specify organizational systems and processes that induce and balance both exploitation and exploration. The authors develop an integrative framework that provides a comprehensive understanding of the path towards ambidexterity in organizations. This review reveals the fact that with the purpose to meet the conflicting demands of the ambidexterity agenda, managers should adapt the organizational culture, strategic goals and structure in order to implement two incompatible innovation strategies. The study identifies three closely related ambidexterity support systems and their underlying mechanisms, procedures, and leadership styles. Also, the main gaps in the literature and relevant directions for further empirical research are outlined. Keywords: ambidexterity, balance, exploration, exploitation.