THE ANTECEDENTS, CONSEQUENCES, AND MEDIATING ROLE OF ORGANIZATIONAL AMBIDEXTERITY.

Abstract

We investigated contextual organizational ambidexterity, defined as the capacity to simultaneously achieve alignment and adaptability at a business-unit level. Building on the leadership and organization context literatures, we argue that a context char-acterized by a combination of stretch, discipline, support, and trust facilitates contex-tual ambidexterity. Further, ambidexterity mediates the relationship between these contextual features and performance. Data collected from 4,195 individuals in 41 business units supported our hypotheses. A recurring theme in a variety of organizational literatures is that successful organizations in a dy-namic environment are ambidextrous—aligned and efficient in their management of today’s busi-ness demands, while also adaptive enough to changes in the environment that they will still be around tomorrow (Duncan, 1976; Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). The simple idea behind the value of ambidexterity is that the demands on an organi-zation in its task environment are always to some degree in conflict (for instance, investment in cur-rent versus future projects, differentiation versus low-cost production), so there are always trade-offs to be made. Although these trade-offs can never entirely be eliminated, the most successful organi-zations reconcile them to a large degree, and in so doing enhance their long-term competitiveness. Authors have typically viewed ambidexterity in structural terms. According to Duncan (1976), who first used the term, organizations manage trade-offs between conflicting demands by putting in place “dual structures, ” so that certain business units—or groups within business units—focus on alignment, while others focus on adaptation (Duncan, 1976). We refer to this as structural ambidexterity.1 In-creasingly, however, organizational scholars have recognized the importance of simultaneously bal-ancing seemingly contradictory tensions and have begun to shift their focus from trade-off (either/or) to paradoxical (both/and) thinking (Bouchikhi,