Content uploaded by Sabyasachi Sinha
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Sabyasachi Sinha on Sep 16, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
The emergent-strategy
process of initiating
organizational ambidexterity
Sabyasachi Sinha
Strategic Management Area, Indian Institute of Management Lucknow,
Lucknow, India
Abstract
Purpose –Firm ambidexterity usually has been discussed as a top-down planned strategic choice. The
purpose of this paper is to showcase it is not always so; it may also be emergent as well –but how?
Design/methodology/approach –The author used an in-depth, qualitative, multiple case research method
for this study, and chose four cases from different industry domains for this study.
Findings –The author identified that being ambidextrous is not always planned –it may also be emergent.
The emergent-strategy process of organizational ambidexterity gets initiated through ambidextrous
orientation and abilities of the top management team (TMT), and their actions and behaviors influence the
evolution of supporting context that promotes exploration and exploitation behavior of employees at multiple
levels of hierarchy, and across different units and functions of the organization.
Research limitations/implications –This study contributes to the discussions in organizational
ambidexterity, deliberate-emergent strategy debate and the role of TMTs in setting the strategic path of
the organization.
Practical implications –Attaining and sustaining firm ambidexterity is a managerial challenge. This
challenge is addressable, by having ambidextrous TMTs –team members with complementary competencies
of exploration and exploitation, with proper coordination within team members, and relatively balanced
power sharing among the team members. Such a team at the top of the organization and their signaling builds
the context to support increased exploration and exploitation activities at multiple levels of the organization.
Originality/value –This study showcases the emergent process of firm ambidexterity. Very few studies so
far have discussed this process of becoming ambidextrous.
Keywords Exploration-exploitation, Organizational ambidexterity, Top management teams,
Contextual ambidexterity, Emergent strategy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Organizations operating in uncertain external conditions need to pursue competing
objectives of efficiency and innovation –simultaneously. Senior and the middle
management often struggle to seek these paradoxical, but essential goals. The theory of
organizational ambidexterity addresses this phenomenon. There are multiple ways how
firms deal with this dilemma –temporal or structural separation of the two activities, and by
creating a conducive context within the organization that facilitates and promotes the
micro-level balancing of the two contrary activities (Birkinshaw and Gupta, 2013;
Zimmermann et al., 2015). Contextual solutions of organizational ambidexterity are less
costlier than structural solutions of organizational ambidexterity (Birkinshaw and Gibson,
2004). The extant literature on organizational ambidexterity has majorly assumed
ambidextrous orientation to be operating primarily as a deliberate top-down strategy choice
(Zimmermann et al., 2015). However, not all strategy choices are deliberate; they may be
emergent as well (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985). Some firms –IBM, Ciba Vision, USA Today
and Zensar –have achieved success by balancing exploration and exploitation; many others
have not been able to either initiate or implement this strategy (O’Reilly and Tushman,
2011). An understanding of organizational ambidexterity as an emergent-strategy process is
missing in the extant literature. We address this research gap in this paper. Due to
shortened technology, product and market lifecycles, there is a greater need for firms to
Journal of Strategy and
Management
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1755-425X
DOI 10.1108/JSMA-12-2018-0140
Received 9 December 2018
Revised 28 February 2019
23 April 2019
Accepted 24 April 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1755-425X.htm
Emergent-
strategy
process
become ambidextrous. So, an understanding of the phenomenon using new lenses is useful.
In this work, we investigated how organizational ambidexterity gets initiated, and how top
management actions and behaviors influence the process.
Contrary to the existing discourse on organizational ambidexterity as a deliberate
strategy process, we argue here that it can also play out as an emergent strategy process.
Based on our findings, we argue that organizational ambidexterity can be attained
serendipitously –without a deliberate intention of the central management –due to certain
leadership variables, and a pattern of actions inducing focus on exploration and exploitation
as and when needed, at multiple levels of the organization. This strategy formulation
process labeled as “consensus strategy”by Mintzberg and Waters (1985) is more emergent.
Deliberately attempting to be ambidextrous has been usually associated with managerial
tension arising from the pressure to pay attention to both activities simultaneously. We
believe when the ambidextrous positioning of the firm is pursued unconsciously, the
cognition of tension by the manager is likely to be lower –than otherwise.
In this paper, we discuss how the ambidextrous orientation of a firm gets initiated and
how decision makers influence their firms to become ambidextrous –unconsciously. Prior
studies have mostly focused on units of organizations to investigate the phenomenon of
ambidexterity. As we wanted to examine how this phenomenon gets initiated, we chose to
do a longitudinal study of new venture firms from their start-up to growth stage as a
context –to peep into the journey of ambidextrous firms. We chose firms where the
founders and key early employees still functioned within the organizations we studied. This
context allowed us to explore the phenomenon in the entire organization over a period rather
than a part of the organization.
We found that in the chosen firms ambidexterity did not happen by design –instead, it
evolved emergently. Such strategies evolved out of mutual adjustment among different
organizational actors, learning from each other and responding to environmental triggers,
unexpectedly realizing a strategic pattern that worked for them (Mintzberg and Waters,
1985). In this emergent evolution of organizational ambidexterity, top management’s
orientation, team camaraderie, and signaling led to focus on both exploration (efficiency)
and exploitation (experimentation) activities. Top management-related factors also
facilitated in creating a supporting context for exploration as well as exploitation, thus
allowing ambidexterity to evolve in the firm, as a collective pattern of actions at multiple
levels of the organization, without a continued active effort to have balanced focus on the
two activities top-down.
Literature review
The emergent strategy process
The visible strategic position of an organization is not always an effect of planned
activity –deliberate strategy; instead, it emerges iteratively at times without the deliberate
intentions of the top management –similar to unplanned improvisations in a Jazz
performance (Meyer et al., 1998; Zack, 2000). This unintended part of the visible or realized
strategy is referred to as emergent strategy (Mintzberg, 1978; Mintzberg and Waters, 1985).
Strategic positions also result from the iterated process of resource allocation (Burgelman,
1991; Noda and Bower, 1996). Kay (1984) argued that the decision-making process in firms is
more evolutionary and emergent due to the bounded rationality of decision makers and lack
of information availability.
Porter (1996) suggested that strategizing involves deliberately choosing a set of activities
to deliver a unique mix of value, targeting a unique strategic positioning of the firm.
In contrast, Mintzberg (1978) demonstrated and argued that strategizing is also
emergent –despite, or in the absence of top-management intentions (Mintzberg and
Waters, 1985). This process is similar to performing in a theatre without a pre-decided
JSMA
script, sets and roles –as in improvisational theatre (Crossan, 1998), where actions are more
spontaneous and intuitive, in response to contextual triggers. Outcomes of emergent
processes are a combination of reflective and unconscious elements (Lowe and Jones, 2004).
The importance of emergent strategy is well recognized; however, limited empirical studies
have focused on understanding the emergent strategy process (Mirabeau and Maguire,
2014). In this study, we focus on exploring the evolutionary process of organizational
ambidexterity by studying how the charter to be ambidextrous gets initiated, contributing
to the deliberate-versus-emergent strategy process discourse.
The concept of organizational ambidexterity
Exploration refers to the discovery of the new products, resources, knowledge, and
opportunities and is associated with radical changes and learning through experimentation,
whereas exploitation refers to the improvement of current knowledge, resources,
competencies, products and processes, and involves incremental shifts from its previous
position (Benner and Tushman, 2003; March, 1991). These activities are also distinct from
the other in their organizational structures, processes, cultures and capabilities (Ghemawat
and RicartCosta, 1993). They also differ in timeline, risk and potential returns (Raisch and
A Zimmermann, 2017).
New ventures operate in relatively more resource constraint contexts –financial
capital, time, human capital –compared to established and mature firms. New ventures
also have the pressure of performing for survival in the present, and sustainably grow in
future –at least for those who aspire to grow (Dopfer et al., 2017; Prashantham and Floyd,
2019). Thus, new ventures have to balance their current and future, and, therefore, needs
to have a dual-focus –on exploitation and exploration activities. As the start-up firm
moves into a rapid growth phase, the leadership’s ability to balance exploitation and
exploration both of which require different styles of delegation and control decides the
possibility and sustainability of the growth of the firm. It also demands changes in
organizational systems, structure, control systems, attitudes and behavior of the
organizational actors (Shane, 2008; Sinha, 2015).
Organizational ambidexterity defined here as a firm’s ability to simultaneously pursue
exploration and exploitation (Benner and Tushman, 2003; Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004;
Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996). Extant research has highlighted the adoption of different
human resource management systems, and adoption of new tools such as Big Data shapes
ambidextrous business processes in firms attempting to be ambidextrous (Dezi et al., 2018;
Ferraris et al., 2018). Scholars have found that organizational ambidexterity is positively
associated with firm performance (Birkinshaw and Gibson, 2004; He and Wong, 2004;
Raisch et al., 2009). However, some studies have found that organizational ambidexterity
does not directly influence firm performance (Vrontis et al., 2017). Thus, there is a need to
understand this phenomenon using new lenses to explain such mixed findings.
So far, we have usually studied the phenomenon to understand how is it managed or
implemented, assuming it to be a top-down deliberate strategic choice achieved through
different mechanisms. Recent discussions in this domain reiterate that organizational
ambidexterity operates as a deliberate-planned approach (Raisch and A Zimmermann,
2017). How organizational ambidexterity gets initiated and the process through which
organizations emerge to become ambidextrous is an interesting question that remains yet to
be answered (Zimmermann et al., 2015). Review of extant literature also reveals that scant
studies so far have been pursued on ambidexterity theme in new venture firm contexts
(Beckman, 2006; Sinha, 2015). Thus, we decided to investigate this question, how
organizational ambidexterity is initiated, focusing on the role of top management in the
process. The context chosen for this study was firms that had recently been through the
journey from a new venture stage to an established firm.
Emergent-
strategy
process
Research method
We used an in-depth, qualitative, multiple case research (Yin, 2009) method for this study,
as adopted by Lavie et al. (2010), and following the tradition of using case method research
approach for new research queries (Eisenhardt, 1989; Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007).
Most of the strategy process research has relied on qualitative case studies of single or
multiple organizations; the primary data for these case studies are interviews of relevant
key informants (Sminia, 2009). Also, the majority of the seminal works in the area of
emergent strategy processes used the case study research method (Mintzberg and Waters,
1982; Burgelman, 1996; Noda and Bower, 1996; Eisenhardt, 1989). Process research is
primarily interested in how and why questions. Ours being a how question –we chose
the case study research method based on data captured through the retrospective
narratives –interviews –of key organizational actors. Collective narratives of
organizational events during the journey of the organization –triangulated with
secondary data –allowed us to document the case studies of the chosen organizations.
The time dimension and the process of the phenomenon were captured in our work
through retrospective sense making of the lived experiences of the key actors during the
event period (Pettigrew, 1990). The focus of the study was at individual and group levels
to understand the role of the top management team (TMT) members, to identify the
pattern of actions at the TMT level, and at the organizational level, to understand the
firm-level pattern of actions, events and the realized strategy.
Four cases from different industry domains –consumer internet, education, electronic
and power back-up, and financial services –were selected within the new venture context to
have variation among cases. We masked the firm names –on their request for privacy –and
named them as Betainfo, Edusigma, AlphaIndia and Global Power. The chosen firms were
theoretically relevant (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007; Glaser and Strauss, 1967)
representative cases from four new industry domains in their geography. Cases from
diverse settings allow generalizability (Bingham and Eisenhardt, 2011). All four firms were
technology firms –market leaders in their respective domains –founded by first generation
entrepreneurs around the same time in industries that were new in their markets. Thus, all
of them weathered similar conditions during their journey from new venture to an
established firm –operating in fast-growing markets with limited regulation, and traversing
from no competition to increasing competition in their respective product markets. The
conditions necessitated a continued focus on efficiency and also persistent search for new
products, new markets, and new competencies –at multiple levels of the organization,
providing a rich context of the focal theoretical phenomenon of this study. The cases chosen
were extreme cases as adopted in Perrini et al. (2010), which allowed the dynamics of the
phenomenon to be more visible, than otherwise.
Different types of evidence as data sources were used to address the need for
triangulation (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). Data sources used included secondary and
primary sources. Secondary sources of data included coverage on the case companies in
books, print media, and audio-visual media; print and television interviews of the founders
and other TMT members; information available on the company website; and company red
herring prospectus; and internal documents shared by the company –PowerPoint
presentations and archived reports. Primary data sources were face-to-face interviews of
founders, TMT members and other senior executives of the case companies.
A brief write-up was prepared to introduce the purpose of the research broadly
mentioning that “we are trying to understand the growth process of the organization”rather
than using terms like exploration and exploitation. The objective was to capture the
phenomenon from the narration of events through different stages of the growth process.
Such masking of the actual research question helped to restrict any retrospective biases
creeping into the discussion. The organizational actors were broadly asked to narrate their
JSMA
journey and their experiences. The issues raised during the narration were probed to push
and bound the discussion within the frame of research questions. The interview questions
unfolded as it progressed. The effort was to gather as much rich data as possible (Table I).
The total duration of interviews was over 1,600 min, with an average of 1 h. The total
number of interviews conducted was 26 with at least five interviews in each company. The
transcribed length of the interviews ran into more than 500 pages. The interviews were
audio recorded and transcribed.
The data were analyzed following the guidelines of Eisenhardt (1989) and Miles and
Hubbermann (1994). It proceeded through the following three broad stages:
(1) The interview narratives and secondary data were put together to build a sequence of
events –chronological cases of the respective organizations. The case documented
was then sent to the key informants to check if we documented the organizational
journey as it occurred. On receiving the feedback from the informants, corrections
were incorporated in the case document –if needed.
(2) The cases were then processed individually to identify the within-case patterns and
themes. This stage helped in gaining familiarity with the data and preliminary
theory generation.
(3) In the third stage, we searched for the cross-case patterns. This step allowed us to
find a replication of the findings across different cases or the variations across
the cases.
Multiple iterations of the last two stages and referring back to theory helped us in
constructing the process model. To find details about different concepts of the model and the
relationships between these concepts –and evidence for them –we iteratively refereed back
to the cases, interviews narratives and relevant secondary resources. We continued with the
iterations until no further improvement of the process model –of how organizational
ambidexterity emerged –was possible.
Findings
Analysis of the data indicated that the top management did not deliberately decide to build
ambidextrous orientation and design in their firms. The TMT had no prior intention to
guide or control the journey of the firm toward ambidexterity; instead, the TMT actors
naturally converged toward first attaining ambidextrous TMT and later organizational
ambidexterity. It happened due to the ambidextrous orientation and skills of the members of
the TMT.
Firm name Betainfo Edusigma Global Power AlphaIndia
Sector IT/ITES Education Power back-up
(electronics and
batteries)
Financial services
Business at
launch
Job database School
management
system
software
Inverter Equity research
Diversified
into
Consumer internet company
(recruitment, real estate,
matrimonial, education,
restaurant listing and
booking)
Educational
products and
service
provider
Inverters (several
variants); batteries;
high capacity
inverters; solar
inverters
Broking, life insurance
distribution, investment
banking, credit and
finance, wealth
management
Table I.
Profile of cases
selected
Emergent-
strategy
process
TMT’s ambidextrous abilities and orientation –which, in turn, influenced their actions and
behaviors –led them to sense the need of exploitation as well as of exploration and act to
address them as and when they sensed the need. Rather than trying to balance, the
balancing happened due to attention on both. The exploration–exploitation balancing was
operating orthogonally –one was not competing with the other. Thus, the managerial
tension that one may experience while trying to balance exploration and exploitation was
not observed to be significant in this study. TMT ambidexterity further led to the evolution
of the organizational context encompassing some factors facilitating exploitation and others
facilitating exploration; it also enabled linking of the two activity domains across hierarchy,
function and business units. As a result, despite operating in a resource constraint
environment, the decision makers and implementers at multiple levels sensed the need for
both and tried to maximize both activities depending on the need of the same.
Influence of ambidextrous TMT
We found that a mix of people –at the top level –with predominantly exploration
orientation and having abilities for exploration activities and people with predominantly
exploitation orientation and having abilities for exploitation activities was the primary
driving factor influencing organizational ambidexterity in the firms studied. TMT members’
complementarities were observed to be operating in multiple ways. We found that such a
TMT could be one person having dual-focus; a mix of exploration- or exploitation-oriented
members; or the team can also be a group of multiple ambidextrous members. An
ambidextrous team facilitated in balancing the attention between exploration and
exploitation. This concept is depicted in BOX1 in Figure 1.
In three of our case companies, the top-management executive team comprised of a two-to-
three member team; we found team members have complementary competencies –exploratory
or exploitative. In some cases, we found members decided for role separation –mutually
agreed upon domains of decision making. This arrangement was made either due to their
proficiency in either set of activities, or such role separation led to building proficiency in
domains in which they operated. We found the existence of such complementary team
members in three case companies –Betainfo, Edusigma and AlphaIndia. Only in the case of
Global Power, we found single member top management with significantly higher orientation
for exploration rather than exploitation.
Complementary
TMT/senior-
management
abilities and
orientation
Conflicts
Team
camaraderie
Team hygiene
low egocentricity, high
mutual trust and respect,
balanced power sharing
Pro-exploration
signals
Pro-exploitation
signals
TMT actions/behavior
Ambidextrous context
Having exploration/
exploitation champions
Building structure,
systems, processes
Leaders social
interaction behavior
Multilevel
organizational
exploration
Multilevel
organizational
exploitation
Sensing need for
exploration
Sensing need for
exploitation
Organizational
ambidextrity
BOX2: process of context setting for
exploration/exploitation
BOX3: emergent outcome-
organizational ambidexterity
BOX1: primary antecedent –
ambidextrous top management team
Figure 1.
Emergent process of
organizational
ambidexterity
JSMA
Exploration-oriented TMT members were found to be visionary, charismatic, caring and
empathizing, who bets on people, who can inject feelings of ownership among rank and file,
optimistic and with an ability to take path-breaking decisions. Descriptions of them by other
TMT members and others across functions and hierarchy highlighted their panache for
experimentation and risk orientation. One of the exploration-oriented TMT members was
described as –“most open to all types of new ideas.”Exploitation orientated were found to
be more skeptical, conservative, risk analyzer, rule-and-process oriented, more systematic in
approach. Such orientation was observed to have developed either due to nature or nurture
(experience). Some TMT members were found to be having an ambidextrous orientation.
Describing one such TMT member, others mentioned: “a person who got lots of ideas, high
energy levels, and also having important execution skills. He was the right person to run a
profitable business. However, he was very good at managing costs, and also a year-on-year
increase in targets. He is good at multitasking.”
At times, TMT members pushed for exploration or exploitation not due to their
orientation but due to how the role was shared based on the agreement between the
members. TMT member1 in Betainfo mentioned about role sharing with TMT member2 –
“He is much more focused on what have we today; what we will do next week, and need of
the present. I am more focused on slightly more strategic issues. That is an orientation.
However, if you put him in my job and me in his job I will do more of that; that was how
the roles were divided.”
Such complementary TMT mix –ambidextrous team orientation –resulted in a
balanced strategic orientation of the organization, as evident from the expression of a
senior manager from AlphaIndia: “Usually what happens is when you get into the
operational side of things, that envelopes you, and you just go in for operational efficiency
and do not give attention to long-term. However, the beauty here was that they –the
TMT –never lost sight of the larger picture as well, while continuing to focus on the
results from the immediate needs of the businesses.”
Differences in opinions resulted in conflicts during the decision-making process. In
Betainfo, Edusigma and AlphaIndia, we observed that such conflicts generally got resolved
due to mutual trust and respect for the other team members capability, and commitment to
the cause of the organization. At times pre-decided heuristics such as “on what type of
decisions whose view was final was fixed in advance”helped in resolving the decision
deadlock. The low egocentric nature of the team members and relatively equal power status
among the team members maintained team camaraderie.
Our findings in the case of Global Power were different from the other three cases.
Founder’s passion and the ability for exploration was very high. The founder-CEO of this
company was a high-risk taker. He also had orientation for exploitation and pushed for
cost-efficiency. People saw the founder as someone with exceptional innovation and
marketing capabilities. However, due to the absence of any prior experience of scaled
businesses, he did not appreciate the importance of establishing rules and standardized
processes –which was so emphasized by one of the TMT members in other case companies.
Also, the power balance at the top-decision making level in Global Power was tilted in favor
of the founder-CEO. It was majorly a one-person TMT. With scaling-up of the business,
people joined from diverse backgrounds –but mostly as functional heads, and none in CXO
roles. Senior management turnover was high, and the integration of these managers with
the founder or others did not happen due to “ego”issues. There was a lack of team
decision-making and pluralistic processes. The founder-CEO alone was the key decision
maker, and, in the case of differences of opinion, people rarely confronted the CEO. Only
during the later years of the company, there was clear role separation at one level below the
founder for managing exploration –new businesses and exploitation –matured business.
High-risk orientation and the lack of stabilizing factors with the senior management team
Emergent-
strategy
process
caused the company to get into deep crisis twice in the journey of the company leading to
significant setback and losses. Thus, this was a case where we observed that in the early
stages there was relatively more balanced attention to exploration and exploitation.
However, as the business scaled, this balance tilted in favor of exploration due to
over-enthusiasm for innovation and experimentation, and also due to the non-existence of
any other member in the TMT –having similar decision-making powers as the founder-
CEO –to counter the over-focus on experimentation.
Thus, we observed that part of the top leadership was open to experimentation,
risk-taking, and futuristic, other/s being more oriented toward processes and systems
leading to focus on exploitation activities, overall resulting into attention on both
exploratory and exploitative activities. Due to this, even without a deliberate plan, one
section of the leadership kept encouraging the team to focus on future, think big and think
differently; the other pushed people to increase efficiency, being frugal and fasten the speed
of product-to-profit. However, such opposite thinking frames also resulted in conflicts of
opinion and potential for a decision deadlock. In three cases –Betainfo, Edusigm and
AlphaIndia –we found the conflict was avoided through predefined conflict resolution
tactics. It also required mutual trust and equal power status among the members for an
effective play out of this model. The absence of mutual trust, collective decision making, ego
conflicts and unequal power status –as found in Global Power –may not allow the team
composition complementarity to contribute to building an ambidextrous orientation of the
firm or may not sustain the organizational ambidexterity as the firm grows. We labeled
the factors influencing “team camaraderie”as “team hygiene factors.”Team camaraderie
positively enhanced the effect of TMT complementarity; in the absence of team camaraderie –
due to the absence of team hygiene factors –conflicts subdued the positive effects of TMT
complementarity.
Thus, ambidextrous TMT –having appreciation, orientation and ability for exploratory and
exploitation activities, and good camaraderie among the TMT members –facilitates nurturing
and building a work environment that pushes for exploitation on one side and promotes
exploration on the other. Next, we discuss how such contexts for exploration and exploitation
gets constructed through actions and behaviors of members of an ambidextrous TMT.
Supporting context for exploration or exploitation activities
TMT member’s actions and behaviors influenced the creation of some aspects of the context
that influenced employees toward exploitative activities, and some other aspects of the
context that influenced employees toward exploration behavior. These contextual aspects
are discussed below, and this concept is depicted in BOX2 in Figure 1.
Getting exploration/exploitation champions and nurture them.TMT’s exploration abilities
created an extensive social network; this partially facilitated access to exploration or
exploitation champions in the early phases. Recruits having potential exploration capabilities
were motivated through the entrepreneurial culture in the organization. This culture in the
organization transformed those with potential, into exploration champions –one who could
take risk, experiment, build new capabilities and design new products.
Getting people with the skills to exploit was also critical. Getting people usually was a
difficult task as rarely anyone was interested in joining an exploitation role in new ventures.
Some TMT members’experience in exploitation activities reduced this challenge. They had
knowledge and network to recruit such people. They knew the process of recruiting for
these skills and retaining them. It was also crucial that the selected person not be only right
for exploitation roles but had a mindset to work in a start-up environment.
These exploration or exploitation champions transformed over time to become
ambidextrous. During times when the burden of work was high, some exploration
JSMA
champions were also assigned exploitation roles –business development, expanding
the business and product refinements. Alternately exploiters getting motivated by the
entrepreneurial smell in the firm developed a penchant for exploration roles –leading to the
development of ambidextrous abilities in them. These champions –rewarded with fast
career growth –motivated them to continue in the company –signaling others the definition
of star-performers, which they may emulate. Some of the exploration or exploitation
champions continued to excel in their domain, thus contributing to the attainment of
ambidexterity at function or unit or firm level.
Creation of structure, systems and processes. Usually, the lead for such systems and process
creation was advocated through the posture of exploitation focus within the TMT –signaling
that fast commercialization and following routinized approaches were expected. TMT member’s
prior background in process-oriented roles strongly influenced member’s advocacy for systems
and processes. Such measures were more pro-active than in reaction to emergencies. As the
knowledge to create such systems already existed with the TMT member, this became more of a
replication task with the needed improvisation. This action of TMT also led to the creation of
enabling structure, systems, and processes for exploitation. Also, there were short-term rewards
for performance in the form of monetary incentives and non-monetary incentives –such as a
package for a foreign holiday trip, directly linked to the achievement of revenue targets. Besides,
consistent performers were shown a career path for future growth. Meritorious employees were
groomed for future leadership positions. Processes such as performance management systems,
sales reporting, and record keeping, were standardized. Some processes were also automated to
increase efficiency. The creation of exploitation-focused departments and restructuring of roles
and processes also enabled more exploitation.
Social interaction behavior of leaders at the top. The top leaders maintained transparency
of their actions and decisions. Especially, in the early growth phase, usually, everybody was
aware of the financial position of the company. Financial status was openly shared in
meetings; the knowledge that limited cash was available influenced people in extracting as
much as possible and maintaining frugality in their spending. TMT member’s social
interaction capability and their ability to delegate and sacrifice –give up control and abstain
from being guided by personal gains –influenced how they interacted with managers and
frontline employees. We found that behaviors such as valuing people, empowering them,
encouraging independent thinking, and allowing open discussion and debates led to the
creation of an environment where employees were motivated to explore. Sharing the wealth
and maintaining transparency were two critical actions of the TMT, which reinforced the
belief and trust in TMT. These TMT actions and behavior created the essential contextual
elements, namely, mutual trust, ownership feeling, freedom to express, the opportunity to
learn new things and increased team camaraderie. Contextual elements, namely, shared
aspiration and ownership feeling, propelled people to stretch beyond what was expected of
them. In such environments, managers and employees felt they worked for themselves, in
their own company. Such a feeling motivated them to exhibit organization citizenship
behavior –doing more than what is defined by their roles –and people worked for day and
night without caring for any immediate goals. They did not feel that it was only the owner
who was going to be benefited in the long run, but they also felt the excitement of learning
new things, creating new things, and creating an organization that would become prominent
in the future. This working environment influenced the development of exploration
capability across multiple levels of the organization, leading to higher exploration.
Thus, the enabling context –the organizational environment –for exploration and
exploitation influenced the activities of exploration and exploitation. Moreover, this context
building was an organic and emergent process as a result of the specific actions and
behaviors of the TMT.
Emergent-
strategy
process
Exploration–exploitation linkage at multiple levels of the organization
The context created to support exploration and exploitation activities facilitated in sensing
the need and opportunity for exploration and exploitation at different levels and led to
higher exploration and exploitation activities, respectively. Different ways of how
exploration and exploitation links worked were as follows:
(1) exploration in individual level –in middle and lower hierarchies –linked to
exploitation at organizational levels;
(2) feedback from people engaged in exploitation roles helped in identifying “what next”
opportunities or generating new ideas;
(3) exploitation provided the resource for investment in exploration;
(4) exploration led to better exploitation of existing resources;
(5) exploration created the pipeline for future exploitation;
(6) multiple job roles for individuals, and rotation of job roles between exploration- and
exploitation-focused roles; and
(7) discussion of diverse opinions in the joint decision-making process.
This concept is depicted as BOX3 in Figure 1.
The presence of reinforcing links between exploration and exploitation influenced the
maintenance of firm ambidexterity. By reinforcing links, we mean that explorations have to
be related and leveraging existing resources and exploitation should leverage the
exploration output. The sensing and seizing process was much faster and took place as a
pro-active measure rather than only as a reaction to a crisis –this process of speedier
sensing and seizing enhanced the dynamic capability of the firm. As the capability to
explore and exploit was dispersed across the organization, even when the organization’s
focus shifted temporarily toward exploitation –in crisis –the organization shifted back
swiftly to a balanced position after the crisis. This organic and emergent process of
exploration and exploitation –without any noted deliberate planning and execution
efforts –facilitated in maintaining ambidexterity at the firm level.
Discussion
Earlier research has argued that the upper echelons of organizations –the TMT –
influence strategic directions of organizations. Organizational outcomes are reflections of
the mindset of dominant actors in the organization. Managers perceive the environmental
signals based on their biases of what is more important, which guides their choices,
actions and behaviors (Hambrick and Mason, 1984). Extant research in the area of
organizational ambidexterity highlights the role of TMT in the effective management of
exploration and exploitation for sustained organizational performance (Smith and
Tushman, 2005). TMT heterogeneity or diversity has been studied as one of the critical
components of TMT-organization ambidexterity connect (Koryak et al., 2018); however,
TMT diversity has been so far primarily conceptualized as a diversity measure captured
by age and functional diversity (García-Granero et al., 2018). Our findings indicate the
need for conceptualizing the construct of TMT ambidexterity as a mix of exploration–
exploitation orientation –as a mindset –rather than only as age or functional diversity.
Functional diversity only measures the functional background –marketing, operations
and R&D –of the involved CEO or the TMT members, stereotyping specific
characteristics associated with the involved background. Real-life managers are far more
complex and not so easily categorizable into exploration or exploitation type just by using
their functional specialization or even age as a proxy. Also, we found rather than focusing
JSMA
on TMT diversity the focus of future studies should be TMT ambidexterity that is more
comprehensive construct vis-à-vis TMT diversity.
We preferred using the term TMT complementarity –complementarity of exploration and
exploitation orientation and abilities within the TMT –instead of TMT diversity. Our findings
indicate differences in TMT members orientation results in conflict that may reduce the overall
ambidexterity behavior of the TMT; however, the presence of certain hygiene factors within the
team –low egocentricity, high mutual trust and respect for each other, and balanced power
sharing –leading to team camaraderie –neutralizes the adverse effects of conflicts. Thus, TMT
complementarity results in TMT ambidexterity only in the presence of the mentioned team
hygiene factors. We found TMT ambidexterity as the primary driver of organizational
ambidexterity. Future studies may instead focus on a direct measure of exploratory-exploitative
orientation and capability measure of TMT ratherthantryingtomeasureitusingtheproxiesof
functional background and age of TMT members. Also, a focus on TMT ambidexterity in
future research may be a more useful construct vis-à-vis focus on TMT diversity.
Our findings suggest that the organizational ambidexterity was not triggered due to a
deliberate a priori charter of the TMT. Instead, the ambidextrous orientation of the TMT
allowed it to sense the need for exploration and exploitation. Additionally, TMT
ambidexterity led to the setting of the context to facilitate sensing the need for exploration
or exploitation in lower hierarchies in the organization. Thus, exploration and exploitation
activities were initiated as and when its need was sensed –from external environmental
triggers –at multiple levels of the organizations, without always as a top-down chartering
process. Thus, contrary to implicit assumption in most previous research that TMT identify
the need to become ambidextrous, and subsequently design facilitating structures and
context to implement the choice to become ambidextrous (Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008;
Zimmermann et al., 2015), we found the process to be emergent –both the context creation,
as well as post-sensing actions to initiate exploration or exploitation. TMT did act and
behave in a manner that emitted pro-exploration or pro-exploitation signals; however, this
was not the only way how exploration or exploitation was being initiated in the firms
studied. Also, the TMT did not emit such signals as part of deliberate a plan to be
ambidextrous. Such signals emitting was a natural autonomous process as a response to
need sensing –which happened due to their ambidextrous orientation. The dominant
discourse in the strategy literature, including the discussions on organizational
ambidexterity, has assumed strategizing as a deliberate process. Our findings indicate
the need for rejuvenating the “emergent strategies”discourse. We consider here
deliberate-emergent as a continuum as it should be in a real-world strategy (Mintzberg
and Waters, 1985). In the VUCA world, this is how strategy probably needs to be practiced
throughout the organization rather than initiated by god-like roles played by the TMT.
TMT may need to have the right orientation and build the context to trigger the processes in
the intended direction at multiple levels of the firm.
The emergent-strategy process observed in the cases here also influenced linking of
exploration and exploitation, ensuring one leveraged the other –reinforcing each other –leading
to a dynamic oscillation between exploration and exploitation at the unit level –autonomously.
Ambidexterity-firm performance studies have shown mixed results –positive (Gibson and
Birkinshaw, 2004; He and Wong, 2004), negative (Atuahene-Gima, 2005), curvilinear
(Rothaermel and Alexandre, 2009) and no effects (Cao et al., 2009). We found such reinforced
links got established due to the context in the firm –not always due to the deliberate attempt of
TMT to have such organizational design. Our findings suggest the need for focusing on the
presence of linked exploration–exploitation to explain firm performance, rather than only
exploration and exploitation.
The playing out of the three-stage process identified in this study –TMT group level
ambidexterity, the context setting for exploration or exploitation, and organizational level
Emergent-
strategy
process
inter-linking of exploration and exploitation –operated as a pattern of unplanned
improvisations at multiple levels without a pre-decided script (Crossan, 1998; Mintzberg and
Waters, 1985; Mirabeau and Maguire, 2014) to be ambidextrous. Thus, our findings suggest
that organizational ambidexterity can also operate as an emergent process, rather than
being only deliberate.
Conclusion
Theoretical implication
This study allowed us to identify the emergent process of attaining and maintaining
ambidexterity –beyond deliberate strategic choices of becoming ambidextrous. We discuss
here how organization ambidexterity may also evolve as an emergent process, and the role
of strategic leaders –founders or CEOs and CXOs –is critical. Such emergent process of
organizational ambidexterity is initiated by the ambidextrous orientation and abilities of the
TMT, and their actions and behaviors influence evolution of supporting context that
promotes exploration and exploitation behavior of employees at multiple levels of hierarchy,
and across different units and functions of the organization.
In the field of Genetics research on Drosophila, the fruit fly, revealed much about human
genetics. So, even though we theorized this process theory in the context of new ventures,
the findings help us to understand organizational ambidexterity in organizations in general.
This study contributes to the ambidexterity literature by extending the boundary of the
discussion to organizational ambidexterity as an emergent strategy process and how TMT
ambidexterity influences –without deliberately attempting to do so –the evolution of an
ambidextrous positioning of a firm. The study also raises the need for refocusing on
“emergent strategy”as an essential part of the strategy formulation process. We also
contribute to the concept of TMT diversity in the context of organizational ambidexterity
and also how TMT hygiene and TMT conflicts operate in shaping the effect of
TMT ambidexterity. The concept of sensing and signaling for pro-exploration and
pro-exploitation actions, how it influences the context setting process, and how the
exploration-exploitation linkage operates provides a good ground for future work on
micro-foundations of organizational ambidexterity. This study also contributes to
entrepreneurship discourse by enhancing our understanding of the process of
organizational ambidexterity in new ventures.
This work being a qualitative limited sample study lacks the statistical generalizability
of a large sample study. Future research may focus on operationalizing some concepts of
the proposed theoretical model on large sample survey-based study. Also, an attempt to
explore if the ambidexterity process varies with variances in product-market context will
be interesting.
Managerial implication
The managerial implications that can be drawn from this study for firms, irrespective of
their size and industry, are:
(1) If senior leaders possess an ambidextrous orientation and maintain good
coordination within the team –their actions and conduct signals this orientation
to hierarchies below; such signals initiates pro-exploration and pro-exploration
actions at multiple levels of the organization.
(2) Having a mix of exploration-oriented and exploitation-oriented team members at the
apex of the organization can induce ambidexterity in the firm; however, for this
operation, there is need of low egocentricity, mutual trust and respect, and balanced
power sharing between two poles of the team.
JSMA
(3) If senior leaders’actions and behavior builds the supporting context for exploration
and exploitation, both activities get enhanced autonomously –avoiding the
managerial tension of balancing the two.
(4) Reinforcing links between exploration and exploitation influence sustenance of
ambidexterity in the firm.
(5) In the case of new ventures, having an ambidextrous TMT enhances the success
probability of the new venture.
References
Atuahene-Gima, K. (2005), “Resolving the capability–rigidity paradox in new product innovation”,
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 69 No. 4, pp. 61-83.
Beckman, C.M. (2006), “The influence of founding team company affiliations on firm behavior”,
Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 49 No. 4, pp. 741-758.
Benner, M.J. and Tushman, M.L. (2003), “Exploitation, exploration, and process management: the
productivity dilemma revisited”,Academy of Management Review, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 238-256.
Bingham, C.B. and Eisenhardt, K.M. (2011), “Rational heuristics: the ‘simple rules’that strategists learn
from process experience”,Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 32 No. 13, pp. 1437-1464.
Birkinshaw, J. and Gibson, C. (2004), “Building ambidexterity into an organization”,MIT Sloan
Management Review, Vol. 45 No. 4, pp. 47-55.
Birkinshaw, J. and Gupta, K. (2013), “Clarifying the distinctive contribution of ambidexterity to the field
of organization studies”,Academy of Management Perspectives, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 287-298.
Burgelman, R.A. (1991), “Intraorganizational ecology of strategy making and organizational
adaptation: theory and field research”,Organization Science, Vol. 2 No. 3, pp. 239-262.
Burgelman, R.A. (1996), “Progress model of strategic business exit: implications for an evolutionary
perspective on strategy”,Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17, pp. 193-214.
Cao, Q., Gedajlovic, E. and Zhang, H. (2009), “Unpacking organizational ambidexterity: dimensions,
contingencies, and synergistic effects”,Organization Science, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 781-796.
Crossan, M. (1998), “Improvisation in action”,Organization Science, Vol. 9 No. 5, pp. 593-599.
Dezi, L., Santoro, G., Gabteni, H. and Pellicelli, A.C. (2018), “The role of Big Data in shaping
ambidextrous business process management: case studies from the service industry”,Business
Process Management Journal, Vol. 24 No. 5, pp. 1163-1175.
Dopfer, M., Fallahi, S., Kirchberger, M. and Gassmann, O. (2017), “Adapt and strive: how ventures
under resource constraints create value through business model adaptations”,Creativity &
Innovation Management, Vol. 26 No. 3, pp. 233-246.
Eisenhardt, K.M. (1989), “Building theories from case study research”,The Academy of Management
Review, Vol. 14 No. 4, pp. 532-550.
Eisenhardt, K.M. and Graebner, M.E. (2007), “Theory building from cases: opportunities and
challenges”,The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 25-32.
Ferraris, A., Santoro, G., Bresciani, S. and Carayannis, E.G. (2018), “HR practices for explorative and
exploitative alliances in smart cities: evidences from smart city managers’perspective”,
Management Decision, Vol. 56 No. 6, pp. 1183-1197.
García-Granero, A., Fernández-Mesa, A., Jansen, J.J.P. and Vega-Jurado, J. (2018), “Top management
team diversity and ambidexterity: the contingent role of shared responsibility and CEO
cognitive trust”,Long Range Planning, Vol. 51 No. 6, pp. 881-893.
Ghemawat, P. and RicartCosta, J.E.I. (1993), “The organizational tension between static and dynamic
efficiency”,Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 14 No. S2, pp. 59-73.
Gibson, C.B. and Birkinshaw, J. (2004), “The antecedents, consequences, and mediating role of
organizational ambidexterity”,The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 47 No. 2, pp. 209-226.
Emergent-
strategy
process
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A.C. (1967), The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative
Research, Aldine De Gruyter, New York, NY.
Hambrick, D.C. and Mason, P.A. (1984), “Upper echelons: the organization as a reflection of its top
managers”,The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 193-206.
He, Z.L. and Wong, P.K. (2004), “Exploration vs. exploitation: an empirical test of the ambidexterity
hypothesis”,Organization Science, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 481-494.
Kay, N.M. (1984), The Emergent Firm: Knowledge, Ignorance and Surprise in Economic Organisation,
MacMillan, Basingstoke.
Koryak, O., Lockett, A., Hayton, J., Nicolaou, N. and Mole, K. (2018), “Disentangling the antecedents of
ambidexterity: exploration and exploitation”,Research Policy, Vol. 47 No. 2, pp. 413-427.
Lavie, D., Stettner, U. and Tushman, M.L. (2010), “Exploration and exploitation within and across
organizations”,Academy of Management Annals, Vol. 4 No. 1, pp. 109-155.
Lowe, A. and Jones, A. (2004), “Emergent strategy and the measurement of performance: the
formulation of performance indicators at the microlevel”,Organization Studies, Vol. 25 No. 8,
pp. 1313-1337.
March, J.G. (1991), “Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning”,Organization Science,
Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 71-87.
Meyer, A., Frost, P.J. and Weick, K.E. (1998), “The organization science jazz festival: improvisation as a
metaphor for organizing”,Organization Science, Vol. 9 No. 5, pp. 540-542.
Miles, M.B. and Hubbermann, A.M. (1994), Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, Sage
Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Mintzberg, H. (1978), “Patterns in strategy formation”,Management Science, Vol. 24 No. 9, pp. 934-948.
Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J.A. (1982), “Tracking strategy in an entrepreneurial firm”,Academy of
Management Journal, Vol. 25 No. 3, pp. 465-499.
Mintzberg, H. and Waters, J.A. (1985), “Of strategies, deliberate and emergent”,Strategic Management
Journal, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 257-272.
Mirabeau, L. and Maguire, S. (2014), “From autonomous strategic behavior to emergent strategy”,
Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 35 No. 8, pp. 1202-1229.
Noda, T. and Bower, J.L. (1996), “Strategy making as iterated processes of resource allocation”,
Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 17 No. S1, pp. 159-192.
O’Reilly, C.A. and Tushman, M.L. (2011), “Organizational ambidexterity in action: how managers
explore and exploit”,California Management Review, Vol. 53 No. 4, pp. 5-22.
Perrini, F., Vurro, C. and Costanzo, L.A. (2010), “A process-based view of social entrepreneurship: from
opportunity identification to scaling-up social change in the case of San Patrignano”,
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 515-534.
Pettigrew, A.M. (1990), “Longitudinal field research on change: theory and practice”,Organization
Science, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 267-292.
Porter, M.E. (1996), “What is strategy?”,Harvard Business Review, Vol. 74 No. 6, pp. 61-78.
Prashantham, S. and Floyd, S.W. (2019), “Navigating liminality in new venture internationalization”,
Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 513-527.
Raisch, S. and Birkinshaw, J. (2008), “Organizational ambidexterity: antecedents, outcomes, and
moderators”,Journal of Management, Vol. 34 No. 3, pp. 375-409.
Raisch, S. and A Zimmermann, A. (2017), “Pathways to ambidexterity: a process perspective on the
exploration-exploitation paradox”, in Smith, W., Lewis, M.E., Jarzabkowski, P.E. and Langley, A.
(Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Organizational Paradox, Oxford University Press, Oxford,
pp. 315-332.
Raisch, S., Birkinshaw, J., Probst, G. and Tushman, M.L. (2009), “Organizational ambidexterity:
balancing exploitation and exploration for sustained performance”,Organization Science, Vol. 20
No. 4, pp. 685-695.
JSMA
Rothaermel, F.T. and Alexandre, M.T. (2009), “Ambidexterity in technology sourcing: the moderating
role of absorptive capacity”,Organization Science, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 759-780, 829-830.
Shane, S.A. (2008), The Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors,
and Policy Makers Live By, Yale University Press, London.
Sinha, S. (2015), “The exploration–exploitation dilemma: a review in the context of managing growth of
new ventures”,Vikalpa, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 313-323.
Sminia, H. (2009), “Process research in strategy formation: theory, methodology and relevance”,
International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 97-125.
Smith, W.K. and Tushman, M.L. (2005), “Managing strategic contradictions: a top management model
for managing innovation streams”,Organization Science, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 522-536.
Tushman, M.L. and O’Reilly, C.A. (1996), “Ambidextrous organizations: managing evolutionary and
revolutionary change”,California Management Review, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 8-30.
Vrontis, D., Thrassou, A., Santoro, G. and Papa, A. (2017), “Ambidexterity, external knowledge and
performance in knowledge-intensive firms”,The Journal of Technology Transfer, Vol. 42 No. 2,
pp. 374-388.
Yin, R. (2009), Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Sage Publications, Los Angeles, CA.
Zack, M.H. (2000), “Jazz improvisation and organizing: once more from the top”,Organization Science,
Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 227-234.
Zimmermann, A., Raisch, S. and Birkinshaw, J. (2015), “How is ambidexterity initiated? The emergent
charter definition process”,Organization Science, Vol. 26 No. 4, pp. 1119-1139.
Corresponding author
Sabyasachi Sinha can be contacted at: sabyasachi@iiml.ac.in
For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
Emergent-
strategy
process