The Micro‐Dynamics of Intraorganizational and Individual Behavior and Their Role in Organizational Ambidexterity Boundaries

• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Danny Moss,Yipeng Liu,Neil Moore,Simon M. Smith,Martin Mathews,Peter Stokes
• Published date: 01 December 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21690

Human Resource Management, December 2015, Vol. 54, No. S1. Pp. S63–S86

© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21690

Correspondence to: Peter Stokes, University of Chester Business School, University of Chester, Parkgate Lane,

Chester, CH1 4BJ UK, Phone: +44 1244 511975, Fax: +44 1244 511329, E-mail: p.stokes@chester.ac.uk

THE MICRO-DYNAMICS OF

INTRAORGANIZATIONAL

ANDINDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AND

THEIR ROLE IN ORGANIZATIONAL

AMBIDEXTERITY BOUNDARIES

PETER STOKES, NEIL MOORE, DANNY MOSS, MARTIN

MATHEWS, SIMON M. SMITH, AND YIPENG LIU

Organizational ambidexterity has emerged as a valuable contemporary lens on

organizational design and action, examining the dynamic relationships between

exploitative (extant) and explorative (evolving) resources within organizational con-

texts and environments. This article analyzes the literature pertaining to ambidex-

terity and underlines a number of recurrent preoccupations including defi nition of

the nature, characteristics, and normative boundaries of organizational ambidexter-

ity; a predilection toward considering interfi rm/unit comparisons of large-scale cor-

porate organizations; and a concentration on the signifi cance of the managerialistic

role of the senior management team’s disposition and action-orientations. While a

few calls have been made for a focus on the micro-aspects, predominant attention

has remained on the macro-aspects of organizational ambidexterity.

The aim of the article, therefore, is to conduct a complementary study that consid-

ers the boundaries and transitions between exploitative and explorative modes at

the intraorganizational, individual micro-behavioral level. To facilitate this, the arti-

cle surfaces and underscores the paradigmatic modernistic characterization of large

areas of the current organizational ambidexterity literature and the implications of

this. Moreover, it explores alternative potentially useful critical paradigms that assist

in providing tools with which to examine the “micro.” The research conducts an eth-

nographic-style study of a quasi-public training and development organization to

illustrate the above background contexts and the micro-interface and boundary of

explorative and exploitative modes of organizational ambidexterity in the intraor-

ganizational situation. Within this, the study points up the signifi cance of the role of

sense-making in operational micro-moment individual and small-group situations,

and their vital infl uence in ultimately underpinning, and contributing to, macro-

organizational ambidextrous contexts. ©2015 Wiley Periodicals,Inc.

Keywords: organizational ambidexterity, intrafi rm/unit, micro-moments,

paradigms

S64 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, DECEMBER 2015

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

between exploration and exploitation. A critical

perspective, we argue, can significantly advance

our understanding of the boundary of explo-

ration and exploitation (Gotsi, Andriopoulos,

Lewis, & Ingram, 2010).

The organizational ambidexterity literature

has produced many insights in relation to a range

of varying topic domains and, in addition, a

growing collection of useful case studies has been

assembled (see, by way of illustration, O’Reilly,

Harreld, & Tushman, 2009; Prieto & Pérez

Santana, 2012; Sarkees, Hull, & Prescott, 2010).

Significantly, while not exclusively, a majority of

existing work on organizational ambidexterity

tends to focus its scrutiny on ambidexterity in rela-

tion to entities or units of analysis such as company

or organization—in other words, overall or holistic

entities. Furthermore, in relation to this macro-

perspective on organization, many accounts tend

to examine these issues from the point of view of

the senior management or executive team rather

than from an individual employee or subteam

perspective. However, the insights from individ-

ual employee or subteam perspective are of sig-

nificant importance to theoretically advancing

our understanding of organizational ambidexter-

ity. Although the breadth of the work conducted

to date represents important progress, a number

of scholars have equally expressed concern that

while it has been the “macro” dimensions of

organizational ambidexterity that have predomi-

nantly attracted scholarly attention, micro-per-

spectives remain relatively underexplored (see,

e.g., Birkinshaw & Gupta, 2013; Mom, Van den

Bosch, & Volberda, 2009; Raisch & Birkinshaw,

2008). A recent literature review found that there

has been little research of ambidexterity at the

individual level (Turner, Swart, & Maylor, 2013).

Thus, the aim and objectives of this article con-

cern making a valuable contribution to the grow-

ing body or scholarly study around the notion

of organizational ambidexterity by uncovering

valuable insights into the manifestation of ambi-

dextrous behaviors at the individual actor level

within intraorganizational settings. The starting

point in this study is the premise that organiza-

tional ambidexterity presents itself as a variable

dependent on, and determined by, the composite

micro-effects of socially constructed independent

individual and group behaviors. This, in turn,

leads to the macro-conditions of organizational

ambidexterity (see Figure 1). This article aims to

examine micro-aspects in organizational ambi-

dexterity and, here, designates “micro” as con-

cerning that which is individual, spatially local,

and involved with the micro-moment of experi-

ence and behavior.

The notion of organizational ambidexter-

ity has emerged relatively recently within

contemporary organizational and mana-

gerial literatures but has gained significant

traction within organization and manage-

rial debates and scholarship (Birkinshaw & Gupta,

2013; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004, 2008, 2013;

Raisch & Tushman, 2011). It offers an interesting

new lens through which to observe and analyze

issues around organization design, strategic and

operational decision making, and the patterns

and dynamics of organizational behavior. Here,

one interesting dimension of this new perspective

on organization activity is in terms of the tension

between choice and decisions around the disposi-

tion of “exploitative” and “explorative” resources.

Organizational ambidexterity can be under-

stood as the relationship and dynamic potential

operating between exploitative and explorative

resources and dispositions in organizational con-

texts. Exploitative resources generally encompass

the use of more mechanistic-style processes to

cultivate and develop extant knowledge and

options. Alternatively, explorative resources are

primarily concerned with facilitating the organic

evolution of new knowledge, fields, and oppor-

tunities accompanied by the requisite mind-sets

(Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, & Tushman, 2009;

Jansen, George, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2008;

Kang & Snell, 2009; Kyriakopoulos & Moorman,

2004; O’Reilly & Tushmann, 2008, 2011; Raisch &

Birkinshaw, 2008; Simsek, 2009).

The vibrant and fast-growing research stream

on organizational ambidexterity is manifesting

its distinctive contribution to the field of organi-

zation studies (Birkinshaw & Gupta, 2013). The

flourishing of the ambidexterity literature was

partially attributed to a lack of construct clarity

and divergent operationalization of ambidexter-

ity. Categorically speaking, three types of ambi-

dexterity have been investigated in the extant

literature, namely, sequential, structural, and

contextual ambidexterity (O’Reilly & Tushman,

2013). Originally formulated as the punctuated

equilibrium model, exploration and exploitation

can be achieved following a sequential process

(Gupta, Smith, & Shalley, 2006). The notion of

sequential ambidexterity asserts that organiza-

tions can achieve ambidexterity in a sequential

manner by shifting structures over time. However,

“how sequential ambidexterity occurs and what

the transition looks like” (O’Reilly & Tushman,

2013, p. 327) remains a theoretical puzzle. To be

explicit, what does it mean to go from exploita-

tion to exploration? Our study fills this impor-

tant gap in organizational ambidexterity by

investigating the boundary of and the interplay