The role of HRM in facilitating team ambidexterity

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12128
• Date: 01 April 2017
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Author: Frances Jørgensen,Karen Becker

The role of HRM in facilitating team ambidexterity

Frances Jørgensen, Faculty of Management, School of Business, Royal Roads

University

Karen Becker, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 27,no 2, 2017, pages 264–280

Although the roleof HRM in supporting ambidexterityhas been loosely conceptualised,little is known about

how HRM contributes to exploitative and explorative activities in practice. Further, whereas research has

linked HRM to innovation broadly at individual and organisational levels, there has been minimal focus on

how HRM supports innovation in teams.Using qualitative case studies in two software development firms,

we examine how different approachesto HRM support different types of ambidexterity in teams. The findings

demonstratethat there is no one bestway for HRM to facilitateteam ambidexterity,but it is critical to alignthe

HRM practices with the team context. Additionally, our findings suggest that while an integrated HRM

system that exploits synergies between HRM practices can encourage ambidexterity for some organisations,

an approach aimed at emphasising the independent effects of a few key HRM practices may be an effective

alternative forothers.

Contact: FrancesJørgensen, QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology,2 George

Street, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia. E-mail: frances.jorgensen@royalroads.ca

Keywords:HRM and innovation;ambidexterity; teams; qualitative casestudies; qualitative research

methods; thematic analysis

INTRODUCTION

Research hasdemonstrated that HRM can contributeto a firm’s innovation capacityand

performance(Laursen and Foss, 2003;Shipton et al., 2006), yet less is known abouthow

HRM supports the exploitation of current capabilities and exploration of new

opportunities, both of which are essential for innovation. This phenomenon is commonly

referred to as ambidexterity, which Tushman and O’Reilly (1996: 24) define as ‘the ability to

simultaneouslypursue both incrementaland discontinuous innovationand change’. However,

as Turner et al. (2013) demonstrate, HRM scholars have only played a minor role in the

conversation around ambidexterity, and for those who have (e.g. Kang and Snell, 2009), the

primary focus has beenon developing conceptual models.

In addition, muchof the research in the area of ambidexterity has useda macro-perspective,

and only veryrecently has consideration been givento the group or project team level(Liu and

Leitner,2012; Fiset and Dostaler,2013; Fay et al., 2015). Indeed, in their introduction to a special

issue on therole of HRM in supporting ambidexterity,Junni et al. (2015) remarkedon the dearth

of studies addressing how HRM supports teams in balancing exploitation and exploration.

Understandinghow HRM can support both types of innovation from a meso-level perspective

is important, as firms today rely heavily on teams (Mohrman et al., 1995; Cox et al., 2003;

Ilgen et al., 2005). There is also considerable support for the notion that successful innovation

at the organisational level is linked with effective teamwork (Taggar, 2002; West et al., 2008).

Still, while scholars have emphasisedthe importance of using HRM systems tailored to teams

(e.g. Delarue et al., 2008; Richter et al., 2011), there remain more questions than answers as to

how HRM can support innovation in teams, and specifically how HRM enables team

ambidexterity.

264 HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL 27, NO 2, 2017

©2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.

Pleasecite this articlein press as: Jørgensen,F. and Becker,K. (2017) ‘Therole of HRMin facilitatingteamambidexterity’.HumanResource Management

Journal 27: 2, 264–280

doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12128

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In this article, we address this gap by investigating how HRM can support teams’

engagement in both exploitative and explorative activities. To do so, we use a contingency

perspective on HRM (Delery and Doty, 1996; Lepak et al., 2005) that emphasises alignment of

HRM with the specific organisational context, and in this case, the team context specifically.

Building on this approach, we focus on how HRM practices aligned with characteristics of

the team, and team structure and composition in particular, support the different types of

ambidexterity identified in the literature. Although our intent is not to compare team-level

ambidexterity with ambidexterity at the organisational level, our study is based on the

assumption that the HRM practices that support team ambidexterity may differ from those

used to support organisational ambidexterity due to the nature of teams, and the potential

interdependence of tasks and collaborative efforts required to balance exploitative and

explorative behaviours.

THE PARADOX OF AMBIDEXTERITY

The term ambidexterity in an organisational context can be tracedback to Duncan (1976) who

suggested that organisations needed to balance being efficient in meeting current business

needs (exploitation) and being sufficiently adaptive to meet future needs (exploration). It

was, however, March (1991) who brought ambidexterity to the fore in the context of

organisational learning and led the interest seen today in this phenomenon. In particular, he

questioned how organisations could effectively allocate resources to each of the seemingly

opposing activities when both are necessary to ensure organisational adaption and survival.

The dilemma,He andWong (2004) explain, is that explorationinvolves a willingnessto search,

experiment and task risks, while exploitation requires a focus on refining and improving

systems, processes or products already in existence. As the focus on ambidexterity has

deepened, a more nuanced discussion has evolved including a focus on understanding the

tensions or paradoxes created by these seemingly contradictory undertakings (e.g.

Andriopoulos and Lewis, 2009; Raisch et al., 2009; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2013).

More specifically, while early works on ambidexterity were primarily focused at the

organisational level (e.g. Duncan, 1976; March, 1991; Tushman and O’Reilly,1996),thereisa

growing acknowledgement of the potentialfor ambidexterity to exist at thebusiness unit level

(e.g. Gibsonand Birkinshaw, 2004;Kostopoulos et al., 2015) or even at the levelof the individual

(e.g. Lubatkin et al., 2006; Mom et al., 2009; Holmqvist and Spicer, 2012). Further, while

ambidexterity was originally viewed as introducing competing demands, and was often

portrayed as an evolution (i.e. that organisations evolve and move from exploitation to

exploration sequentially as seen in thework of Duncan, 1976), an alternate viewsuggests that

organisations need to achieve these ends simultaneously, or at least in an iterative way

(Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008; Andriopoulos andLewis, 2009).

Two key approachesto achieving simultaneous ambidexterity have emerged: structural (or

architectural) and contextual (or behavioural) ambidexterity. Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004)

explain that structural ambidexterity can be achieved by either task partitioning or temporal

separation. Whereas task partitioning involves assigning the separate tasks of exploring and

exploiting to separate areas within the team or work unit, temporal separation involves the

entire team or work unit focusing on one activity in a set period of time before switching to

the alternate. In contrast to structural ambidexterity, contextual ambidexterity exists when

the organisationsupports exploration and exploitation within the sameunits or areas, creating

environmentswhere exploration andexploitation co-exist and individuals or teams balancethe

activities (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004).The prevailing assumptionin the literature (e.g. Kang

FrancesJørgensen and Karen Becker

HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL27, NO 2, 2017 265

©2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.