Organizational Ambidexterity. A Managerial Act of Balance

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, language: English, abstract: The overarching goal of this qualitative review study is not only to review the relevant literature, but also to organize, structure and integrate findings in order to gain a better understanding for what ambidexterity really is and ultimately to give managerial guidance. The following three research questions will be particularly addressed throughout the study: What is the current state of the art of the ambidexterity concept? What are the underlying problems that result in stagnation in research progress in this field? How can managers learn from the ambidexterity research? The study is divided in three main parts. Part I, Praeludium, gives a basic understanding for the importance of this topic (chapter 1), illustrates the general underlying concepts, and shows a short historical retrospect of the research fields development (chapter 3). In part II, A comprehensive overview of the current ambidexterity research field, the relevant literature is reviewed and the fields structure analyzed (chapter 4). Further, the tension of the exploration-exploitation integration will be discussed (chapter 5) and an extensive model that interconnects the most relevant influencing and moderating factors on ambidexterity and firm performance will be developed (Chapter 6). Based on these executions, dysfunctional underlying concepts and deficits of the literature field will be outlined in chapter 7. Hereafter, in the final part III, Implications of the thesis, at first practical implications for managers (chapter 8) and implications for science (chapter 9) that prevail from the thesis, are given. At the end, limitations as well as avenues for future research (chapter 10) are outlined. These three parts are constitutive and can be logically connected as seen in figure 1.