Radboud University, Strategic Change (2022-2023) MAN-MST023
Summary 6 perspectives base articles
Table of Contents
Perspective 1: The innovators dilemma. Article: O’Reilly, C. A. and M. L. Tushman (2008).
"Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability: Resolving the innovator's dilemma." Research in
Organizational Behavior 28: 185-206.................................................................................2
Perspective 2: inertia perspective. Gilbert, C. G. (2005). Unbundling the structure of inertia:
Resource versus routine rigidity. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 741-763...........6
Perspective 3: Time dimension. Nadkarni, S., Chen, T. X., & Chen, J. H. (2016). The clock is
ticking! Executive temporal depth, industry velocity, and competitive aggressiveness.
Strategic Management Journal, 37(6), 1132-1153............................................................11
Perspective 4: Change agents. Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). "Managing Change: The Role of the
Change Agent." International Journal of Management, Business and Administration 13(1)
........................................................................................................................................16
Perspective 5: Barriers and drivers. Parry, W., et al. (2013). "Empirical Development of a
Model of Performance Drivers in Organizational Change Projects." Journal of Change
Management 14(1): 99-125..............................................................................................19
Perspective 6: Paradoxes Smith, W. K. (2014). Dynamic Decision Making: A Model of
Senior Leaders Managing Strategic Paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal, 57(6),
1592-1623........................................................................................................................24
1
,Perspective 1: The innovators dilemma. Article: O’Reilly, C. A. and
M. L. Tushman (2008). "Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability:
Resolving the innovator's dilemma." Research in Organizational
Behavior 28: 185-206.
Background & theory development:
Perspective 1: Organizational ecology = most organizations are largely inert and ultimately
fail.
Perspective 2: Some firms do learn and adapt to shifting environmental contexts.
2 themes:
- Dynamic capabilities explain long-term competitive advantage
- Ambidexterity enables a firm to adapt over time
How ambidexterity acts as a dynamic capability
We suggest that efficiency and innovation need not be strategic tradeoffs and highlight
the substantive role of senior teams in building dynamic capabilities.
Thus, what was seen in the 1990s as a debate between two opposite sides (adaptation
versus selection) has evolved into an attempt to understand, both theoretically and
empirically, under what conditions some organizations sustain their competitive advantage
in the face of environmental transitions while others do not.
This is the fundamental tension at the heart of an enterprise’s long-run survival. ‘‘The
basic problem confronting an organization is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure
its current viability and, at the same time, devote enough energy to exploration to
exploration to ensure its future viability
‘established organizations will always specialize in exploitation, in becoming more
efficient in using what they already know. Such organizations will become dominant in the
short-run, but will gradually become obsolescent and fail.’’ In contrast, returns to
exploration are more uncertain, more distant in time, and sometimes a threat to existing
organizational units.
Main topic:
How do organizations survive in the face of change? Can organizations adapt? And if so;
how?
In this paper, we review and integrate these comparatively new research streams and
identify a set of propositions that suggest how ambidexterity acts as a dynamic capability
efficiency and innovation need not be strategic tradeoffs and highlight the substantive
role of senior teams in building dynamic capabilities.
Christensen (1997), the innovators dilemma: described the challenges facing organizations
attempting to adapt to changes in technologies, markets, competition and regulatory
environments.
2
, - He concludes that it is not possible to resolve the ‘‘innovator’s dilemma’’ and argues
that, confronted with a disruptive change, managers cannot simultaneously explore
and exploit. We think ambidexterity is one solution to the innovator’s dilemma.
Key concepts:
Dynamic capabilities:
- The ability of a firm to reconfigure assets and existing capabilities.
- Appropriately adapting, integrating and reconfiguring organizational skills and
resources to match changing environments
- The distinct skills, processes, procedures, organizational structures, decision rules
and disciplines that enable the senior leaders of a firm to identify threats and
opportunities and to reconfigure assets to meet these.
- Difficult to immitate
Dynamic capabilities are reflected in the organization’s ability, manifest in the decisions of
senior management, to maintain ecological fitness and, when necessary, to reconfigure
existing assets and develop the new skills needed to address emerging threats and
opportunities
The ability of senior managers to seize opportunities through the orchestration and
integration of both new and existing assets to overcome inertia and path dependencies is at
the core of dynamic capabilities
these routines are found in the way the organization operates, its structures, cultures,
and the mindset of senior leadership. Existing capabilities reflect the firm’s ability to
compete in the current environment. The challenge for senior leaders is to both nurture and
refine these and to be prepared to reconfigure these assets as contexts shift.
Dynamic capabilities, those processes that permit an enterprise to build, integrate, and
reconfigure organizational assets, offer one way out of the inertial dynamics associated with
success.
Exploitation = about efficiency, increasing productivity, control, certainty, and variance
reduction
- Firms rely on existing competencies or operational capabilities to sell to existing
customers
Exploration = search, discovery, autonomy, innovation and embracing variation
Ambidexterity = the ability of a firm to simultaneously explore and exploit
- Entails not only separate structural subunits for exploration and exploitation but also
different competencies, systems, incentives, processes and cultures—each internally
aligned
- Complex: simultaneously managing two inconsistent alignments
- Clear vision is an important determent of success
- With regard to ambidexterity, a dynamic capability can be seen as a set of actions (or
routines) taken by senior management that permit the enterprise to identify
3
Summary 6 perspectives base articles
Table of Contents
Perspective 1: The innovators dilemma. Article: O’Reilly, C. A. and M. L. Tushman (2008).
"Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability: Resolving the innovator's dilemma." Research in
Organizational Behavior 28: 185-206.................................................................................2
Perspective 2: inertia perspective. Gilbert, C. G. (2005). Unbundling the structure of inertia:
Resource versus routine rigidity. Academy of Management Journal, 48(5), 741-763...........6
Perspective 3: Time dimension. Nadkarni, S., Chen, T. X., & Chen, J. H. (2016). The clock is
ticking! Executive temporal depth, industry velocity, and competitive aggressiveness.
Strategic Management Journal, 37(6), 1132-1153............................................................11
Perspective 4: Change agents. Lunenburg, F. C. (2010). "Managing Change: The Role of the
Change Agent." International Journal of Management, Business and Administration 13(1)
........................................................................................................................................16
Perspective 5: Barriers and drivers. Parry, W., et al. (2013). "Empirical Development of a
Model of Performance Drivers in Organizational Change Projects." Journal of Change
Management 14(1): 99-125..............................................................................................19
Perspective 6: Paradoxes Smith, W. K. (2014). Dynamic Decision Making: A Model of
Senior Leaders Managing Strategic Paradoxes. Academy of Management Journal, 57(6),
1592-1623........................................................................................................................24
1
,Perspective 1: The innovators dilemma. Article: O’Reilly, C. A. and
M. L. Tushman (2008). "Ambidexterity as a dynamic capability:
Resolving the innovator's dilemma." Research in Organizational
Behavior 28: 185-206.
Background & theory development:
Perspective 1: Organizational ecology = most organizations are largely inert and ultimately
fail.
Perspective 2: Some firms do learn and adapt to shifting environmental contexts.
2 themes:
- Dynamic capabilities explain long-term competitive advantage
- Ambidexterity enables a firm to adapt over time
How ambidexterity acts as a dynamic capability
We suggest that efficiency and innovation need not be strategic tradeoffs and highlight
the substantive role of senior teams in building dynamic capabilities.
Thus, what was seen in the 1990s as a debate between two opposite sides (adaptation
versus selection) has evolved into an attempt to understand, both theoretically and
empirically, under what conditions some organizations sustain their competitive advantage
in the face of environmental transitions while others do not.
This is the fundamental tension at the heart of an enterprise’s long-run survival. ‘‘The
basic problem confronting an organization is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure
its current viability and, at the same time, devote enough energy to exploration to
exploration to ensure its future viability
‘established organizations will always specialize in exploitation, in becoming more
efficient in using what they already know. Such organizations will become dominant in the
short-run, but will gradually become obsolescent and fail.’’ In contrast, returns to
exploration are more uncertain, more distant in time, and sometimes a threat to existing
organizational units.
Main topic:
How do organizations survive in the face of change? Can organizations adapt? And if so;
how?
In this paper, we review and integrate these comparatively new research streams and
identify a set of propositions that suggest how ambidexterity acts as a dynamic capability
efficiency and innovation need not be strategic tradeoffs and highlight the substantive
role of senior teams in building dynamic capabilities.
Christensen (1997), the innovators dilemma: described the challenges facing organizations
attempting to adapt to changes in technologies, markets, competition and regulatory
environments.
2
, - He concludes that it is not possible to resolve the ‘‘innovator’s dilemma’’ and argues
that, confronted with a disruptive change, managers cannot simultaneously explore
and exploit. We think ambidexterity is one solution to the innovator’s dilemma.
Key concepts:
Dynamic capabilities:
- The ability of a firm to reconfigure assets and existing capabilities.
- Appropriately adapting, integrating and reconfiguring organizational skills and
resources to match changing environments
- The distinct skills, processes, procedures, organizational structures, decision rules
and disciplines that enable the senior leaders of a firm to identify threats and
opportunities and to reconfigure assets to meet these.
- Difficult to immitate
Dynamic capabilities are reflected in the organization’s ability, manifest in the decisions of
senior management, to maintain ecological fitness and, when necessary, to reconfigure
existing assets and develop the new skills needed to address emerging threats and
opportunities
The ability of senior managers to seize opportunities through the orchestration and
integration of both new and existing assets to overcome inertia and path dependencies is at
the core of dynamic capabilities
these routines are found in the way the organization operates, its structures, cultures,
and the mindset of senior leadership. Existing capabilities reflect the firm’s ability to
compete in the current environment. The challenge for senior leaders is to both nurture and
refine these and to be prepared to reconfigure these assets as contexts shift.
Dynamic capabilities, those processes that permit an enterprise to build, integrate, and
reconfigure organizational assets, offer one way out of the inertial dynamics associated with
success.
Exploitation = about efficiency, increasing productivity, control, certainty, and variance
reduction
- Firms rely on existing competencies or operational capabilities to sell to existing
customers
Exploration = search, discovery, autonomy, innovation and embracing variation
Ambidexterity = the ability of a firm to simultaneously explore and exploit
- Entails not only separate structural subunits for exploration and exploitation but also
different competencies, systems, incentives, processes and cultures—each internally
aligned
- Complex: simultaneously managing two inconsistent alignments
- Clear vision is an important determent of success
- With regard to ambidexterity, a dynamic capability can be seen as a set of actions (or
routines) taken by senior management that permit the enterprise to identify
3
