Organizational ambidexterity in construction projects

Abstract

Most organizations need to be ambidextrous by exploiting current knowledge to make profits today as well as exploring new knowledge to prepare for tomorrow's demands. The capacity to achieve both exploration and exploitation is especially problematic in project based organizations due to projects' discontinuous nature. In this study we investigate how exploration and exploitation is managed in inter-organizational projects, through a multiple case study of seven construction projects. Tentative findings show that project actors focus more on exploitation than on exploration and that exploitation often involves adopting conventional methods and solutions without any development efforts. The findings also reveal that investment in explorative innovations must be possible to exploit in the current project, since exploitation in future projects is uncertain.