Ambidexterity Across Levels and Over Time

Abstract

Ambidexterity is a multilevel capacity for balancing competing imperatives such as adaptability and alignment. If left unmanaged, these imperatives create tensions that challenge performance and continued viability. The construct of ambidexterity has a long and varied history in the organizational literature, generating hundreds of articles, meta-analyses, and literature reviews. Findings regarding performance effects are mixed, and research has been plagued by fragmentation due to different levels of analysis and operationalizations, and samples derived from vastly different economic and industry environments. Many open issues remain, with critics arguing for greater conceptual clarity, multilevel frameworks, and more contemporary perspectives that account for an ever-changing organizational environment. Our review assesses progress in the field, integrating macro-, meso- and micro-level approaches to ambidexterity, providing particular attention to recent research on team- and individual-level applications of the concept. In doing so, we aim to expand our understanding of ambidexterity to include an embedded, contingent, episodic perspective.