Separated, yet integrated: exploring how ambidextrous firms manage integration of structurally separated units for exploration
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Mattus, Lisa
Olausson, Astrid
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
n the pursuit of long-term survival in the ever-changing turbulent business environment faced by
contemporary firms, many turn to the concept of ambidexterity, seeking to optimize incremental
and radical innovation simultaneously to compete in the present as well as the future. While
extensive research has emphasized the need for structurally separating explorative and exploitative
activities to succeed with becoming ambidextrous, scholars have pointed to the importance of a
carefully managed interface between the two to facilitate the development and eventual transfer
of radical innovation, as well as enable the enacting of synergies. However, empirical evidence
on how companies actually organize and manage this balance between integration, to enable
cross-fertilization, and separation, to mitigate the risks of cross-contamination, in practice is
lacking.
The Volvo Group is an established firm with a long history of pursuing an explicit ambidextrous
innovation strategy to achieve long-term performance. Currently, the Emerging Technology team,
dedicated to the most radical form of innovation within the Volvo Group Trucks Technology
(GTT) department, is revamping its operations to propel the organization’s technological advance-
ment.
Thereby, this multiple-case study, conducted on four companies in various industries, aims
to explore how innovative, established companies with ambidextrous ambitions organize and
manage the integration of structurally separated units for explorative innovation with the core
operational business, as well as what major challenges these companies encounter in balancing
separation and integration. Through 20 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders in the
integration process across all examined cases, and subsequent thematic analysis, the findings
show that all companies examined employ both formal and informal mechanisms for integrat-
ing separated exploratory units with the operational structures. Further, the results reveal three
prominent challenges impacting the success of these integrative efforts.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Innovation , ambidexterity , integration , interface management , balance , exploration , exploitation, , cross-functional interface