Dynamic Ambidexterity : How Innovators Manage Exploration and Exploitation

Firms need to excel at both exploration and exploitation to ensure their long-run survival and prosperity. However, firms often have difficulties in doing so because they have to accommodate the contradictory logics of exploration and exploitation. In this article, we examine the logics of exploration and exploitation, evaluate the difficulties of accommodating both logics, and identify dynamic ambidexterity as a new way to overcome these difficulties. To achieve dynamic ambidexterity, firms need to support structural ambidexterity at the corporate level, contextual ambidexterity at the business-unit level, and sequential ambidexterity at the project level. We believe that the notion of dynamic ambidexterity and its managerial practices can help firms manage exploration and exploitation and ensure their long-run survival and prosperity