Ambidexterity as practice : individual ambidexterity through paradoxical practices

Following the turn to practice in organization theory and the emerging interest in the microfoundations of ambidexterity, understanding the role of individuals in realizing ambidexterity approaches becomes crucial. Drawing insights from Greek philosophy on paradoxes, and practice theory on paradoxes and ambidexterity, we propose a view of individual ambidexterity grounded in paradoxical practices. Existing conceptualizations of ambidexterity are largely based on separation strategies. Contrary to this perspective, we argue that individual ambidexterity can be accomplished via paradoxical practices that renegotiate or transcend boundaries of exploration and exploitation. We identify three such paradoxical practices at the individual level that can advance understanding of ambidexterity: engaging in “hybrid tasks,” capitalizing cumulatively on previous learning, and adopting a mindset of seeking synergies between the competing demands of exploration and exploitation

Paradox as a Metatheoretical Perspective

Organizations are rife with tensions – flexibility vs. control, exploration vs. exploitation, autocracy vs. democracy, social vs. financial, global vs. local. Researchers have long responded using contingency theory, asking “under what conditions should managers emphasize either A or B?” Yet increasingly studies apply a paradox perspective, shifting the question to: “how can we engage both A and B simultaneously?” Despite accumulating exemplars, commonalities across paradox studies remain unclear, and ties unifying this research community weak. To energize further uses of a paradox perspective, we build from past reviews to explicate its role as a metatheory. Contrasting this lens to contingency theory, we illustrate its meta-theoretical nature. We then dive deeper to sharpen the focus and widen the scope of a paradox perspective. Identifying core elements viewed from a paradox perspective – underlying assumptions, central concepts, nature of interrelationships and boundary conditions – offers a guide, informing the practice of paradox research. Next, we illustrate diverse uses of this lens. We conclude by exploring implications and next steps, stressing the rising need for paradox research, as complexity, change and ambiguity intensify demands for both/and approaches in theory and practice

Locating distributed leadership

This special issue addresses a number of the key themes that have been surfacing from the literature on distributed leadership (DL) for some time. Together with those papers selected to be included in this special issue, the authors set out both to explore and contribute to a number of the current academic debates in relation to DL, while at the same time examining the extent to which research on DL has permeated the management field. The paper examines a number of key concepts, ideas and themes in relation to DL and, in so doing, highlights the insights offered through new contributions and interpretations. The paper offers a means by which forms of DL might be conceptualized to be better incorporated into researchers' scholarship and research, and a framework is presented which considers a number of different dimensions of DL, how it may be planned, and how it may emerge, together with how it may or may not align with other organizational activities and aspects. © 2011 The Authors. International Journal of Management Reviews © 2011 British Academy of Management and Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Internal representation and factional faultlines as antecedents for board performance in social enterprises

There is an increasing scholarly interest in how social enterprises manage their hybrid nature. As hybrid organizational forms, social enterprises combine mission-driven social goals and revenue generating activities in a variety of organizational constellations and in diverse institutional contexts. Acknowledging the potentially conflicting demands that institutional environments impose on social enterprises there is an increasing research interest in the existence and proliferation of these conflicting demands at the organizational level. Some researchers have pointed to the importance of particular management practices and governance characteristics – such as authority relations and internal representation – as mechanisms to deal with the conflicting demands at the organizational level. This paper adds to this stream of literature by taking into account the organizational level dynamics of internal representation and the proliferation of factional groups in the boards of directors of hybrid organizational forms and their impact on board performance, ultimately influencing the organizational performance

Institutional complexity and paradox theory: complementarities of competing demands

Organizational success increasingly depends on leaders’ abilities to address competing demands simultaneously. Scholars have applied both institutional theory and paradox theory to better understand the nature and responses to these competing demands. These two lenses diverge in their understanding and responses to tensions. Institutional theory depicts competing demands emerging from divergent field-level pressures and stresses their contradictory and oppositional nature. Organizational responses vary from making tradeoffs and choosing pressures with which to conform to seeking strategies for engaging both and managing conflict. Paradox theory locates competing demands as inherent with organizational systems, surfaced through environmental conditions, individual sensemaking, or relational dialogue. According to these scholars, paradoxes are contradictory, interdependent, and persist over time, demanding strategies for engaging and accommodating tensions but not resolving them. In this essay, we highlight these distinctions and argue that drawing from both of these lenses will results in rich, generative theorizing to better address key challenges in the world. We identify specific areas where future research can benefit from such integration

The role of strategic groups in understanding strategic human resource management

Purpose – This article explores how understanding the challenges faced by companies’ attempts to create competitive advantage through their human resources and HRM practices can be enhanced by insights into the concept of strategic groups within industries. Based within the international hotel industry this study identifies how strategic groups emerge in the analysis of HRM practices and approaches. It sheds light on the value of strategic groups as a way of readdressing the focus on firm and industry level analyses. Design Methodology/Approach – Senior human resource executives and their teams across eight international hotel companies (IHCs) were interviewed in corporate and regional headquarters, with observations and the collection of company documentation complementing the interviews. Findings – The findings demonstrate that strategic groups emerge from analysis of the HRM practices and strategies used to develop hotel general managers (HGMs) as strategic human resources in the international hotel industry. The value of understanding industry structures, dynamics and intermediary levels of analysis are apparent where specific industries place occupational constraints on their managerial resources and limit the range of strategies and expansion modes companies can adopt. Research limitations/implications - This study indicates that further research on strategic groups will enhance the theoretical understanding of strategic human resource management (SHRM) and specifically the forces that act to constrain the achievement of competitive advantage through human resources. A limitation of this study is the dependence on the human resource divisions’ perspectives of realising international expansion ambitions in the hotel industry. Practical implications - This study has implications for companies’ engagement with their executives’ perceptions of opportunities and threats, and suggests companies will struggle to achieve competitive advantage where such perceptions are consistent with their competitors. Originality/value - Developments in strategic human resource management have relied upon the conceptual and theoretical developments in strategic management, however, an understanding of the impact of strategic groups and their shaping of SHRM has not been previously explored

Paradox as invitation to act in problematic change situations

It has been argued that organizational life typically contains paradoxical situations such as efforts to manage change which nonetheless seem to reinforce inertia. Four logical options for coping with paradox have been explicated, three of which seek resolution and one of which ‘keeps the paradox open’. The purpose of this article is to explore the potential for managerial action where the paradox is held open through the use of theory on ‘serious playfulness’. Our argument is that paradoxes, as intrinsic features in organizational life, cannot always be resolved through cognitive processes. What may be possible, however, is that such paradoxes are transformed, or ‘moved on’ through action and as a result the overall change effort need not be stalled by the existence of embedded paradoxes

Organizational settlements: theorizing how organizations respond to institutional complexity

Research on hybrid organizations and institutional complexity commonly depicts the presence of multiple logics within organizations as an exceptional situation. In this essay, we argue that all organizations routinely adhere to multiple institutional logics. Institutional complexity only arises episodically, when organizations embrace a newly salient logic. We propose two concepts to develop this insight. First, we suggest the notion of organizational settlement to refer to the way in which organizations durably incorporate multiple logics. Second, we define organizational hybridization as a change process whereby organizations abandon their existing organizational settlement and transition to a new one, incorporating a newly salient logic. Overall, we propose a shift in attention from the exceptionality of hybrid configurations of multiple logics towards exploring the dynamics of transitions from one state of complexity to another

Contradictions in social enterprise: do they draw in straight lines or circles?

This paper provides a critical perspective on the discourse surrounding the concept of social enterprise. The paper shifts the lens away from numbers to consider how actors see themselves as social enterprises. The authors make sense of the foundations upon which the concept of social enterprise and entrepreneurship is ‘drawn’ – quite literally – by considering linear models and diagrams that analyse social enterprise on a continuum between non-profit (mission) and profit (market) orientation. A great deal has been made of the success and growth of social enterprise. The imagery in the literature reflects an emphasis on growth resulting from ‘the rising tide of commercialisation of non-profit organisations’ (Dees, 1998) with the result that the CBI now includes over 50,000 organisations in a social enterprise sector (SBS, 2005). Despite reports of rapid growth, there is awareness that ‘take-up of social enterprise model … is patchy and fails to reflect the enthusiasm with which it is discussed’ (Stevenson in Westall &amp; Chalkley 2007). We ask why? A methodological approach involving visual drawings by actors reveals stories and sensemaking experiences of social enterprises. Open conversations enabled the researchers to gain deep insights that would not have been as insightful through a quantitative approach. The key findings suggest: Firstly, participants report tensions when pursuing social and economic goals simultaneously. Secondly, whilst some welcome opportunities that are emerging, others perceive substantive threats to the third sector. Thirdly, Social enterprise emerges as a diverse and heterogeneous movement located at the boundaries of public, private and voluntary sectors. At each boundary, different constitutional forms and practices are seen. In conclusion, it is argued that the linear perspective itself gives the impression that there is a ‘patchy’ take up of social enterprise. A heterogeneous perspective reveals that theory and policy development is patchy, rather than social enterprise practices. The unique contribution this research paper offers is within the depth of enquiry and insight into the actual practices provided from those within the field. The critical perspective is taken from the literature and discussed in the settings of the actors in the field which provides practitioners, business support agencies and academics with a different level of empirical investigation that captures an originality and narrative that has barely been explored before.</p

Different Ambidextrous Learning Architectures and the Role of HRM Systems

During the past decade ambidexterity has emerged as the central research stream in organization science to investigate how organizations manage to remain successful over time. By using the lens of organizational learning, ambidexterity can be defined as the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation. However, the link between ambidexterity and the human resource management of a firm is still a blind spot on the ambidexterity research map. To shed light on this issue, we show how different ambidextrous learning architectures can be created and maintained by the means of consistent HRM systems. By doing so, we show how HRM systems as specific bundles of HRM practices facilitate ambidextrous learning. Thereby we emphasize the challenge of creating and sustaining the horizontal and vertical fit of an HRM system with regard to different ambidextrous designs.Ambidexterity; Exploration; Exploitation; Organizational Learning; HRM; Strategic Human Resource Management