This research examines the telecommunication industry and uses it as an example in
order to present a general model of how ambidexterity is carried out in the context of open
innovation. This emerging approach to ambidexterity has been particularly evident in the
telecommunication industry where exploration and exploitation activities are established on
information technology structures. Ambidexterity is the idea that successful firms simultaneously
explore new ideas while exploiting existing ones in order to sustain profitability, especially in
dynamic environments. Few studies have discussed ambidexterity that is carried out in contexts
of open innovation. For this reason, this doctoral thesis addresses this gap in our understanding
of ambidexterity, and contributes to it by examining the question: "How do ambidextrous
organizations carry out exploration and exploitation in open innovation environments?"
A new form of ambidexterity has been identified in this study; it is an open ambidextrous
system. It exists in a particularly transparent form around organizations whose innovation
activities are focused on information technology infrastructure, specifically networking
technologies, as has been evident in the telecommunication industry. This presents important
implications for the management information systems (MIS) literature. Open ambidextrous
systems are established by organizations when they manage exploration and exploitation in open
innovation environments. From that understanding ambidexterity has been identified as open.
This offers important insight for the ambidexterity and open innovation literatures. As a result,
organizations that adopt an open ambidextrous system are recognized as performing open
exploration and open exploitation, where the two activities are perceived as two complementing
systems identified as the open exploration system, and the open exploitation system.
Therefore, this research combines insights from the ambidexterity, open innovation, and
management information systems literatures, and contributes to them by offering a new and
alternative view to ambidexterity that is based on the open innovation notion
