Summary: Structural Differentiation And Ambidexterity: The Mediating Role Of Integration Mechanisms

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• 1 Introduction

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• What are ambidextrous organizations?

  They generate competitive advantages through revolutionary and evolutionary change, or exploratory and exploitative innovation.

• Why do exploration and exploitation create paradoxical challenges?

  Because they require fundamentally different and inconsistent architectures and competencies.

• 2 Literature Review

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• Which 2 primary contenders of realizing a balance between exploratory and exploitative innovations are suggested by Gupta et al. (2006)?

  1. Punctuated equilibrium
  2. Ambidexterity

• Where does punctuated equilibrium refer to?

  A sequential pattern of longer periods of exploitation and short bursts of exploration.

• Where does structural differentiation refer to?

  The state of segmentation of the organizational system into subsystems, each of which tends to develop particular attributes in relation to the requirements posed by its relevant external environment.

• What does the dynamic capabilities framework argue?

  That dynamic capabilities, which are embedded in the distinct ways that organizations integrate, build, and recombine competences flexibly across boundaries, are fundamental to long-term strategic advantage

• What is organizational ambidexterity?

  A dynamic capability that creates valuable new configurations of exploratory and exploitative innovation by generating and connecting previously unconnected ideas and knowledge or recombining previously connected knowledge in new ways.

• Where does organizational ambidexterity refer to?

  To the routines and processes by which organizations mobilize, coordinate, and integrate dispersed exploratory and exploitative efforts, and allocate, reallocate, combine, and recombine resources and assets across differentiated units. 

• Why does achieving ambidexterity create paradoxical situations?

  Because the short-term efficiency and control focus of exploitative units is at odds with the long-term experimental focus and decentralized architectures of exploratory units. 

• What are the four types of integration mechanisms along two dimensions?

  • (1) Senior team versus (2) organizational
    
  • (3) Formal versus (4) informal integration mechanisms as common features of organizational ambidexterity