A balancing act? - A qualitative study examining attitudes and beliefs towards the concept of organizational ambidexterity

Abstract: For firms to be successful they need to be both aligned and efficient in their management of the today's business and at the very same time adaptive to changes in their environment. The trade-off is apparent and has lately seen a great increase in interest as the research field of organizational ambidexterity is starting to take shape. However, little research have up until today been done examining how the concept is perceived in practice within the business community, why, the purpose of my study is to try to bridge this gap. I have conducted a literature study and identified two areas where the lack of research is particularly evident, based on which, my qualitative study has been carried out. Focusing on how the concept of organizational ambidexterity is perceived in general, as well as the different options for achieving it, the results are partly contradicting. Attitudes towards the concept of organizational ambidexterity vary to a large degree; both within the organization as well as to the extent the concept is recognized as important. Also, there is strong evidence in favor of the particular option of parallel structures whereas evidence point in the opposite direction for spatial separation.