Organizational ambidexterity has emerged as a valuable contemporary lens on organizational design and action, examining the dynamic relationships between exploitative (extant) and explorative (evolving) resources within organizational contexts and environments. This paper analyzes the literature pertaining to ambidexterity and underlines a number of recurrent preoccupations including: definition of the nature, characteristics and normative boundaries of organizational ambidexterity; a predilection towards considering inter-firm/unit comparisons of large-scale corporate organizations; and, a concentration on the significance of the managerialistic role of senior management team's disposition and action-orientations. While a few calls have been made for a focus on the micro, predominant attention has remained on the macroaspects of organizational ambidexterity.The aim of the paper, therefore, is to conduct a complementary study that considers the boundaries and transitions between exploitative and explorative modes at the intra-organizational, individual micro-behavioral level. To facilitate this, the paper surfaces and underscores the paradigmatic modernistic characterization of large areas of the current organizational ambidexterity literature and the implications of this. Moreover, it explores alternative potentially useful critical paradigms which assist in providing tools with which to examine the 'micro'. The research conducts an ethnographic-style study of quasi-public training and development organization in order to illustrate the above background contexts and the micro-interface and boundary of explorative and exploitative modes of organizational ambidexterity in the intraorganizational situation. Within this, the study points up the significance of the role of sensemaking in operational micro-moment individual and small-group situations, and their vital influence in ultimately underpinning, and contributing to, macro-organizational ambidextrous contexts.

This empirical paper examines the drivers underpinning changes to socially responsible behaviours in the Russian energy sector. Responding to recent requests to contextualise corporate social responsibility (CSR) research, we focus on the changing set of stakeholders and developments in their saliency as reflected in corporations' CSR activities. Based on interviews with more than 30 industry professionals, our findings suggest that Russian energy companies' CSR is strongly stakeholder-driven, and organisations adapt their activities according to their dependence on the resources that these salient stakeholders possess.We challenge the proposition that CSR in Russia arises from purely endogenous, historical, paternalism, or neo-paternalism. We identify stakeholders that now shape CSR in the Russian energy sector, both endogenous (institutional and contextual forces relevant to the national business system) and exogenous (relating to the organisational field of the energy industry-international by nature). We thereby contribute to the convergence/divergence debate within CSR theory by demonstrating that both national business systems and the organisational field must be taken into account when analysing the forces that shape CSR strategies in any one country.

Relationships based on notions of trust represent a central aspect of the communitarian model of industrial districts. Examination of trust has generated a substantial literature; nevertheless, there have been relatively few studies that have empirically considered the sources of trust that operate in local ties and connections. The paper aims to redress this imbalance by investigating relationships in the Arve Valley industrial district near Geneva. It considers sources of trust by engaging the theoretical framework of Mö llering's (Mö llering, G. 2006a. Trust: Reason, Routine, Reflexivity. Oxford: Elsevier) model of trust which is predicated on the concepts of reason, routine and reflexivity. In conjunction with this, the field research uses in-depth semidirective interviews with small-firm managers in the Arve industrial district. The paper's findings contribute to trust and industrial district literature by examining the complex interplay between the three antecedents of reason, routine and reflexivity in the creation of local trust in the industrial district setting. In essence, the paper proposes that the availability of information about potential partners and the existence of strong interdependencies inform trust decisions based on evaluation and calculation more than local norms and institutions.

This paper examines conflict management in small firm networks. Informal conflict management strategies used in exchange relationships are identified and analysed. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with 22 SME managers in an industrial district in the southeast of France are analysed. Results point to managers adopting accommodating behaviours in conflicts with clients and compromising and collaborative strategies with local partners. This research reveals the mobilisation of local norms in the management of conflicts and also contributes to research concerning coopetition and the possibility that managers of small firms may both separate and integrate coopetition activities.

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