Chapter 6 Acquisitions as Corporate Entrepreneurship

Playing a double game? Pursuing innovation through ambidexterity in an international acquisition program from the Arabian Gulf Region

“…Ambidexterity has been envisioned as a bedrock capability for innovation by enabling both finding/obtaining (exploration) and diffusing/applying (exploitation) new technologies (Puranam and Srikanth, ; Choi and McNamara, ). Single acquisitions typically concentrate on one aspect only (King et al, ), while acquisition programs can encompass innovation‐driven exploration and exploitation alike. Studying ambidexterity at the acquisition program level is important because, at the single deal level, pursuing dual capabilities places greater demands on an acquiring firm than if the firm can benefit further from the investment in ambidexterity throughout the course of an innovation‐intensive acquisition program (Bauer et al, ).…”

“…Enhanced survival can ensue from a portfolio of integration approaches enabling exploration of new, often distant, knowledge alongside exploitation of existing knowledge, and counterbalancing tighter structures and more controls (Junni et al, ) with looser integration mechanisms (Vanhaverbeke et al, ; Phene et al, ). In essence, an acquisition program involves acquirers subsuming targets in different ways and to different extents for exploratory versus exploitative purposes (Brueller et al, ; King et al, ). In acquisition research, ambidexterity – structural, temporal, or contextual – addresses the spectrum of challenges accompanying acquisition integration (Meglio et al, ) and strategic renewal (Meglio and Park, in press).…”