Relative Ambidexterity: A Measure and a Versatile Framework

Organisational Ambidexterity in the UK Financial Services: A Corporate Level Perspective

“…The comparative case study method approach has provided novel insights into how exploitation/explorations efforts are triggered to account for firms' organisational antecedents and environmental contingencies that impact on the choice of ideal forms of OA. In this way, we think that our complimentary findings, as a result of an innovative approach (i.e., corporate level analysis), connect with recent theoretical discourse (D'Souza et al, 2017) and contribute additional insights for future theorising. One of the limitations is represented by an old data set which might have implications for the generalisation of the findings.…”

“…We contribute to raising the theoretical discourse from a lower level, which is internal-organisational centric, to the higher corporate level that is closer to an environmental-centric focus (D'Souza et al, 2017). In doing so, we show that forms of OA, CD and BD, are influenced by the firm's strategic choice to compete in specific competitive market segments.…”

“…(1) This study shows that large retail financial services exhibit either a CD or BD of ambidexterity and the attainment of one or the other dimension is a firm's strategic choice (D'Souza et al 2017) that depends on the dynamics of competition in specific market segments. Particularly, we propose that under environments characterised by resource munificence and competitiveness, firms pursuing a focus differentiation strategy achieve a CD of OA, whereas firms pursuing a cost leadership strategy achieve a BD of OA.…”

“…Furthermore, we argue, that these efforts should be considered within the overall corporate strategic posture that a firm chooses to adopt in response to certain market competitive dynamics. We propose that such theoretical positioning will also contribute to moving the scholarly discourse from an internal organisational-centric focus closer to an external environmental-centric one that is based on the industry and external benchmarks (D'Souza et al 2017). We propose that such theoretical positioning will also contribute to moving the scholarly discourse from an internal organisational-centric focus closer to an external environmental-centric one that is based on the industry and external benchmarks (D'Souza et al 2017).…”

“…In this regard, our qualitative methodological approach complements and enriches quantitative investigations of the performance-OA relationship. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first qualitative study that responds to calls of considering firm's ambidexterity as a strategic choice that must be contextualised in the competitive dynamics of the firm's referent group (D'Souza et al, 2017). Having followed Gibbert and Ruigrok's (2010) recommendation, this study privileged internal validity over external validity.…”