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Building an Ambidextrous Organisation
WP No. 003-June-2004
Julian Birkinshaw, Christina Gibson
For a firm to succeed over the long term it needs to master two diametrically opposed qualities, adaptability and alignment - an attribute that is sometimes referred to as ambidexterity. The trouble is, it's very difficult to strike a good balance between the two. Focus too much on alignment and the short-term results will look good, but changes in the industry will blindside your sooner or later. Equally, too much attention to the adaptability side of the equation means building tomorrow's business at the expense of today's.
The concept of organizational ambidexterity - which represents the optimal balance between adaptability and alignment - has been around for many years, but the evidence suggests that most companies have failed to apply it, and remain as one-handed as ever. In this paper, we report on a major study that sought to shed new light on the phenomenon. We developed a new way of conceptualising ambidexterity, and we polled more than 400 people in ten multinational companies, with a view to understanding how a business can become truly ambidextrous.
Abstract
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