Innovation and Global Strategy - Assignment Example

Different alternatives have been proposed by scholars that help in achieving reconciliation between exploitation and exploration at the operational level (Blarr, 2012). Yet, there is no such literature that provides a concise and clear understanding of the phenomenon how organizations develop ambidexterity capability. In this paper is has been studied how organizations use the processes of exploitation and exploration. This study leads to the discussion of how a balance can be practically achieved between the two strategies.

Overview of ambidexterity Organizational ambidexterity is a term that refers to the ability of an organization to manage its business efficiently in the current business scenario and become adaptive to the changing environment so as to cope with the change in demand with time (Andriopoulos and Lewis, 2009). In the literal meaning of the term, ambidexterity is the skill of using the left as well as the right hand equally. In business terms, ambidexterity is the skill that all organizations need to develop to become successful in the competitive business world.

Organizational ambidexterity allows the firms to use the skills of exploitation as well as exploration equally (Wang and Rafiq, 2009; Mom, Bosch and Volberda, 2009). Several terms are related to the development of ambidextrous organization. These aspects are organizational design, knowledge base of the organization and capability to learn, organizational adaptation, technological innovation and strategic management (Dyer and Nobeoka, 2000). Use of exploration and exploitation are two most relevant methods that allow an organization to improve its knowledge base and make new innovations in future.

While a company innovates, it is imperative that it is capable of maintaining its stability (He and Wong, 2004). This implies that an ambidextrous organization should be able to exploit its current advantages and facilities and further develop upon them (Kortmann, 2012; Li, 2013). Different alternatives are provided by various scholars that help to realize the process of simultaneous reconciliation between exploitation and exploration at the operational level within a firm. However, it has not been understood fully how organizations build their ambidexterity capability (Judge and Blocker, 2008).

Exploitation & Exploration Exploration and exploitation are two concepts that are explained in terms of proximity of the knowledge that the company seeks. Exploitation activities help to locally search for knowledge that is familiar to the organization and is mature due to long history of work on this field. Exploration, on the other hand, refers to the search for such knowledge that is “unfamiliar, distant and remote” (Cantarello, Martini and Nosella, 2012, p. 29). Exploration Exploration includes various things like risk taking, bringing variation in knowledge, experimenting, building novelty and flexibility, discovering new methods, selection of the best method and its legitimisation.

This process is radical and often tends to break the