Organisational ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process. Evidence from a leading case study

How firms succeed in reconciling the exploitation of existing knowledge with the exploration of new possibilities is an open question in the literature and it represents the core of our paper, the aim of which is to explore how firms have actually achieved ambidexterity capability. In order to do so, we decided to focus on the very early phase of the process where firms search for new ideas with which to renew themselves. In particular, we analysed the search phase of a highly innovative technology-based company by investigating the structural design choices combined with the presence of specific roles and searching practices. The results show how exploration and exploitation can actually be achieved simultaneously and maintained through a multilevel approach that integrates both the operational and the strategic levels. Our findings thus contribute to the organizational ambidexterity literature by proposing a first interpretative model for dealing with ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process.