Bower and Christensen ( 1995) | Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | The key to prospering at points of disruptive change is to build a disruptive new business in an independent organization keeping it away from the mainstream business |
Tushman and O’Reilly ( 1996) | California Management Review | Empirical | Multiple case studies | Ambidextrous organizations enable companies to simultaneously pursue incremental and discontinuous innovation. This requires hosting multiple contradictory structures, processes, and cultures within the same company |
Christensen and Overdorf ( 2000) | Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | To ensure success when facing disruptive change, a spinout organization and a heavyweight team helps to tackle the challenge |
Christensen et al. ( 2002) | MIT Sloan Management Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Companies pursue streams of sustainable innovation within business units and disruptive innovation in new units, for which a team responsible for collecting ideas for disruptive innovation will be established at the corporate level |
| Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Separation from the parent organization can be beneficial to both the core organization and the new venture if a leader who acts as an integrator actively manages the tensions between them |
Nickerson and Zenger ( 2002) | Organization Science | Conceptual | Case examples | Organizations need to combine elements of formal and informal organization. By shifting between discrete phases of either exploration or exploitation, managers dynamically position the informal organization at levels that are close to optimum functionality |
| MIT Sloan Management Review | Conceptual | Case examples | A company can create an autonomous unit that is later reintegrated or an internal unit that remains in that form to effectively respond to changes that could upend an industry |
Siggelkow and Levinthal ( 2003) | Organization Science | Empirical | Agent-based simulation | An initial phase of decentralized exploration followed by reintegration is an effective way of exploring and exploiting with long-term benefits. Therefore, exploration and exploitation are achieved not simultaneously but sequentially by adopting different organizational structures |
Gibson and Birkinshaw ( 2004) | Academy of Management Journal | Empirical | Interviews | Organizational ambidexterity can be achieved by building processes or systems that support individuals in overcoming the tensions associated with ambidexterity. Hence an organization’s capacity to simultaneously achieve exploitation and exploration is best achieved through contextual ambidexterity |
Macher and Richman ( 2004) | International Journal of Innovation Management | Empirical | Multiple case studies | The internal venture is a structure characterized by a separate department or project that is organizationally or geographically separate from the organization’s core business |
Markides and Charitou ( 2004) | Academy of Management Perspectives | Empirical | Surveys and multiple case study | Simultaneously pursuing two business models that have inherent conflicts and market dissimilarities requires a nuanced contingency approach. This approach enables companies to balance the benefits of keeping the two business models separate while at the same time integrating them enough to exploit synergies |
O’Reilly and Tushman ( 2004) | Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Multiple case examples | Ambidextrous organizations encompass two different types of businesses requiring different strategies, cultures, structures, and processes: exploitative business focusing on exploiting existing capabilities for profit and exploratory business focused on exploring new opportunities for growth |
Govindarajan and Trimble ( 2005) | Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Established companies that set up new businesses with the potential to deliver breakthrough growth must face three challenges: to forget what made the established company successful, to borrow important assets from the established company, and to learn new things from scratch |
| Academy of Management Journal | Conceptual | Literature review | It depends on the context whether ambidexterity or punctuated equilibrium serves as the more appropriate balancing mechanism between exploitation and exploration |
| Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Organizations need to set up a separate business unit that operates in an entirely different way to avoid cannibalizing its traditional business |
O’Reilly and Tushman ( 2008) | Research in Organizational Behavior | Conceptual | Literature review | Ambidextrous organizations require dynamic capabilities to recombine and integrate the resources to adapt to market and technological changes to simultaneously compete in mature and emerging markets |
Raisch and Birkinshaw ( 2008) | Journal of Management | Conceptual | Literature review | Dynamic alignment to exploitation and exploration is an alternative solution to static ambidexterity configurations |
| Organization Science | Empirical | Survey | Individual level ambidexterity arises from the ability of managers to engage in both high levels of exploratory and exploitative activities |
| Long Range Planning | Conceptual | Case examples | The solution is to switch between different, parallel but separate business models to flexibly allocate products and market segments |
| MIT Sloan Management Review | Empirical | Multiple case study | An organization that can compete with dual business models needs to put culture, structures, incentives, and people in place to encourage ambidextrous behaviors |
| Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Established companies set up organizational structures to build dedicated teams focused primarily on new-growth initiatives |
| Research Technology Management | Conceptual | Case examples | A company seeking a low-cost model while maintaining its existing business should create two distinct organizations |
| Advances in Strategic Management | Empirical | Single case Study | Organizational ambidexterity should be managed through individuals who can choose their time allocation between activities aimed at improving current businesses or developing new businesses |
O’Reilly and Tushman ( 2011) | California Management Review | Empirical | Multiple case study | Ambidexterity is more likely to be successful under five conditions: a compelling strategic intent, common vision and values, senior team owning the unit's strategy, separate but aligned organizational architectures, and a senior leadership that can resolve tensions between units |
Casadesus-Masanell and Tarzijan ( 2012) | Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case example | To operate tandem business models requires assessing the extent to which the business models share physical assets and the extent to which resources and capabilities of the company are compatible |
| Harvard Business Review | Conceptual | Case examples | Dual transformation allows companies to harness disruptions and build enterprises that prosper in the long run. A capabilities exchange process enables sharing resources across transformations without interfering with each other’s operations |
| Strategic Entrepreneur-ship Journal | Empirical | Surveys | Incumbent performance improves after a new business model is added when the incumbent firm agilely capitalizes on complementary assets and adaptively manages conflicting assets by setting up an autonomous business unit for the new business |
Osiyevskyy and Dewald ( 2015) | Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal | Empirical | Surveys | Exploratory aims are driven by opportunity perception, risk experience, and perceived performance-reducing threat, while exploitative aims are negatively associated with perceived threat and industry tenure and positively associated with risk experience |
Brunekreeft et al. ( 2016) | Energy Journal | Empirical | Multiple case study | Incumbents in Germany’s electricity supply industry are facing disruptive challenges and are responding by splitting their core business into two companies |
| Long Range Planning | Empirical | Survey | The spin-off of an autonomous growth group is essential for supporting large enterprises in the introduction of disruptive business model innovation |
| Information Systems Journal | Empirical | Multiple case study | Dynamic ambidexterity enables companies to dynamically adjust to a certain point along the exploitation/exploration continuum to cope with changes in the internal and external environment |
Reficco and Gutiérrez ( 2016) | Organization & Environment | Empirical | Multiple case study | Organizational ambidexterity assures the coexistence of the emerging and the established business model in a company only when the business units are strategically and operationally aligned to create synergies between established and emergent businesses |
| Journal of Business Models | Empirical | Single case study | A German original equipment manufacturer creates a new business model alongside the old, established business model, effectively operating two business models in parallel |
Christensen et al. ( 2018) | Journal of Management Studies | Conceptual | Literature review | Work on incumbent response strategies to disruptive innovation has enriched the existing discourse by pointing out various potential incumbent reactions beyond the creation of an autonomous organizational unit |
| Journal of Management Studies | Empirical | Single case study | Temporal separation is possible in phase one of the business model adaption process while simultaneity is inevitable in phase two, when the more advanced disruption process creates threats and makes new exploration unavoidable |
| Journal of Strategic Innovation & Sustainability | Empirical | Interviews and literature review | Requirements of digital transformation and disruptive business model innovation are based on the dimensions of innovation process, organizational structure, resources, hygiene factors/rewards, people and culture, strategy, and the external ecosystem |
| Journal of Product Innovation Management | Empirical | Surveys | Autonomous teams possess characteristics that enable organizations to deal with uncertainty and equivocality. With the high degree of autonomy, leadership, independence, and dedication, the team has more freedom and stronger capabilities to be innovative and entrepreneurial |
| Organization Science | Empirical | Compu-tational method | Organizational structure is a key determinant of achieving organizational ambidexterity. Hybrid organizations offer mechanisms for achieving a high degree of both exploration and exploitation (i.e., ambidexterity) at the same place and time |
Birkinshaw and Gupta ( 2013) | Academy of Management Perspectives | Conceptual | Literature review | Ambidexterity is a construct that transpires at multiple levels in the organization simultaneously. It can be managed in many ways and is achieved through managerial capability |
| Academy of Management Perspectives | Conceptual | Literature review | Ambidextrous companies need to achieve the right balance between separation to overcome the challenges of the two business models and integration to exploit synergies between the business models |
O’Reilly and Tushman ( 2013) | Academy of Management Perspectives | Conceptual | Literature review | Organizational ambidexterity represents a complex set of routines and decisions that encourage the company to seize and sense new opportunities through the reallocation of organizational assets |
| Long Range Planning | Empirical | Single case study | Aligning the differentiation of the new business model while simultaneously leveraging synergies from the existing business model requires mechanisms such as transcendence, separation, and integration, which facilitate the management of the cannibalization process and the parallel running of different business models |
| International Journal of Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management | Empirical | Multiple case studies | Incumbents adapting a disruptive technology-driven business model innovation externally acquire disruptive specific competences and separate the disruptive unit structurally from the established company, whereas incumbents embracing a disruptive market-driven business model innovation leverage initial core capabilities and integrate disruptive innovation within the established company’s structure |
| R&D Management | Empirical | Single case study | Recursive iterations between different forms of separated and integrated structures are necessary for dealing with two competing business models |
| Creativity & Innovation Management | Empirical | Single case study | Double ambidexterity enables companies to master business model innovations and technological innovations to survive discontinuous developments and maintain the firm performance |
| Journal of Management Studies | Empirical | Single case study | The success of incumbents’ responses to disruption depends on their capability for managing internal misalignment. This allows them to handle the inconsistencies in strategic direction, organizational structure, and resource configuration associated with a complex innovation process |
| Journal of Business Research | Empirical | Survey | Disruptive innovations evolve in organizational environments with separated, parallel structures or with empowered individuals who can take the initiative and identify opportunities outside their field of activity |
| Journal of Business Research | Empirical | Single case study | Servitization is a business model transformation but an emergent and iterative process for managing parallel business models. Yet, this process involves conflicts between the dominant product-based business model and the emerging service-based business model |
| International Journal of Innovation & Technology Management | Empirical | Interviews | In response to the first wave of disruptive innovation, incumbents have established structural ambidextrous organizations with dedicated business units to explore the new potential opportunities |
| Journal of Engineering & Technology Management | Conceptual | Case examples | To deal with disruptive innovation requires companies to achieve simultaneous innovation through both exploratory learning and exploitative learning |
| Business Horizons | Conceptual | Case examples | Established companies can respond effectively to disruptive business models by simultaneously operating two incompatible business models in separate units |
| Journal of Engineering & Technology Management | Empirical | Single case study | Established companies can develop new business models in a two-stage process through separation and subsequent integration |
| South African Journal of Business Management | Empirical | Interviews | The organization can be structured as a dual operating system characterized by a temporal and spatial separation of exploration and exploitation priorities to allow for ambidexterity |
Carraresi and Bröring ( 2021) | Journal of Cleaner Production | Empirical | Multiple case study | Incumbents could operate the circular business models in parallel with the current linear business models, developing the capability of ambidexterity at the business model level |
| Creativity & Innovation Management | Empirical | Secondary data | The creation of a spin-off allows established companies to successfully circumvent resource and routine rigidities, and at the same time, the spin-off benefits from leveraging the resources and relationships of the established company |
| Research in Hospitality Management | Empirical | Interviews | Dual structures allow a company to place digitalization outside of the company's core activities in order not to limit innovation |
| Journal of Business Research | Conceptual | Literature review | Developing disruptive business models requires specific organizational structures such as autonomous business units that are separate from headquarters to enable experimentation and rapid learning, and to avoid cannibalization risks and conflicts |
| European Journal of Innovation Management | Empirical | Interviews | Disruptive innovations may be developed within an integrated innovation unit, an autonomous unit that is integrated at a later step, or within innovation teams which are allowed to pursue potential disruptions even when they conflict with current business operations |