. Thebasic assumption of theories on ambidextrous organizations is the importance ofbalancing and harmonising exploratory and exploitative innovations. Burns andStalker (1961), have claimed that two abruptly different organisationaldesigns, a mechanistic and organic structure, are appropriate for eitherexploitative innovations or exploratory innovations.
While there is littleempirical evidence how ambidextrous organizations are able to simultaneouslycarry out exploratory and exploitative innovations, this is indeed the challengefacing many organisations (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Bradarch, 1997).Researchers have yet to realise how ambidextrous organizations can be organic aswell as mechanistic and pursue both types of innovations simultaneously.existingcustomers (Benner & Tushman, 2003: 243). Exploratory innovations requirenew knowledge or departure from existing knowledge and are designed foremerging customers or markets while Exploitativeinnovations build upon existing knowledge and meet the needs ofbalancebetween exploration and exploitation activities. In this paper, ‘ambidextrousorganization’ is used to refer to the ability of firms to perform exploratory andexploitative innovations simultaneously.
Some other literatures have stated thefundamental assumption that firms need to enable both opposing elements simultaneously.Variousliteratures have increasingly discussed the need for firms to achieve aINTRODUCTION Thispaper identifies, reviews and assesses the structural dilemma in businessmanagement, how they affect business operations in an ambidextrous structure. Structuraldilemma in business management could be seen as a situation where anorganisation is faced with the challenges of having to choose between thevarious structures available to be able to practice as an ambidextrousorganisation.
This paper seeks to find the implications of an ambidextrous structurein business management.ABSTRACT