RESPONSIBLE ENTREPRENEURSHIP VISION DEVELOPMENT AND ETHICS

In search of balance. Managing ambidexterity
in a fast growing techno-SME
Robert BOUTEN 1 , Patrick VAN DER DUIN 2 ,
Victor SCHOLTEN 3 , Robert VERBURG 4
1,2,3,4
Delft University of Technology
2
p.a.vanderduin@tudelft.nl
You always need a two-sided policy. One is that you have to win today, the second one is that you
need to make sure that you also win tomorrow
(Johan Cruijff, Dutch football player and philosopher)
Abstract: Managing the short term and the long term is crucial to the survival of companies. It can be
done in different ways but it is more difficult for SMEs than for large companies, because, among other things,
they have fewer tools at their disposal. For Ampelmann, the case we focus on in this study, at company level,
only contextual and leadership-related ambidexterity are appropriate solutions. However, at project level,
all five forms can be recognized and implemented to deal with exploration and exploitation. This means a
shift in the discussion about ambidexterity in SMEs from company level toward project level. Furthermore,
we found that, to manage the contradictory demands between exploration and exploitation, the explorative
activities first need to be brought to a higher level, since innovation is divided among different units, and
some components (e.g., project evaluation) are missing all together.
Keywords: ambidexterity, innovation, off-shore industry, techno-starter, exploitation, exploration
Introduction
To remain successful, companies must reap the benefits of existing products and at the
same time look for new opportunities. Organizations face many challenges in reconciling these
two different activities. This challenge is referred to as balancing exploration (innovation activities)
and exploitation (operational activities), which are seen as contradictory activities, since
they are based on opposing principles (March, 1991), operate on different timescales (i.e.,
short term versus long term) (Marginson & McAulay, 2008; McCarthy & Gordon, 2011)),
require different organizational forms (Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008), and create conflicting
task demands (Chang & Hughes, 2012). Balancing exploration and exploitation is known as
organizational ambidexterity which, in short, means being equally skilled at two contradic-