Unveiling the Secrets of Fusion Ambidexterity PART 3: The Fuel of Fusion Ambidexterity is Learning
In the intricate dance of organizational ambidexterity, tensions emerge as a central theme, prompting the need for effective management strategies. This blog post delves into the realm of ambidextrous organizational learning, exploring how learning serves as the hub for navigating and harnessing these tensions. Drawing on theoretical underpinnings, we'll unravel the interplay between knowledge bases, tension, cognition, and absorptive capacity at both individual and organizational levels.
Tensions and Individual Cognition
Individual cognition plays a pivotal role in the tension-laden landscape of organizational ambidexterity. The tension arises from cognitive interferences when attempting to simultaneously engage in opposing activities. This cognitive tension, stemming from the merger of knowledge streams from exploitation and exploration, is a key element in the ambidextrous learning process. This tension is fundamentally linked to absorptive capacity, which, in turn, plays a crucial role at the individual level and is the key player in facilitating learning and problem-solving.
Absorptive Capacity: Bridging Individual and Organizational Learning
Individual absorptive capacity, involving learning and problem-solving, forms the basis for organizational absorptive capacity. Absorptive capacity, with its exploitative and explorative nature, forms the bridge between prior knowledge and new information. This intricate connection aligns with the earlier argument that tension and absorptive capacity are co-joint at the individual level, as individuals grapple with interference while merging knowledge from different sources.
Zooming out to the organizational level, absorptive capacity takes on a broader significance. It becomes the mechanism through which the organization identifies, reflects on, and operationalizes external knowledge. Internal knowledge transfer processes and interactions, driven by individuals collaborating with external parties and between internal subunits, become crucial in this process. As suggested earlier, absorptive capacity guides the accumulation of organizational knowledge between exploitation and exploration, creating interconnected links and acting as a bridge between the two.
Exploration, Diversity, and Innovation
Absorptive capacity is instrumental in exploration, fueling a firm's innovative capabilities. Individuals with diverse knowledge bases are better equipped to integrate new information, fostering a culture of learning and creativity. Accordingly, maintaining diversity in the organizational knowledge base becomes paramount, as it prolongs the learning process and enhances the organization's ability to create something novel. Moreover, we suggest that actively seeking external knowledge as a variation-inducing mechanism not only extends absorptive capacity by expanding prior knowledge but also fosters mutual learning and innovation. The continuous pursuit of exploration, in turn, contributes to a mutual learning cycle and ensures collective innovativeness and knowledge creation beyond what any individual could achieve alone.
In conclusion, diversity in the knowledge base, avoiding excessive unity, is essential for sustained exploration. Seeking external knowledge becomes a mechanism for inducing variation, preserving absorptive capacity, and fostering mutual learning and innovation across the organization.
Sustaining Exquisite Performance: The Learning Cycle
To sustain a design for high-performance excellence, requires a continuous learning cycle. The elements of strategic approach and performing through a choreography, representing the firm's strategic orientation, are essential elements in this cycle and require continuous development. As each show we go to see should offer something new, the same applies to companies and hence, the learning cycle must not stagnate, emphasizing the need for an iterative progression where we allow for new tension to emerge, leading to new learning opportunities. Thus, this reiterative capability highlights that learning opportunities, arising from tensions, are an ongoing phenomenon in successful, value-producing organizational ambidexterity.
Key Takeaways and Conclusion
In summary, we propose five key takeaways for managing tensions and promoting learning in organizational ambidexterity:
Exploitation and exploration are reciprocal knowledge-producing activities causing tension as knowledge bases merge.
Absorptive capacity acts as the bridge between exploitation and exploration, impacting the merging of knowledge and leading to learning opportunities.
A strategic approach is essential to make organizational learning intelligent and create value from ambidextrous activities.
Organizational ambidexterity is a re-iterating and progressive capability, requiring a continuously maintained learning cycle.
The continuous tension creating the learning cycle is essential for successful firms to proactively initiate innovations and transform, not just adapt.
In conclusion, we position learning as the foundation of Fusion Ambidexterity, emphasizing the need for a dynamic, ever-evolving approach to sustain excellence and navigate tensions effectively. The continuous tension creating the learning cycle is crucial for firms to proactively initiate innovations. Organizations need to simultaneously adapt and transform, seeking external information to modify existing systems in response to external demands. Successful firms align their learning endeavors with their operations, moving beyond evolutionary and incremental development, and creating proactive change through learning.
Thank you for reading. Let me hear your thoughts.
Mari Stenberg
REVOLUTIONIZE IMPACT
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References
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