Is Ambidexterity The Missing Link Between Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation? An Urgent Response During Challenging Times
JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER - SPECIAL ISSUE
GUEST EDITORS:
David B. Audretsch, Institute for Development Strategies, Indiana University (US)
Maribel Guerrero, Northumbria University (UK) and Universidad del Desarrollo (CL)
BACKGROUND:
Originated by an individual capacity, organizational ambidexterity represents the way that organizations do two different things equally well (e.g., efficiency and flexibility, adaptability and alignment, integration and responsiveness, exploration, and exploitation). The versatility of this concept allows using it to test multiple research questions from different perspectives. It explains why the research in organizational ambidexterity has been exponentially rising over the last four decades.
The accumulation of knowledge has provided relevant insights about organizational ambidexterity’s conceptualizations, determinants, and consequences (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004; Junni et al., 2013; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2013). Indeed, several authors have argued that the research proliferation represents a consolidation stage of this phenomenon (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2013; Birkinshaw and Gupta, 2013) with two possibilities: its decline or its re-focus.
Organizational ambidexterity research has primarily contributed to management studies by exploring this phenomenon as a strategic capability implemented by established or mature organizations to be sustainable, competitive, and innovativeness. However, the central dual tensions of ambidexterity (exploration and exploitation) are considered the micro-foundations of the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunities (Busenitz et al., 2003, 2014; Rothaermel and Alexandre, 2009; Chandrasekaran et al., 2012; Vrontis et al., 2017). In this assumption, several entrepreneurial organizations have been born (new ventures) or have rejuvenated (established ventures with an entrepreneurial orientation) by building this capacity through the exploration and exploitation of new opportunities.
SPECIAL SCOPE:
Motivated by the unrepresentativeness of organizational ambidexterity in entrepreneurship research (Wolf et al., 2019; Schnellbächer and Heidenreich, 2020), this special issue is looking for theoretical and empirical papers that consider ambidexterity as the missing link between entrepreneurship, management, and innovation fields. Potential multidisciplinary contributions may include Novel conceptual/empirical advances to clarify the most appropriated definitions and measurements of ambidexterity that should be applied in the context of technology-based firms, academic entrepreneurship, digital entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial innovation eco-systems, and technology transfer policies. Novel conceptual/empirical advances to understand how many ambidextrous ventures across the world have emerged as a response to new social, technological, health, and economic paradigms during challenging times (i.e., COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, uncertainty times, and economic crisis).Novel conceptual/empirical advances to explain how established ambidextrous organizations across the world have responded to internal demands and external challenges by managing ambidexterity tensions related to introducing new digital technologies, entrepreneurial platforms, big data analysis, or artificial intelligence trends. Novel conceptual/empirical advances to explicate the influence of stakeholders and eco-systems’ agents in the response of ambidexterity new/established organizations to social, technological, health, and economic paradigms across the world.
TENTATIVE TIMING:
Abstract submission (no more than ten pages double space– including references): November 15, 2020
Invitation for submitting the full paper: December 15, 2020
Full paper submission: March 15, 2021
Review process: March-December 2021
Tentative publication: 2022
SUBMISSION PROCESS:
The Guest Editors aim to receive the abstract submission before November 15, 2020. Please submit them to the Guest Editors using the email (
maribel.guerrero@northumbria.ac.uk). Authors should indicate in the “subject”: Special Issue of the JOTT on “Ambidexterity.”
The invitation to submit full manuscripts will be made no later than December 15, 2020. Papers should be 5,000 to 7,000 words in length and should not have been published previously nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere in any other format (print or electronic). All submitted papers are expected to comply with JOTT standards fully and are subject to regular review procedures (at least double-blind). Please review the author’s guidelines.
REFERENCES:
Birkinshaw, J., & Gupta, K. (2013). Clarifying the distinctive contribution of ambidexterity to the field of organization studies. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), 287-298.
Busenitz, L. W., Plummer, L. A., Klotz, A. C., Shahzad, A., & Rhoads, K. (2014). Entrepreneurship research (1985–2009) and the emergence of opportunities.
Busenitz, L. W., West III, G. P., Shepherd, D., Nelson, T., Chandler, G. N., & Zacharakis, A. (2003). Entrepreneurship research in emergence: Past trends and future directions. Journal of Management, 29(3), 285-308.
Chandrasekaran, A., Linderman, K., & Schroeder, R. (2012). Antecedents to ambidexterity competency in high technology organizations. Journal of operations management, 30(1-2), 134-151.
Gibson, C. B., & Birkinshaw, J. (2004). The antecedents, consequences, and mediating role of organizational ambidexterity. Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 209-226.
Junni, P., Sarala, R. M., Taras, V., & Tarba, S. Y. (2013). Organizational ambidexterity and performance: A meta-analysis. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), 299-312.
O’Reilly III, C. A., & Tushman, M. L. (2013). Organizational ambidexterity: Past, present, and future. Academy of Management Perspectives, 27(4), 324-338.
Rothaermel, F. T., & Alexandre, M. T. (2009). Ambidexterity in technology sourcing: The moderating role of absorptive capacity. Organization Science, 20(4), 759-780.
Schnellbächer, B., & Heidenreich, S. (2020). The role of individual ambidexterity for organizational performance: examining the effects of ambidextrous knowledge seeking and offering. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 1-27.
Vrontis, D., Thrassou, A., Santoro, G., & Papa, A. (2017). Ambidexterity, external knowledge, and performance in knowledge-intensive firms. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 42(2), 374-388.
Wolf, T., Cantner, U., Graf, H., & Rothgang, M. (2019). Cluster ambidexterity towards exploration and exploitation: Strategies and cluster management. The Journal of Technology Transfer, 44(6), 1840-1866.