Msc Strategic Management

The copyright of the Master thesis rests with the author. The author is responsible for its contents. RSI Erasmus University is sole(prenominal) responsible for the educational coaching and beyond that hatful non be held responsible for the content.Ac fellowshipments I would like to thank Raymond van Wick, Bert Flier, and Justine Jansen for their inspirational lectures and roots forming the basis for my thesis and new found interests Raymond van Will and Mochala Chippers for thoughtful discussion and feedback during the bear upon of writing this thesis the managers responding to my river for enabling thesis testing my parents, sister, and brother for their persistent and limitless support and patience and XX for her support, love, and spirit.Your valuable contri saveions enabled the writing of this paper. XX, show 2009 Marten van Brussels Designing ambidextrousness Social s salubrious and Ambidexterity 10 Cognitive fond hood 11 shared out out culture and systems Share d survey 12 Relational affectionate not bad(p) 13 Trust Tie strength 14 Ambidexterity and whole PerformanceIt provides the arrangement the ability to be reorient with and adaptable to its environment. The ambidextrous organisational form builds on internally inconsistent structures and cultures, allowing preliminary and exploitatory wholes to optimally configure themselves around specific task-environment requirements. Exploratory building blocks front for new knowledge and skills for the development of radical renewings and are characterized by loose cultures.Exploitative units build on and extend existing knowledge and skills for making additive changes and fair well with tight cultures. Thus, to achieve ambidextrousness organizations have to integrate the self-contradictory forces of geographic expedition and exploitation and manage the internal tensions hat these forces bring along. However, it is strategic integrating which remains to be a complex issue. The mech anisms for integration need to be able to access and integrate knowledge across relatively self-governing units.Till date, musket ball integration mechanisms have received ample attention, firearm organisational social upper-case letter was largely ignored. Cognitive and comparative social capital are found to be essential determinants for the transfer of knowledge mingled with units at heart the organization and thus for their integration. Therefore, this study explores how cognitive social UAPITA, represented by shared culture and systems and shared lot, provides the needed meaning and understanding for business units in a consideration of contradiction which is apparent in the ambidextrous organisational form.In addition, the facets of sex actal social capital, represented by cuss and cockeyed ties, are explored as enablers to bringing units focusing on any exploratory or consumptive activities together. In total 52 sovereign business units, from three globally d iversified electronics and electrical equipment companies, participated with the research done surveys. These business units are responsible for either a specific commercialize segment or product group, ranging from more traditional businesses to newer businesses.They provided insight into their deed of ambidextrousness, performance, the result of mutual meaning and understanding with other units, and the content of their transaction with other units. The results concerning the four separated factors used to measure cognitive and relational social capital appear to be influenced by invisible multimillionaires. However, these factors however rationalise to considerable consummation the achievement of business unit ambidexterity and reference.Concerning cognitive social capital, a shared culture and systems do not appear to influence the achievement of ambidexterity, eon a shared vision among business units strongly supports business unit ambidexterity and to considerable e xtent performance. Concerning relational social capital, trust between business units take cares to contribute to ambidexterity, but a shared vision is an important contributor to this relationship. Trust overly positively influences unit performance.Strong ties do not seem to influence the synchronal pursuit for exploratory and exploitatory innovation. If at all, the relation would have been negative. beforehand strong ties would benefit ambidexterity, these ties need to be complemented by a real amount of trust. In addition, strong ties do not support unit performance. The findings indicate that a conclave of shared culture and systems and shared vision into a single measure of cognitive social capital does explain business unit ambidexterity and to considerable extent unit performance.The communion of a vision amongst separated business units appears to reduce the negative effect of resistance to change and adaptability following from a shared culture and systems. By comb ining shared vision and shared culture and systems it seems that a more balanced understanding or context is created in which units accept the co-oc online pursuit of exploration and exploitation. The combination also positively impacts performance. A combination of trust and strong ties into a single measure of relational social capital does explain unit performance, and to some extent ambidexterity.It appears that trusting relations positively mediate the negative relation between strong ties and the search for novel ideas. While trust leads to the exchange and combination of rich resources, the execution of instrument of the consequent novel insights and combinations is benefited by strong ties. The achievement of business unit ambidexterity does positively influence unit performance. However, ambidexterity does not seem to mediate the relation between social capital and performance. Rather the relation between social capital and unit performance is a top one.Overall, social c apital dimensions enable the integration of exploratory and exploitative activities, while ameliorating the subsequent internal tensions. In addition, the content of relations and extent of mutual understanding between business units influences unit performance. Hence, social capital is an important contributor to vital business unit outcomes. Top managers should therefore master the creation and exploitation of social capital. Interesting avenues for future publications are discussed.Taken together, these understandings deliver new insights into how business units energy achieve competitory receiptss and increased performance and survival chances. 5 An organizations long-term survival depends on its ability to call for in enough exploitation to ensure the organizations current viability and to engage into enough exploration to ensure future viability ( work on, 1991 105). Indeed, Rakish & brainwash (2008) in their effort to merge the burgeoned literature on organizational amb idexterity conclude that successful firms are ambidextrous.It provides the organization the ability to be aligned with and adaptable to their environment (Gibson & Brainwash, 2004), enables the organization to simultaneously pursue exploratory and exploitative innovations (Banner & Dustman, 2003), and gives it competitive advantage (Dustman & Reilly, 1996). To achieve organizational ambidexterity organizations have to unite the contradictory forces of exploration and exploitation and manage the internal tensions that these forces bring along.While the benefits of organizational ambidexterity have been emphasized and important contributions providing insight in how to sue organizational ambidexterity have been made (e. G. Jansen, George, caravan den Busch, & Belabored, abdominal aortic aneurysm Kittening & Dustman, 2007 smith & Dustman, 2005 He & Wong, 2004), empirical evidence explicating the factors underlying the process of achieving organizational ambidexterity is largely lacki ng (Reilly & Dustman, 2008 Jansen, et al, AAA). The ambidextrous organization thrives on internally inconsistent structures and cultures (Smith & Dustman, 2005).Exploratory units search for new knowledge and skills for the development of radical innovations in order to meet the needs of emerging customers or markets, while exploitative units build on and extend existing knowledge and skills for making incremental changes to existing products and services to meet the needs of existing customers and markets (Banner & Dustman, 2003). This focus enables the units to optimally configure themselves around specific discontentment requirements (Lawrence & Loras, 1967).However, it is the strategic integration of these contradictory forces which leads organizational ambidexterity to become a dynamic capability for the organization (Reilly & Dustman, 2008). Since organizational ambidexterity appears to be such an important concept for organizations and ticklish to achieve a lack in research o n its antecedents is surprising. This paper focuses on the antecedents of ambidexterity at business unit level by taking on a social capital perspective.The research on managing and integrating exploratory and exploitative activities has mainly focused on formal structures and incentives, largely ignoring the social structure that seeming enables organizational ambidexterity (Cleanable & Dustman, 2007 Jansen, Van den Busch, & Belabored, 2006). By focusing on cognitive social capital and relational social capital, the 2 dimensions of social capital that provide auction block within the organization (Van Wick, Jansen, & Less, 2008), the paper attempts to explain the integration of exploratory and exploitative activities.The paper argues hat cognitive social capital, represented by shared culture and systems and shared vision, provides the needed meaning and understanding in the context of contradiction (Smith & Dustman, 2005 Inpatient & Shoal, 1998 Inept and Tsars, 2005 Van Wick, e t al, 2008), which is apparent in the ambidextrous organizational form. The facets of relational social capital, represented by trust and strong ties, are seen as enablers to bringing units focusing on either exploratory or exploitative activities together (Van Wick, et al, 2008 Tsar, 2000).Also, social capital stands central o the understanding of innovation (Inpatient & Shoal, 1998 Moran, 2005) and as such influences exploratory and exploitative innovation. In addition, Guppy, Smith & Shelley (2006) state that learning from exploratory and exploitative activities is more likely to occur at macro level (I. E. Team, unit, organizational, or interdenominational), than at little level (I. E. The individual).Thus, referring to the definition of social capital (Inept & Tsars, 2005), organizational learning is a resource which is embedded within, becomes available through, and can be derived from a net income of relationships. Following this logic, organizational ambidexterity resides in the relationships between units, which are explained by social capital theory. By addressing the question how social capital can enable ambidexterity, the study attempts to bring a social perspective into the ambidexterity debate.Research addressing this link is missing, while the two are seemingly related. By canvas the relation between social capital, which has the ability to build competitive advantage (Inpatient & Shoal, 1998), and ambidexterity, which leads to long-run survival (Rakish & Brainwash, 2008), this paper contributes mainly to the strategic management and organizational literature. In the following sections theory and hypotheses will be presented. Ambidexterity and social capital will be explained, while the hypotheses and the research model linking the two are given.Then, the methodology section will outline how the study tests these hypotheses within business units. The results section provides initial insight on the fulfillment of the hypotheses, while their i mplications will be outlined in the discussion and conclusion section. In addition, the paper proposes future avenues for inquiry. 7 Duncan (1976) introduced the term ambidexterity, in the organizational setting, literary argument that long-term organizational success depends on switching organizational structures in sequence, depending on an organizations state of innovativeness.When an organization finds itself in a phase of innovation it should adopt an organic structure. When the organization is ready to exploit the innovation a mechanistic structure is more appropriate. However, it was not until the seminal article of touch (1991) on organizational learning that research on ambidexterity started burgeoning. March (1991) argued that organizations should engage in enough exploitation to ensure the organizations current viability and engage in enough exploration to ensure future viability (March, 1991 105, italics added).A focus on exploitation at the expense of exploration is l ikely to lead to short success, but in the long-term may lead to competency traps and inertia. A focus on exploration at the expense of exploitation might lead to innovate ideas, but would leave the organization without the ability to draw off the benefits. Dustman & Reilly (1996) showed that organizations are able to combine exploratory and exploitative activities.