How ambidexterity plays out in situ: Unpacking switches between exploration and exploitation

Despite the fact that individual ambidexterity has been identified as an important precursor to achieving organizational ambidexterity, research remains in need of elaboration when it comes to how switches between explorative and exploitative activities are achieved in practice. Based on observational data from a series of facilitated workshops, we study how organizational members cope with the exploration exploitation dilemma in specific situations and over time. We offer an in-depth account of how tensions between exploration and exploitation surface in situ and how they can be resolved and derive a processual model of the core mechanisms at play. Our findings advance micro-foundational explanations of how actors cope with switching between exploitative and explorative activities and contribute towards translating ambidexterity into a concrete managerial strategy.