In their search for innovation and increased competitiveness in a knowledgebased economy, firms must not only use their existing resources efficiently and effectively but they must also develop and deploy new resources. In this regard, “ambidexterity” is defined as the ability of an organization to be in exploitation and exploration modes simultaneously. While the extant literature suggests various directions about how ambidexterity can be realized, we do not have a clear idea of how organizations implement these recommendations. A more recent focus of ambidexterity research is on how firms aim to develop innovative capabilities via interorganizational relationships (IOR) such as strategic alliances as sources of ambidextrous capabilities. With the need for IOR to be ambidextrous, partnering firms are challenged to establish an organizational design to pursue alignment and adaptation and where interoganizational information systems (IOIS) should be an enabler. Whereas extant studies have mainly focused on the financial and strategic impact of ambidexterity, less attention has been given to revealing “how”
organizations may achieve such ambidexterity concretely in an IOR context. Several authors argue that there is a lack of knowledge about: 1. the collaborative mechanisms that trigger and affect the contextualized efforts made within an interorganizational collaborative process? and 2. the efforts required to improve partners’ social interactions, or to coordinate the internal and external knowledge bases. In general, boundary objects (i.e. an information system) used as spanning mechanism, have been found to have an impact on the efficiency of crossing knowledge boundaries. We expect that firms engaging into
interorganizational partnerships in order to achieve ambidexterity need an ambidextrous organizational context (including interorganizational IS) that balances exploration and exploitation. Our research focuses on IOIS that can facilitate crossboundary knowledge sharing in a context of IOR collaboration seeking ambidexterity. 

Chercheur principal

Dragos Vieru

Co-chercheurs

François Bergeron; Simon Bourdeau (UQAM)

Organisme subventionnaire

CRSH (Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada)

Programme

Subventions de développement Savoir

Secteur de recherche

Transformations sociales, organisationnelles et professionnelles en contexte d'internationalisation, d'informatisation et de multiculturalisme

Années

2018 - 2021

Montant accordé

62 615,00 $