Understanding Variation in Managers' Ambidexterity: Investigating Direct and Interaction Effects of Formal Structural and Personal Coordination Mechanisms

TLDR

Research on ambidexterity has largely focused on firms and business units, leaving a gap in understanding at the individual manager level. The study investigates managers' ambidexterity by proposing three characteristics, developing a model of direct and interaction effects of formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms, and testing it with 716 managers. The authors construct a model linking formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms to ambidexterity, and test it using data from 716 business unit and operational level managers. Results show that decision‑making authority and personal coordination—cross‑functional participation and connectedness—positively influence ambidexterity, while task formalization has no effect, and that formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms interact to further enhance ambidexterity.

Abstract

Previous research focuses on firm and business unit level ambidexterity. Therefore, conceptual and empirically validated understanding about ambidexterity at the individual level of analysis is very scarce. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by investigating managers' ambidexterity, delivering three contributions to theory and empirical research on ambidexterity: first, by proposing three related characteristics of ambidextrous managers; second, by developing a model and associated hypotheses on both the direct and interaction effects of formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity; and third, by testing the hypotheses based on a sample of 716 business unit level and operational level managers. Findings regarding the formal structural mechanisms indicate that a manager's decision-making authority positively relates to this manager's ambidexterity, whereas formalization of a manager's tasks has no significant relationship with this manager's ambidexterity. Regarding the personal coordination mechanisms, findings indicate that both the participation of a manager in cross-functional interfaces and the connectedness of a manager to other organization members positively relate to this manager's ambidexterity. Furthermore, results show positive interaction effects between the formal structural and personal coordination mechanisms on managers' ambidexterity. The paper's theoretical contributions and empirical results increase our understanding about managers' ambidexterity and about how different types and combinations of coordination mechanisms relate to variation in managers' ambidexterity.