From Managing Tensions to Managing Thresholds: Microfoundations of Unfolding Hybrid Ambidexterity

Ambidexterity is a highly tension-filled strategic concern that attempts to combine the fundamentally divergent logics of exploration and exploitation. While the present research is concerned with the management of these tensions, little consideration is given to effects that result from this unfolding process over time and are manifested in critical thresholds. In our study, we reveal the pivotal role of handling these thresholds for the direction in which ambi-dexterity processes develop. We build on a six-month ethnographic study of a company in the European energy market (EnergyCo) to investigate the process of building an incubator (IncuCo). We show changes between a phase of more control that promotes integration and inhibits progress and a phase of driving ambidexterity towards acceleration that promotes differentiation and creates counter-movements. Highlighting the within-phase tensions and between-phase thresholds, we contribute to research on the microfoundations of hybrid ambidexterity by highlighting the role of thresholds to manage the complex dynamics underlying hybrid ambidexterity and the multiple interests of actors, which we theorize as double faces of ambidexterity.