MSc Business Administration Strategy Track
“Organizational Context and Individual Ambidexterity in the
Dutch Consultancy Market.”
By Constantine Spentzos 11739754
Supervisor: Dr. M. P. Tempelaar August 2018
Ambidexterity in organizations has been a trigger of debates for scholars and managers since the term was first used with a business implication by Duncan in 1976, and its significance in the business world has only become increasingly prevalent since then. Ambidexterity can be defined as a close balance of exploration and exploitation (March 1991; Cao & Zhang, 2009), where exploration encourages organizational search, experimentation and variation, and exploitation enhances productivity and efficiency through execution and selection (Lavie et al. 2010). This concept of ambidexterity is important in the business setting because as we’ve seen with companies like Polaroid, Lloyds TSB Bank and Ericcson, even if a firm is performing spectacularly, the inability to balance the two aspects of ambidexterity can spell great
performance issues in the future (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). For these large firms, due to their size, presence of multiple hierarchical levels and more external influences, structural
ambidexterity is practical (Lubatkin et al, 2006). Ambidexterity in small firms is also important, though it may need to be supported in different ways.
Due to the lack of resources or human capital to differentiate subunits within a firm, ambidexterity in small firms must be fostered in ways other than structurally. Smaller and more focused firms have fewer hierarchical levels (Lubatkin et al, 2006) and the nature, impact, and means of how a firm can achieve ambidexterity can vary by sector (Derbyshire, 2014) and by the size of the firm (Cao & Zhang, 2009). Tushman & O’Reilly (1996) showed how HP was able to create a culture of autonomy by creating over fifty separate divisions that kept units small and autonomous so that employees felt a sense of ownership and responsibility for their results, which enabled the firm to be ambidextrous. This can help demonstrate the important values in smaller firms, such as small PSFs or consultancies, where employee ownership of projects and autonomy are central. Studying ambidexterity for PSFs is important because rather than having
different structures for ambidexterity, they must rely on individuals being able to manage both simultaneously. Ambidextrous organizations need ambidextrous individuals who are able to understand and be sensitive to the demands of both exploration and exploitation (O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004). Yet, only recently have there been more in depth research into the importance, and even the possibility (Gupta, Smith & Shalley, 2006), of ambidexterity at the individual level (Kauppila & Tempelaar, 2016; Mom et al, 2007; Mom et al, 2009; Rogan & Mors, 2014). This research is important because consultants rely on knowledge, and there is a cycle of knowledge being commodified by consultants, which they use to make models as a product (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2001). In this sense, consultants need to focus on the models they have produced and sell them in the short term, but also need to constantly be searching for new knowledge that can be formed into new models and sold to keep themselves desirable on the market (Maister, 1993). They need to be able to do this without compromising their current position, because once the knowledge is commodified it becomes imitable, thus creating the need to search for new knowledge, known as colonization (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2001), and form new practice areas once the current ones become saturated (Gardner et al., 2007). This knowledge cycle is the most critical mechanism in this field, which is why individual consultants need to be ambidextrous or risk losing their competitive edge and market appeal.
Gibson & Birkinshaw (2004) introduced the possibility that ambidexterity could be contextual, with more flexibility for employees to decide their own focus and use their judgement to decide how they divide their time between conflicting demands. Contextual ambidexterity involves exploration and exploitation taking part in the same unit, and can be affected by the combination of four attributes of organizational context – support, trust,
Bartlett, 1994; Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004). More research needs to be done into the individuals that make up these units, however, because as Gibson & Birkinshaw (2004) and Gardner et al. (2007) analyzed, they took the whole business unit as smallest unit of analysis without looking further at the individuals that constitute these units. A greater understanding of how these individuals act ambidextrously and can be influenced by their context may help us understand how the unit as one can be ambidextrous, keeping the firm competitive in their current markets and giving them an advantage for future growth.
This paper seeks to analyze the direct relationship between organizational context and how it can affect an individual’s ability to act ambidextrously. The potential moderating effects of project selection as well as the number of projects actively being worked on shall also be examined. Here, project selection entails the considerations taken into account by the consultant before choosing to accept a project. By determining whether or not selecting projects based on a consultant’s current situation or project mix can better enable (or worsen) individual
ambidexterity, this paper may help inform consultants on their project selection methods.
Amount of projects being undertaken is also an important variable - it has a direct impact on how the employee allocates their time, as billable hours and utilization are key for consultants. This may also have an impact on their “optimal mix” (March, 1991) of exploration and exploitation and ultimately their ambidexterity, depending on what projects they are working on, and how similar the projects are to each other.
Theoretically, we have always seen that exploitation and exploration require a tradeoff as they are inversely related to each other (March, 1991). Even in cases like Lavie et al (2010) found with Toyota, where they seemed to have both exploration and exploitation in their production processes, this exception was found to be possible due to different loosely coupled
units which allowed for this balance (Lavie et al, 2010). We have also seen from Gibson & Birkinshaw (2004) that organizational context affect a business unit’s ambidexterity. This paper seeks to delve into this unit to see if this relationship holds true at the individual level in small PSFs via a consulting lens by also studying the impacts of project selection criteria and number of projects undertaken at a given time. We may see that exploration and exploitation come effortlessly due to the nature of consulting work, which again is why studying contextual ambidexterity is important in these small consultancies. A disproval of the notion that
exploration and exploitation must always be consciously balanced and focused on based on the nature of the field one is in could be a significant contribution to the field of management because of how prominent this “balance” has become. It may be found that this is not so in consultancy, and that there are other factors such as project selection that can influence ambidexterity.
Contributions
This research seeks to delve further into the “black box” of Birkinshaw and Gibson (2004), where the potential impact of organizational context on individuals was not studied. This will be contextualized to the consultancy setting by looking at influencing factors such as project
selection and the number of projects being worked on at a given time. Given the nature of independence in these firms and the cycle of knowledge production necessary in consulting to stay desirable in the market (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2007; Maister, 1993), antecedents to ambidexterity need to better understood at the individual level. In the research of Birkinshaw and Gibson, they imply that an individual can focus on a specific aspect of organizational context depending on what suits them best at the moment in order to better help them achieve
work, where multiple aspects may need to be focused on at the same time. On a similar note, due to the nature of consulting work and the need for exploitation of current services and exploitation for future knowledge products, consultants must naturally act ambidextrously. This study seeks to determine whether or not an optimal balance of organizational context can be found to better facilitate this ambidexterity, where consultants can hopefully avoid sacrificing precious
utilization rates in the process. Further, consultants may find themselves staying within their comfort zones due to the nature of their pay structure or billable hours, and could find themselves needing to be pushed towards exploratory projects, thus making them act
ambidextrously. Selecting projects based on a consultant’s current work situation, desired project mix, or preferences may have an effect on the consultant’s ability to act ambidextrously. This has not previously been studied, and could help further the existing literature in the consulting field. The relationship between organizational context and individual ambidexterity may be moderated by project selection and number of projects undertaken, and this is important to study for the field of consultancy and these are the essence of consultancy work. Consultants require high levels of individual discretion, and understanding what enables this individuals to act most effectively given their current situation is crucial.
Theory and Hypotheses
Organizing and planning for ambidexterity is inherently paradoxical in that allocating resources to exploratory activities takes those resources away from exploitative activities and vice versa. As Lewis (2000) writes, “rather than management being the sole responsibility of a few, managing paradox requires that local actors learn to cope with their tensions” (p. 764). This is relevant in consultancy due to nature of the consulting field and the emphasis on individual consultants and individual project ownership. Commodifying knowledge and selling it as a
product on one hand versus searching for new knowledge to commodify and stay on top of the competition is one of the main challenges faced in this regard (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2001; Maister, 1993). If an individual is focused on selling their product and falls victim to temporal myopia (Levinthal & March, 1993) future success and ambidexterity of that individual may be compromised. There is no consensus on the “best” way to achieve ambidexterity in the
consultancy field, or any field at that. Smith & Tushman (2005) wrote of how the cognitive processes of differentiation and integration can help deal with the paradox of ambidexterity by making individuals aware of not stifling exploration due to current products, as well as
constantly searching for synergies between exploratory and exploitative projects. However, they studied how top management may embrace the contradictions entailed in achieving
ambidexterity. Further research must be done on how the individuals below them can tackle this issue, or if there is something their managers can do to create a more enabling work
environment. This study will seek to explore factors that may guide individuals to ambidexterity at the individual level in the field of management consultancy.
The main relationship to be explored in this paper is the effect of organizational context on an individual’s path to ambidexterity. As emphasized before, studies have only shown how units as a whole can act ambidextrously, rather than the individuals that make up those units. Therefore, in line with Birkinshaw and Gibson (2004), this paper will study the effects of a mix of the four aspects of organizational context on an individual’s ability to act ambidextrously. The first of the four aspects is discipline which is an inherent drive in individuals to achieve their goals and expectations. Stretch in the consultancy setting is the aspect which leads individuals to strive for more ambitious goals and the taking on of more exploratory or difficult projects. Support is the mechanism that encourages the individuals within the organization to assist each
other, and trust is what enables these individuals to rely on each other and provide. This prompts the question: What mechanisms can support an individual in becoming ambidextrous,
particularly in the consultancy setting? If a consultant is working on projects that require a high degree of stretch, for example, in terms of fit with their comfortable areas of expertise, an optimal mix of support and trust can help them successfully complete this project. The research may also find that due to the nature of consulting work, a negative correlation may be found which implies that sometimes a balance of focus is not always beneficial.
Hypothesis 1: The more a consultancy’s organizational context is characterized by an interaction of stretch, discipline, support, and trust, the higher the level of individual ambidexterity.
Gibson & Birkinshaw (AMJ, 2004) were the first to introduce the possibility of
ambidexterity being contextual, where individuals were at their discretion within units to choose their focus and decide for themselves how to divide their time between conflicting demands. As mentioned by Smith & Tushman (2005), individuals make decisions in which they may
preferentially support exploitation or exploration (p. 524). In the case of consulting, this can be seen as the division of time exploiting current knowledge models as a product, and finding new areas to explore into new practices in order to stay desirable in the market and keep a
competitive edge (Gardner et al., 2007; Kvålshaugen et al. 2006; Maister, 2003). However, rather than just viewing contextual ambidexterity in terms of the unit as a whole, a deeper
understanding of what can impact the relationship between organizational context and the ability of the individual to be ambidextrous rather than the unit level remains to be explored. Project work is the central focus of consultancy, and the projects that consultants choose to work on are either exploitative or mostly exploratory in nature, ultimately influencing their ambidextrous abilities. Given the prevalence of these projects in consulting, the nature of these projects will
have an effect on the optimal balance of organizational context required for the consultant.
Hypothesis 2: Project selection moderates the relationship between organizational context and individual ambidexterity.
In line with this thinking, if an individual is working on a high amount of projects that are well aligned with the individual in terms of expertise, but are not working on too many projects, they may seek to choose projects that are less in their comfort zone to stimulate learning and
exploration for new knowledge. A task that is perceived as more difficult or has a high estimated duration or degree of innovation required may be desirable depending on the assessment of the current amount of projects an individual is working on. These decisions that are made by individuals must be studied because we have seen the importance of managerial discretion in a firm’s ability to act ambidextrously (Benner & Tushman, 2003; Smith & Tushman, 2005), the characteristics of ambidextrous managers (Mom et al., 2009) or manager’s impact on individuals via paradoxical leadership styles (Kauppila & Tempelaar, 2016). However, what other
considerations must these individuals take into account to effect their ability to act
ambidextrously? We can see from psychology research, such as Baker (1985) and Bliese & Castro (2000) that stressors such as high amount of work load positively related to psychological strain in individual. In the fast paced consultancy setting, work overload can be a serious concern and may have significant effects on a consultant’s ability to act ambidextrously. High workload in the consultancy setting can imply the number of projects undertaken by an individual at any given time. Perhaps at a certain point with too many projects, an individual is less able to act ambidextrously. This leads to the hypothesis
Hypothesis 3. The amount of projects being worked on negatively moderates an individual’s ability to act ambidextrously.
Model 1 shows a model of these hypotheses.
Methods
The data was collected via the distribution of a survey to the Order of Organizational Experts and Advisors (OOA) network of consultants in the Dutch consultancy market. The individuals came from small to medium sized firms across various industries, and included many freelancers (ZZPers) as well. The participants were asked to evaluate their organizational context and
individual ambidexterity, about their experiences within their units, their current projects, as well as other questions as a part of the OOA’s Consultancy Index for 2018. A seven-point Likert scale was used to evaluate each of the main variables of this research. Unfortunately due to the time constraints of this study, data was not be able to be collected at separate points in time, and thus is a cross sectional analysis. In the end, the survey was sent out to the OOA’s approximately 1,500 members and yielded 113 responses from managers, consultants, and ZZPers. Each of the measures and variables were constructed after a series of reliability and validity checks via exploratory factor analyses where some questions from the initial scales were removed from the construction of the variables due to reliability issues. Hypotheses were then tested with
hierarchical regressions, and moderation effect tests were run for the moderation variables. This was then followed by analysis and discussion, followed by research limitations and
recommendations for future studies and finished with practical applications. Measures
Each of the following constructs were measured with a seven-point scale. To create the constructs, the mean of the items were centered and used, with the exception of the dependent
variable ambidexterity. Survey items were based on previous research on organizational context and ambidexterity and guided by the head of the OOA and the supervisor of this thesis.
Organizational Context. Organizational context in this research is an independent variable that was calculated based on an adaptation of the research of Gibson & Birkinshaw (2004) where “performance management context” measured discipline and stretch from Ghoshal & Bartlett (1994) in a way that better fit a consultancy setting. Performance management focuses more on the goal achieving/performance demanding aspect of organizational context, and the participants were asked to evaluate the following questions. To what extent does your work environment encourage you to (1) “to set challenging/aggressive goals” [.49], (2) “be more focused on successful job completion than future job prospects” [.59], (3) “push to achieve higher
performance” [.77], (4) “be accountable for your performance/decisions” [.76], and (5) “use your feedback to improve performance” [.76]. These components were loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.33 and accounted for 46.65 percent of the total variance.
The other part of organizational context, “social support context”, which measures trust and support from Ghoshal & Bartlett (1994), the following questions were adapted from Gibson & Birkinshaw (AMJ, 2004) to fit the field of consultancy: to what extent does your work
environment encourage you to (1) “devote considerable effort to developing your abilities” [.67], (2) “take freedom of authority/initiative to do your job well” [.73], (3) “give or receive
information to others in the firm/from clients as needed” [.80], (4) “work hard to develop the capabilities needed to achieve the vision of the firm/personal goals” [.76], (5) “base decisions on facts and analysis, not politics” [.67], (6) “free to make decisions based on intuitions” [.65], (7)“treat failure (through good effort) as a learning opportunity and not punished” [.73], and (8) “set realistic goals” [.70]. These components were loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue
of 4.12 and accounted for 51.5 percent of the total variance. Cronbach’s alpha for the
performance management scale was .70 and was .86 for social management context. To create the final organizational context variable, the mean of all components of both performance management context and the mean of all social support context variables were taken and then centered. Finally, the mean-centered performance management context was multiplied by the mean-centered social support context to get the final variable for organizational context. Individual Ambidexterity: The dependent variable for this study was individual ambidexterity, which can be defined as a close balance of exploration and exploitation (March 1991; Cao & Zhang, 2009). For this study, the scales used were based on the ambidexterity scale by Mom et al (2007) made for individual managers, which was adapted towards the consultancy setting in the 2017 Consultancy Index and used for this year’s index. This involved evaluating both individual exploration and exploitation on a seven-point Likert scale, where individual ambidexterity was the multiplicative interaction of these two variables. Exploration was captured by asking the participants: to what extent did you spend the past year on (1) “the search for new opportunities for consultancy, processes or markets” [.77], (2) “considering various options around
consultancy, processes, or markets” [.83], (3) “ focusing on a strong renewal of consultancy work or work processes” [.67], (4) “ activities of which the associated revenues or costs are currently unclear” [.64], (5) “activities for which you need to acquire new skills or knowledge” [.64], and (6) “activities that are not (yet) clearly part of the existing company policy” [.67]. These components were loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.99 and accounted for 49.8 percent of the variance. Exploitation was found by asking the participants: to what extent did you spend the past year on (1) “activities with which you have already had a lot of
served existing customers with existing products” [.71], (4) “activities which you knew in advance exactly how to implement” [.78], (5) “activities aimed at achieving short-term goals” [.65] and (6) “activities that you can carry out using your current knowledge” [.68]. These components were loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue of 3.04 and accounted for 50.7 percent of the variance. Cronbach’s alpha of the exploration scale was .79, and was .80 for the exploitation scale. To create the final ambidexterity variable, the scales for exploration and exploitation were multiplied by each other.
Project Selection: Project selection was also tested as an independent variables in this study as a moderator to the relationship between organizational context and individual ambidexterity. The seven point scale was used to evaluate these variables based on the research by Kvålshaugen et al. (2006), and Castellina et al. (2012). The scale initially had eight items, but after reliability and factor analysis it was, realized that only items five through eight could be used to construct this variable. They asked the participants to evaluate: if I am selecting a project (1) “the expected duration of the project is important” [.57], (2) “it is more likely that I will take on a longer term project if I have less current projects” [.63], (3) “I am more inclined to choose a difficult or “stretch” project if I have a lesser workload” [.83], and (4) “I am more likely to choose an exploratory project if I have a lesser workload” [.79]. Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was found to be .67, yet deemed acceptable due to the size of the sample. These components were loaded onto a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.04 and accounted for 50.9 percent of the variance, and they were combined after being mean-centered into a single variable to create project selection.
Control Variables: Various control variables were used for the study, including the education of the individual, firm age, number of employees, and years of experience. This is to control for
things such as older firms possibly being more comfortable with a certain method of operation over time, or an employee with more experience perhaps influencing their ability to act
ambidextrously. Larger firms may also have different methods of working than a ZZPer would, so this was controlled for as well. As pointed out in the work of Mom et al. (2009), experience, education and environmental dynamism may influence an manager’s ambidexterity. Finally, seven dummy variables were entered representing the industries in which the consultants operated in, where greater than 40 percent of an individual’s time spent in one industry made them a specialist in that industry. The industries included finance, industrial, services/retail, government/trend followers, utilities/telecommunications, care and other. This was necessary because perhaps consultants in the finance industry do not need to be as exploratory as those in the retail, for instance.
Analysis and Results
Table I shows the means, standard deviations and correlations for the variables used in the study. There was a strong, positive and significant correlation between organizational context and individual ambidexterity, showing that the interaction between performance management context and social support context is present. It may be also important to note that even though
Interestingly, however, was that the relationship between project selection and individual ambidexterity was not significantly related to each other. There is a strong positive relationship (.52, p<0.01) between exploration and social support context, which supports the idea that a consultant working on exploratory tasks can benefit from a better support system. Interestingly, there was a slightly stronger relationship between exploitation and social support context (.26, p<0.01) than exploitation and performance management context (.24, p<0.05). The same goes for exploration, where social context had a stronger correlation with social context (.52, p<0.01) than performance management context (.45, p<0.01) but this is to be expected. This will be
discussed further in the discussion section.
Table I
Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 Organizational Context 0.51 1.66 Performance Management 5.18 0.93 -.44** Social Context 5.71 0.84 -.50** .66** Exploration 5.16 1.05 -.36** .45** .52** Exploitation 4.32 1.10 -.29** .24* .26** .08 Project Selection 4.02 1.10 0.01 0 .02 0 0.12 Individual Ambidexterity 22.36 7.24 .72** .40** .44** .63** .79** 0.15 Correlation is significant at the 0.01
level (2-tailed).**
Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).*
After this, the hypotheses were tested using ordinary least-squares regression. Hypothesis 1 predicts that organizational context will be positively related to individual ambidexterity. As depicted in Table II (for the sake of the chart size, controls were not listed for steps 2-4), this hypothesis was supported (b=.72 p<0.001). Hypothesis 2 predicted that project selection would moderate the effects of Hypothesis 1, and the first step of this was to show that the independent variable project selection influences ambidexterity which was not supported and statistically
and organizational context was tested anyway, but with (b= -.15 p>.05) this was statistically insignificant and not supported. Hypothesis 3 predicted a negative moderation effect between the number of projects being worked on by a consultant and their ability to act ambidextrously, and this was supported by testing the multiplicative interaction effect of number of projects and organizational context (b= -.49, p<0.01) and the direct effects of the moderators were also included in the regression analysis. This shows that as the amount of projects a consultant works on increases, there is a slightly negative effect on that individual’s ability to act ambidextrously.
Table II. R R2 R 2 Change B SE beta t Step 1 0.31 0.10 0.10 Education 0.26 0.19 0.14 1.37 Firm Age 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.13
Number Employees -7.66E-06 0.00 -0.02 -0.16
Years Experience 0.02 0.40 0.00 0.04 Finance 0.61 1.26 0.05 0.48 Industry 0.06 0.69 0.01 0.09 Services/Retail -0.29 1.05 -0.03 -0.28 Trend Followers 0.21 0.53 0.06 0.41 Utilities/Telecom 0.21 1.34 0.02 0.15 Care 0.12 0.57 0.03 0.21 Other 1.38 0.60 0.31 2.29 Step 2 0.76 0.58 0.49 Organizational Context 0.70 0.07 0.72 10.24 Step 3 0.77 0.59 0.01 Organizational Context 0.70 0.07 0.72 10.15 Project Selection 0.12 0.10 0.08 1.17 Number of Projects 0.03 0.13 0.01 0.20 Step 4 0.80 0.63 0.05 Organizational Context 1.14 0.17 1.17 6.88 Project Selection 0.22 0.11 0.15 1.92 Number of Projects 0.18 0.14 0.10 1.32
Project Selection*Organizational Context -0.43 0.22 -0.16 -1.97
Discussion
Due to the nature of consultancy work and the cycle of commodifying knowledge, ambidexterity is very important for consultants. They need to be able to exploit their current offerings to make a profit, yet search for new knowledge to commodify in order to stay competitive (Suddaby & Greenwood, 2007; Maister, 1993). Previous research has tested the ambidextrous abilities of organizational units, but this study sought to dive into these units to the individual level. Further, the study was contextualized to the consultancy industry of the Netherlands. While this may mean the results may not be globally applicable, it can also be a strength of the paper given that it is focused on this area.
This research sought to contribute to ambidexterity literature by showing that a balance of organizational context, rather than a focus on individual aspects, can help individuals act ambidextrously. While previous studies have stated that allowing individuals to focus their time as they see fit on individual aspects of organizational context (Gibson & Birkinshaw AMJ, 2004) this study has shown strong support for the hypothesis that a balance of these aspects is helpful in achieving ambidexterity among individual consultants. An interesting finding of the
correlations was that there was a slightly stronger relationship found between exploitation and social support context (.26, p<0.01) than there was between exploitation and performance management context (.24, p<0.05). Exploration was also found to be more strongly correlated to social context (.52, p<0.01) than with performance management context (.45, p<0.01). This is noteworthy because normally, exploitation means an employee working in their comfort zone and is balanced with a stronger performance management context to avoid a “country club” scenario (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004). However, due to the nature of consultancy that
emphasizes billable hours, and given that mostly small consultancies and ZZPers were surveyed in this research, a “country club” may be impossible to form in the begin with. Especially with a
ZZPer, if one person gets too comfortable and does not do their work, the firm/individual will get nothing done and fail. Ultimately, this study has shown within these small firms that a higher amount of social support than performance management may contribute to a more optimal balance of social support and performance management that can help these individuals achieve their goals and help them better complete their projects to satisfaction, though further research is required on determining these precise levels.
However, there was no support for the second hypothesis that selecting a project based on its characteristics allows these individuals to act ambidextrously and was not able to contribute to existing ambidexterity literature. This may have had to do with the sample size, or the
composition of the participants in the survey. Many consultants worked for small firms and there were also many ZZPers, which may mean that there may not be much of a selection process when it comes to accepting projects. Perhaps this is because they are seeking to maximize billable hours and that there are not continuous flows of multiple projects coming in, and that they may mostly accepting projects as they come in without much of a selection process. This may also be because as freelancers or consultants in small firms, they may be known for or only hired for a certain type of work and may be receiving similar types of project requests, thus leading to a high project acceptance rate and not much of a selection process. Finally, hypothesis 3 predicted a negative relationship between number of projects being worked on an
ambidexterity and was supported. Perhaps this is because a the nature of consultancy work, where the more projects consultants start to accept, the more likely they are to have a preferred method of operation or stay in their comfort zone. Because of the higher workload, consultants may just be pushing work out in ways they are comfortable with in order to get it completed. As
also mentioned previously, this could be related to work overload and stress, but further research is needed to determine the precise cause.
Limitations and Future Research
This study is limited in several ways. The first is that it is a cross sectional study, meaning that it was an analysis of the current situations of the participants at a single point in time. Although this study was able to show a direct effect of organizational context on individual ambidexterity, future research would benefit from being conducting this over the course of one or two years. This would help with determining if individuals were in fact balancing the aspects of
organizational context, or if there are certain times where they spend more time on tasks that are exploratory or exploitative in nature.
Another limitation is that this study was self-evaluative by individual employees. Although the participants were asked to fill in the survey to the best of their abilities and were promised anonymity in order to not hinder their responses, future research would benefit from the evaluations of managers, peers or clients to avoid a self-reporting bias. Due to the nature of consultancy work, it is possible that these consultants may have been biased in their responses. Ideally, they would like to view themselves as the “perfect” workers, and this can affect their responses, which is why the addition of third party inputs could be beneficial. Further, future research would benefit from a more objective measure of project selection, which could perhaps be better facilitated through interviews instead of surveys as there are many aspects to the decision process. It is more a series of processes than a singular action, which may be aided by in-person interviews.
larger sample size. This also means that due to its focus, the results may not be globally
applicable and further studies would benefit from gathering responses from consultants all over the world. Even within the Dutch consultancy market, the results may not be totally applicable because there are many consultants in the Netherlands that are not in the OOA that work for larger, or older firms (or both) that may have different experiences and processes for the tested variables in this study. Further, a more extensive study in terms of gathering responses for firms and individuals in various industries would also be beneficial. In this study, for example, only two of the participants were specialists in finance, which is an industry that is quite exploitative in nature since not many new practices areas are required. Perhaps a broader range of fields from participants would be beneficial, because different industries require different levels of
exploration and exploitation from their employees, for instance.
Practical Implications
The findings of this research have some practical implications for managers in the consultancy field. These results suggest that there is a strong relationship between organizational context and achieving individual ambidexterity in consultancy work, and that social support context was stronger correlated to both exploration and exploitation. For managers, the study could suggest that they should seek to foster this balance within their firms and for their consultants, yet that the ultimate balance may ultimately have greater amounts of social support than performance management than expected. This would imply that managers can be more supportive and trusting of their employees to get their work done in the best way possible while still demanding
performance could be best for allowing their employees to achieve ambidexterity.
Another implication for managers would be to pay attention to the workloads their
to take on many projects to make sure that utilization rates are high. Of course, completing projects is good for the firm, but working too many projects at once can have a negative effect on the individual’s ability to work ambidextrously. Sometimes employees in this type of work can be a bit ambitious, but as a manager it is important to not let employees put too many projects in their current workload because of the negative effect on ambidexterity. Overall, it is important for managers to create a well, but not equally, balanced organizational context where there is a slightly stronger emphasis on social support context to enable individuals to act ambidextrously. Further, monitoring the amount of projects an individual undertakes and keeping it at a level that is manageable is important for consultants in small firms.
Acknowledgement
I would like to that Dr. Michiel Tempelaar and Frank Husken of the OOA for their valuable feedback and suggestions throughout the writing of this paper.
Model 1.
Org. Context Ambidexterity Individual
Number of Projects
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