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The recent development of the ambidexterity theme stems from the recognition that firms today increasingly have to deal with contrasting and conflicting goals such as incremental vs. radical innovation, exploration vs. exploitation (March, 1991), alignment vs. adaptability (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004), and many others. Understanding and managing tensions as well as succeeding in simultaneously accomplishing high levels of both the poles causing such tensions are essential to firms’ competitiveness and survival (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2004, 2008). Organizations able to do so possess the ambidexterity capability, namely the capability of a complex and adaptive system to achieve and manage conflicting activities, by realizing high levels of both in a simultaneous way.

Although ambidexterity capability is a relatively young theme in literature, today it has become a central concept in management research …