Ambidextrous R&D: Balancing Innovation and Growth with

Efficiency and Reliability

"Organizational Ambidexterity: the balancing of

exploitation-exploration tensions is much like riding a
bike it requires a continuous and irregular shifting of
control system use over time." (McCarthy & Gordon,
2011: 255)
R&D organizations by definition need to be
innovative, generating new knowledge and
competencies. However, they also face demands to
be efficient and reliable, in other words to use and
adapt existing knowledge so as to innovate in a
productive, timely and reliable way.
balance two contradictory organizational
behaviours and modes of learning: exploration
and exploitation
Exploration has long-term time horizons and
involves activities such as search, risk taking,
experimentation, play, discovery, creativity and
innovation.

Exploitation is characterized by short-term time

horizons and focuses on refinement, efficiency,
reliability and implementation.
With such differences, the ability to develop and
maintain an appropriate balance between
exploration and exploitation in the same R&D
organizational unit is challenging and requires a
capability known as contextual ambidexterity
(Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004).

each type of control, depends on the goals of the

R&D organization. In the left column of Table 1 we
list four kinds of R&D strategic goals growth,
innovation, reliability and efficiency, each of which
is individually oriented toward each of the four
types of control system.
The right-hand column of Table 1 indicates how the
four management control systems combine to

produce the behaviours and control orientations

necessary for contextual ambidexterity.
Conclusion
First, measuring performance is important; but it is
only one aspect of management control. Thus, it is
important to reflect on the different control
systems at your disposal, and move beyond the
obvious diagnostic-based measures and rewards.

Second, the extent to which you use different

types of management control system will depend
on your strategic goals. The control of people, and
their activities and outcomes should be led by a
strategy.

Third, an organizations effective exploitationexploration balance is likely to change over time.

This is because an optimum mix of exploitationexploration at one point in time is likely to become
unsuitable as industry and organizational
conditions change. Thus, the balancing of
exploitation-exploration tensions is much like
riding a bike it requires a continuous and
irregular shifting of control system use over time