Organisational ambidexterity: a literature review using bibliometric methods

Abstract

The present research work shows the results of an analysis about the existing literature on one of the 'topics' which is currently raising great interest among scholars and researchers in the fields of strategic management and organisation science, namely: organisational ambidexterity. More precisely, and seeking to identify and visualise the intellectual structure or knowledge base of the research developed in relation to this construct, a decision was made to analyse a total of 283 research papers which appeared after the publication in the journal California Management Review in the summer of 1996 of the seminal work by Tushman and O'Reilly III entitled 'Ambidextrous Organizations: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change', where these authors suggested that organisations need to explore and exploit simultaneously if they want to be ambidextrous. As for the methodology applied, it was based on the utilisation of bibliometric techniques - particularly citation analyses and author co-citation analyses (ACA) - and social networks analysis (SNA).