Frontline ambidexterity: a systematic review and future research agenda

Abstract

Ambidexterity in a business context has focused primarily on how organizations can strategically coordinate multiple, often competing tasks. Within the marketing function, ambidexterity has centered specifically on how frontline employees can best coordinate sales and service activities manifesting at the frontline. This paper systematically reviews the frontline literature to provide a framework that encompasses and reconciles the many forms of ambidexterity that arise at the frontline interface. This work identifies critical areas for future research to better unify the field, allowing for an inclusive understanding of frontline ambidexterity that encompasses any firm or firm representative involvement in the multiple routine and non-routine demands that emerge within a dynamic frontline interface. Notably, this review suggests a nuanced perspective of frontline ambidexterity, including three distinct forms that are labeled dueling, holistic, and synergistic ambidexterity. Thus, the objectives are to (1) assess the current state of the literature pertaining to a broader understanding of frontline ambidexterity, (2) identify classifications of frontline ambidexterity interactions that allow us to better understand the status of our knowledge base, and (3) critically evaluate this understanding to identify gaps and provide insights regarding extensive directions for future research in this domain.

Keywords:

• frontline ambidexterity
• sales
• service
• systematic review
• research agenda

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Chain searching, also referred to as backward reference searching, involves searching the references listed in strong articles for additional relevant articles for review. Chain searching was performed on articles published from 2016-2023 that were identified through a Web of Science search (N = 26 articles including “sales ambidexterity,” “service ambidexterity,” “frontline ambidexterity,” or “Ambidextrous sales” anywhere in the article).

2 VOSViewer is a software program that allows for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks using terms and co-occurrences extracted from scholarly literature (see https://www.vosviewer.com/).