Individual Ambidexterity: Exploring and Exploiting in Dynamic Contexts

ABSTRACT

Previous research regarding the role of individuals within the organizational ambidexterity construct has primarily focused on behavioral characteristics of managers. Drawing from the organizational, psychological, and neuroscience literatures, this study develops and tests hypotheses concerning the formative construct of Individual Ambidexterity (IA), the cognitive abilities necessary to balance efforts of exploration and exploitation. In an initial criterion-related predictive validity laboratory study, 181 undergraduate students completed successive trials in a computer-simulated, real-time dynamic microworld context. Findings explained unique variance beyond measures of general intelligence on the total score of task adaptive performance. The results indicate a novel combination of abilities that may further understanding of how individual abilities contribute to the ambidexterity literature.

Keywords:

• ambidexterity
• computer-simulated microworlds
• dynamic decision-making
• exploration vs. exploitation