@article {1060, title = {Opening the Black Box of Ambidexterity: Three Product Development Stories}, journal = {Technology Innovation Management Review}, volume = {7}, year = {2017}, month = {03/2017}, pages = {4-11}, publisher = {Talent First Network}, address = {Ottawa}, abstract = {Organizational ambidexterity, which can be roughly defined as the ability for organizations to combine old and new ways of doing things to meet organizational objectives, has drawn considerable attention in the management literature in recent years. Authors distinguish clearly between structural ambidexterity, which implies that ambidextrous organizations are firms in which groups of people concentrate on traditional business or ways of doing things while others explore new avenues, and contextual ambidexterity, which characterizes companies where any individual can be ambidextrous. Our research is positioned in the contextual ambidexterity perspective. In this article, we apply the typology of four ambidextrous behaviours developed by Birkinshaw and Gibson (2004) to increase our understanding of the process whereby organizational actors are able to build on existing capabilities or business processes while developing new ones. Our results indicate that at least three of the ambidextrous behaviours proposed by Birkinshaw and Gibson (2004) (initiator, broker, and multitasker) are helpful to understand how new product development team members rely on proven approaches while simultaneously introducing new ones to successfully overcome daily challenges. Practitioners should be encouraged to become familiar with the concept of ambidexterity, to recognize when and how the successful combination of old and new ways of doing happens, and to promote these occurrences.}, keywords = {adaptability, alignment, ambidextrous behaviour, contextual ambidexterity, exploitation, exploration, new product development}, issn = {1927-0321}, doi = {http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/1060}, url = {http://timreview.ca/article/1060}, author = {John Fiset and Isabelle Dostaler} }