6533b7d0fe1ef96bd125a250

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Driving organisational ambidexterity through process management. The key role of cultural change

subject

description

There is an intense debate in the literature on the impact of process management on innovation, and the division of opinions becomes particularly apparent with regard to radical innovation. Furthermore, organisational ambidexterity, the organisational capability to undertake incremental as well as radical innovation activities, has been underlined as a key source of competitiveness. In this article, we analyse how the cultural divergence driven by process management can affect organisational ambidexterity. Through a survey carried out on a sample of Spanish firms in the furniture and textile sectors, both of which have been drastically hit by competition from Asian firms, we conclude that the cultural context created by process management practices applied in a total quality management framework, which embraces exploitation along with exploration values, acts as a platform for developing organisational ambidexterity. Since organisational ambidexterity constitutes the capability of undertaking a rich varie...