Tag Archives | Ambidexterity

Four Models of Intrapreneurship Innovation

Research shows that growth fueled through organic innovation is more profitable than growth driven by acquisition, in part because the organizational capability required is vastly different. But the litmus test is: How can established organizations build successful new businesses through corporate entrepreneurship, also referred to as Intrapreneurship, on an ongoing basis? This is also one of the key questions that […]

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Modern Dual Corporate Innovation Balances Defense with Offense

This is an excerpt of a post of mine, recently published at Haydn Shaugnessy’s journal “Hack & Craft”.     Modern Dual Corporate Innovation Management approaches encompass two complementary directions of impact: Transforming the Core (by largely changing or even disrupting the existing operating model) Creating the New (by largely changing or even disrupting the existing business model) With […]

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The Firm of the Future Will Manage Two Types of Businesses

Bain and Company has just published a worthwile article, debating on the question: What will the firm of the future look like? Among several characteristics, the authors also particularly anticipate future-proof companies to be required to manage two types of businesses by deploying distinct “engines”: Companies have always pursued innovation in their core business. Clayton Christensen has called […]

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Organizational Agility Entails Complementary Innovation

Recently, I’ve come across a couple of posts and articles debating on the question: In order to increase agility, should organizations aim to become more nimble across their existing structures or should they capitalize on separated units/ventures – such as innovation or digital labs – being dedicated to initiate and develop explorative ideas and opportunities? Let’s define agility as […]

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The Case for Dual Innovation

The first time I was advocating the idea of a dual innovation approach, here also referred to as organizational ambidexterity, is now more than 5 years ago. At this time it became pretty obvious to me that this concept – academically worn-out but deficiently or not at all put into practice in most organizations – would be of increasing importance […]

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Balancing Innovation via Organizational Ambidexterity – Part 3

This is part three of a three-parts article co-written with innovation-3‘s Frank Mattes.   The first part highlighted that radical and incremental innovation build on two different innovation set-ups (exploration and exploitation, respect. The second part showed in a sample of seven leading firms that ambidexterity is used in two main types – contextual and structural ambidexterity. […]

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Customer Orientation Effects on Innovation

There is a lot of dicussion around how customer orientation effects innovation. The most extreme assertion is to “ignore the customer” in order to not becoming distracted from true innovativeness by getting too close to customers, limiting innovation to incremental new offerings.  A research paper by V. Govindarajan, P. K. Kopalle and E. Danneels studies the effects of customer […]

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Balancing Large and Small Firm Capabilities

As outlined in earlier posts, organizations need to balance exploitation (i.e. development of existing business) and exploration (i.e. creation of new businesses) in order to thrive on the short and long term.  The corresponding integration of incremental and radical innovation can basically be achieved in different ways:   Building ambidextrous and lean startup capabilities Established organizations with larger size usually target at extending their core business by incementally […]

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Managing Innovation Portfolios – Part 2: Operational Portfolio Management

This is part two of a two-parts article co-written with Kevin McFarthing from Innovation Fixer. The first part can be found here.   In our previous post, we discussed how Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) ensures that the content of the portfolio is driven by innovation strategy and associated targets. We would now like to move on to […]

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Managing Innovation Portfolios – Part 1: Strategic Portfolio Management

This is part one of a two-parts article co-written with Kevin McFarthing from Innovation Fixer. The second part can be found here.   Facing increasingly dynamic and unpredictable environments, firms are required to develop convenient innovation strategies, constantly adapt them to changing conditions and properly implement strategically-aligned initiatives throughout their organizations. Innovation portfolio management (IPM) can act […]

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