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The explore–exploit tension: A case study of organizing in a professional services firm
journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-09, 13:10 authored by Aaron SmithAaron Smith, David H. Gilbert, Fiona SutherlandThis article reports on a case study of a decade-long organizing forms response to the need for groundbreaking innovation while maintaining existing operational performance – the explore–exploit conundrum. Employing ‘grounded research,’ data were collected on the experiences of the Asia-Pacific arm of a multinational professional service firm’s key decisionmakers, innovators and entrepreneurs. The findings reveal a three-tiered organizing forms response to the explore–exploit paradox, characterized by a novel combination of heavy exploitation-driven
actions alongside deep exploration projects. This case suggests that one successful approach to delivering on both explore and exploit focuses on a productive tension that emerges by enacting innovative organizing forms with contextual awareness. This productive tension was sufficiently powerful to impel individuals to innovate, but also sufficiently contained to avoid interfering with commercial outcomes. An explore–exploit framework conceptualizes organizational changes incorporating complexity and contradiction, without the implicit emphasis on removing or
denying the existing tension.
History
School
- Loughborough University London
Published in
Journal of Management & OrganizationVolume
23Issue
04Pages
566 - 586Citation
SMITH, A.C., GILBERT, D.H. and SUTHERLAND, F., 2017. The explore–exploit tension: A case study of organizing in a professional services firm. Journal of Management & Organization, 23 (4), pp.566-586.Publisher
© Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of ManagementVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Acceptance date
2017-01-27Publication date
2017-02-23Notes
This paper is closed access.ISSN
1833-3672eISSN
1839-3527Publisher version
Language
- en