Building contextual ambidexterity in a software company to improve firm-level coordination

• Published in: European journal of information systems Vol. 20; no. 6; pp. 674 - 690
• Main Authors: Napier, Nannette P, Mathiassen, Lars, Robey, Daniel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Taylor & Francis 01.11.2011; Palgrave Macmillan UK; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: action research; Adaptability; Analysis; Business and Management; Business Information Systems; contextual ambidexterity; Corporate planning; Customer satisfaction; Efficiency; firm-level coordination; Information Systems and Communication Service; Information technology; Innovation/Technology Management; Innovations; Market planning; Operations Research/Decision Theory; Performance management; Product development; Project management; Research Article; Social support; Software industry; software organization; Studies; Teams; Technological change; software organization; action research; firm-level coordination; contextual ambidexterity
• DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2011.32
• ISSN: 0960-085X

Software organizations increasingly face contradictory strategic choices as they develop customized and packaged solutions for the market. They need to improve efficiency of development processes while at the same time adapting to emerging customer needs; they need to exploit software products in relation to existing customers while simultaneously exploring new technology and market opportunities; and, they need to consider both incremental and radical innovations. While the integration of such opposing strategies requires software organizations to become ambidextrous, there is limited actionable advice on how managers can develop such capability. Against this backdrop, we report from a two-year action research study into a small software firm, TelSoft. Based on Pettigrew's contextualist inquiry, we develop a framework that integrates existing theory on contextual ambidexterity with a generic process for improving software organizations, and we apply this framework to analyze how TelSoft improved its coordination of products, projects, and innovation efforts. As a result, we offer principles for how software managers can build ambidextrous capability to improve firm-level coordination.