Organisational Ambidexterity and the Management Accountant: A Review

By Leon Duval

Dynamic external environments and the inexorable advances in computerisation have significantly curtailed the lifecycles of many products and services. The criteria applied for supporting and controlling innovation and development are diametrically opposite to those required for managing a mature capability focused on extracting maximum residual value out of a waning product.

For this reason, specialised architectures evolved to facilitate the nurture and support of both exploration and exploitation activities within one organisation. Organisations that successfully integrate the dual strategies and structures required are referred to as ambidextrous. Understanding the antecedent factors giving rise to organisational ambidexterity, becoming familiar with its various designs, and being aware of the conflicts the structures are designed to resolve, assists the management accounting practitioner to design appropriate systems for controlling these specialised architectures.

This review of the ambidextrous organisation literature explains the antecedents giving rise to organisational ambidexterity, discusses the models that have evolved and how they resolve the structural conflicts arising out of competing agendas.

JAMAR 14.2-Ambidextrous Organisations

 

About Prof Janek Ratnatunga 1129 Articles
Professor Janek Ratnatunga is CEO of the Institute of Certified Management Accountants. He has held appointments at the University of Melbourne, Monash University and the Australian National University in Australia; and the Universities of Washington, Richmond and Rhode Island in the USA. Prior to his academic career he worked with KPMG.