Nineteenth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations

Abstract

Innovation and change are hallmarks of modern organizational success, requiring the complex and often polarizing need for both exploration and exploitation to build capacity and achieve sustainability. Tabeau, Geyser, Halting, & Wijnber (2016) citing Levinthal and March (1993) noted that exploration activities relate to activities that search for new knowledge, while exploitation activities relate to the organization’s efforts to improve current knowledge. According to Rosing and Zacher (2017), exploration and exploitation are critical to the innovation process and are leader behaviors that require attention and balance. Leaders, therefore, are challenged with utilizing behaviors and fostering a culture that balances the extremes of exploration and exploitation to build organizational capacity and sustainability through innovation. Shapiro, Wang, and Peltason (2015) proposed mindfulness, Hollywood, Blaess, Santin, and Bloom (2016) proposed holistic mentoring and Groh (2016) proposed pragmatic energy. Gabriel (2004) discussed how to use narratives as devices to engender collaboration between managers and employees and Boje (2001) discussed how organizational narratives and storytelling apply to innovation narratives. This presentation reviews the literature on leader ambidextrous behaviors and examines the aforementioned approaches for their potential in developing leader behaviors that effectively balance exploration and exploitation in creating organization capacity and sustainability. The discussion will also include practical application narratives; attendees are encouraged to bring their own practical examples of leader approaches to balancing creativity and execution to develop the dialogue.