组织二元性的理论评述与未来研究展望

Theoretical Review And Future Prospects On Organizational Ambidexterity

基于对中外组织二元性相关文献的回顾分析,本文从理论源起、概念与分类、维度与量表、因果模型等方面人手,系统地梳理与评述了组织二元性的研究成果,发现当下研究的脉络和趋势,识别其中存在的问题与不足之处。在此基础之上,对未来组织二元性的研究进行了展望:开发更科学的量表、组织二元性的跨文化研究、情景化比较研究、元分析与跨学科结合讨论是未来研究的方向,并且讨论了组织二元性的理论意义与实践价值。

How to realize organizational ambidexterity well has long been the core issue of organizational and management research, and has also won public attentions and popular spread in the current academia. However, ex- isting research has not come to consensus on its main contents and extents, and the related literature reviews are not that comprehensive, systematic and modem. In order to understand daily organizational phenomenon of ambidexterity better and further prompt researches on ambidextrous organizations in the field of organization and management, the current paper illustrates the theoreti- cal origins in the western society and conceptual definitions of organizational ambidexterity, its dimensions and measurements, and investigates its developments in organizational field. In addition to this, the paper summarizes three kinds of basic research type：theoretical arguments, qualitative investigations, and empirical study, to cover most high-level and carefully-crafted research that have been done in the recent decades both in China and in the west. For theoretical arguments, most western scholars have had direct researches on the constructs of organizational ambidexterity by conducting meta-analysis. Some explore the general concept of organizational ambidexterity, while others focus on several specific factors that influence and have main effects on organizational ambidexterity, such as institutional-effects. Different from western scholars in their choices of research lens, domestic researches by Chinese scholars investigate the functioning-mechanisms, newly-coined concepts and antecedents of organizational ambidex- terity. With regard to qualitative investigation and ease-study, four sub-fields including the construct of organizational ambidexterity, the early forming mechanism of organizational ambidexterity, the balancing pattern of organizational ambidexterity and effects of organizational ambidexterity are discussed by scholars mostly in west. In terms of regular empirical study, antecedents, mediating mechanisms underlying causal-relationship, boundary conditions of modera- ting effects and causal relationships are paid attention to in the academia by scholars not only in China but also in west. Besides all of these regular research mentioned above, scholars also distinguish many effects of organizational ambidexterity in its varying conditions, including main cultural characteristics under differential backgrounds and or- ganizations of various kinds, such as state-owned enterprise. Then, the paper points out the findings of this literature review ： organizational ambidexterity is one of the most important research-topics in the current academia; organizational ambidexterity has been dynamic and systematic as a new management paradigm; it is important to seek fit in the organization to realize organizational ambidexterity to better develop the organizations; there are still limits in the current research and this might give opportunities for the maturity and growth of organizational ambidexterity, and be big challenges for scholars doing academics in the same time. Eventually, this paper shares some advice on future research prospects in five ways： develop one or more scales to measure organizational ambidexterity much more scientifically; conduct more thorough cross-cultural study to fig- ure out the reasons of why some succeed while others fail; take comparative study in contextualization to generate some theories that might be applied to some specific conditions; do more meta analysis that integrates research both in China and in west to generate the main conclusions to give birth to the consensus; pay attention to multi-discipli- nary integration and combinations to advance this current research to a much higher and better level.