Ambidexterity and Social Software for Innovation: a Practice-based Approach

How firms can succeed in reconciling the exploitation of existing knowledge with the exploration of new possibilities is an open question in the literature and represents the core of this paper whose aim is to investigate the role of social media tool in enabling the ambidexterity capability. In order to reach this objective, the practice of “In the Mill I Wish” (MIW), implemented by a large innovative Italian company, has been analyzed following a micro perspective approach. The results point out how MIW allows the company to gather explorative and exploitative ideas from customers, thus making the practice ambidextrous. Findings contribute to the organizational ambidexterity literature, by proposing a new way to reach ambidexterity that is neither at the level of the structure nor at the level of the context, as literature currently sustains