Table I. A Summary of similarities and... | Emerald Publishing

Table I.

A Summary of similarities and differences

	Organizational ambidexterity	Organizational learning
Similarities	Balancing the activities and capacities of exploration and exploitation is a fundamental premise in both areas of literature It is important that these activities are appropriate in relation to the organization’s external environment It is important that the organizational context for exploration and exploitation supports and incentivizes managers and employees in performing their work tasks related to exploration and/or exploitation
Differences	Organizational ambidexterity focuses primarily on the structural and temporal dimensions of managing exploration and exploitation, as a prescriptive approach to solve the dilemma of how equal dexterity can be found Harmonic/contextual ambidexterity is the most developed stream of literature that studies how exploration and exploitation can be balanced on both the individual and organizational levels of analysis, besides the structural and temporal dimensions noted above Organizational ambidexterity has a strong intrafirm bias; only a few studies treating the inter-organizational aspects of managing exploration and exploitation exist in the literature. Three domains are identified that cut across organizational boundaries: the function, structure and the attribute domains	Organizational learning focuses on the processes of learning pertaining to multiple units of analysis: individual, group/team and organization. Moreover, the literature accepts the premise that different modes of learning can occur on these multiple levels simultaneously (e.g., the 4i framework in organizational learning and the 5i framework in inter-organizational learning). Different types of knowledge require different modes of learning. A more dynamic view regarding exploration and exploitation is thus noticeable in this literature compared to organizational ambidexterity: 1) What can be seen as exploitation knowledge for one organization can be interpreted as exploration knowledge for another organization 2) Knowledge that does not exist beforehand can be created between different organizations in a mutual exploration phase 3) The importance of prior knowledge is articulated as a key premise to enable knowledge absorption from the outside 4) Processing exploration and exploitation as passive, active or interactive modes of learning within and between organizations can enable the understanding of the complexity of the knowledge that is to be absorbed, transferred or created

	Organizational ambidexterity	Organizational learning
Similarities	Balancing the activities and capacities of exploration and exploitation is a fundamental premise in both areas of literature It is important that these activities are appropriate in relation to the organization’s external environmentIt is important that the organizational context for exploration and exploitation supports and incentivizes managers and employees in performing their work tasks related to exploration and/or exploitation
Differences	Organizational ambidexterity focuses primarily on the structural and temporal dimensions of managing exploration and exploitation, as a prescriptive approach to solve the dilemma of how equal dexterity can be found Harmonic/contextual ambidexterity is the most developed stream of literature that studies how exploration and exploitation can be balanced on both the individual and organizational levels of analysis, besides the structural and temporal dimensions noted aboveOrganizational ambidexterity has a strong intrafirm bias; only a few studies treating the inter-organizational aspects of managing exploration and exploitation exist in the literature. Three domains are identified that cut across organizational boundaries: the function, structure and the attribute domains	Organizational learning focuses on the processes of learning pertaining to multiple units of analysis: individual, group/team and organization. Moreover, the literature accepts the premise that different modes of learning can occur on these multiple levels simultaneously (e.g., the 4i framework in organizational learning and the 5i framework in inter-organizational learning). Different types of knowledge require different modes of learning. A more dynamic view regarding exploration and exploitation is thus noticeable in this literature compared to organizational ambidexterity:1) What can be seen as exploitation knowledge for one organization can be interpreted as exploration knowledge for another organization2) Knowledge that does not exist beforehand can be created between different organizations in a mutual exploration phase3) The importance of prior knowledge is articulated as a key premise to enable knowledge absorption from the outside4) Processing exploration and exploitation as passive, active or interactive modes of learning within and between organizations can enable the understanding of the complexity of the knowledge that is to be absorbed, transferred or created

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