Institutional Ambidexterity: Leveraging Institutional Complexity in Practice

Prof Paula Jarzabkowski

Dr Michael Smets

Dr Rebecca Bednarek

Dr Gary Burke

Dr Paul Spee

Abstract

This chapter develops a practice approach to institutional ambidexterity. In doing so it first explores the ‘promise’ of institutional ambidexterity as a concept to address shortcomings within the institutional theory treatment of complexity. However, we argue that this is an empty promise because ambidexterity remains an organisational level construct that neither connects to institutional level, or to the practical actions and interactions within which individuals enact institutions. We therefore suggest a practice approach that we develop into a conceptual framework for fulfilling the promise of institutional ambidexterity. The second part of the chapter outlines what a practice approach is and the variation in practice-based insights into institutional ambidexterity that we might expect in contexts of novel or routine institutional complexity. Finally, the chapter concludes with a research agenda that highlights the potential of practice to extend institutional theory through new research approaches to well-established institutional theory questions, interests and established-understandings.

Keywords: Institutional logics, institutional complexity, practice

The published version is available from:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2013)0039B015

The full citation is:Paula Jarzabkowski, Michael Smets, Rebecca Bednarek, Gary Burke, Paul Spee

(2013), Institutional Ambidexterity: Leveraging Institutional Complexity in Practice, in Michael Lounsbury, Eva Boxenbaum (ed.) Institutional Logics in Action, Part B

(Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 39), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.37-61

This chapter is © Emerald Group Publishing and permission has been granted for this version to appear on the Oxford Eureka and ORA platforms. Emerald does not grant permission for this chapter to be further copied/distributed or hosted elsewhere without the express permission from Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

IntroductionInstitutional ambidexterity (Greenwood, Raynard, Kodeih, Micellota, &

Lounsbury, 2011) is institutionalists’ latest attempt to come to terms with

situations of institutional ‘complexity’ or ‘pluralism’, in which

incompatible expectations and prescriptions, or ‘logics’, collide (Goodrick

& Reay, 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008; Pache & Santos, 2010; Thornton,

Ocasio, & Lounsbury, 2012). Drawing on existing literature in the

strategy field (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004; Gupta, Smith, & Shalley,

2006; March, 1991; Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996), institutional

ambidexterity looks to the potential benefits of being able to operate

across coexisting, contradictory logics. This perspective marks a

significant departure from previous approaches that saw institutional

complexity as problematic and focused on resolving conflict by keeping

apart people, practices or audiences that followed contradictory logics

(e.g., Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Seo & Creed, 2002; Smets, Morris, &

Greenwood, 2012) This problem-based focus led institutionalists to

overlook the potential benefits for organisations in operating across

different logics. Indeed, from healthcare to professional services to

academia, there are numerous examples of organizations in which

seemingly incompatible logics not only coexist, but also fruitfully

complement each other. Therefore, we need to better understand how

organizations can capitalize on interdependencies between logics, and

not just remedy problems arising from their tensions.

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The concept of institutional ambidexterity is an important step towards

addressing this shortcoming in the institutional literature; albeit, one that

still falls short of resolving it. The notion of ambidexterity differs from

existing approaches because it acknowledges that working to different

prescriptions, while difficult, has the potential to benefit organizations.

From this perspective, institutional complexity is not a problem to be

resolved, but a naturally occuring condition to be managed, and

harnessed (Kraatz & Block, 2008). Indeed, if we see exploitation and

exploration (March, 1991) as two distinct and contradictory logics of

learning, then ambidexterity has, implicitly, always been looking at

logics-in-action and is a useful frame for looking at institutional

complexity (Greenwood et al., 2011). Transposing organizational

ambidexterity insights into the institutional literature thus appears

promising at first sight. Closer scrutiny, however, exposes this as an

empty promise because, to date, ambidexterity scholars struggle to

suggest practical solutions to the puzzle of integrating contradictory

prescriptions. For example, relying on senior management teams to

integrate separate efforts lower down the corporate hierarchy may work

for exploration and exploitation (e.g., Benner & Tushman, 2003; Jansen,

Tempelaar, van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2009; O'Reilly & Tushman, 2004;

Siggelkow & Levinthal, 2003), but is a less useful insight for other logics

that need to be balanced on a continuous basis by practitioners at work.

Similarly, those authors suggesting that ambidexterity hinges on

organizational culture, fail to specify what people in those organizations

do to create such cultures, or to perform their everyday work under their

2

influence (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004). These problems arise because

ambidexterity scholars have treated complexity as an organizational

phenomenon, without pursuing its practical implications at the individual

level or its origins at the institutional level. Hence, in order to fulfil the

promise of the institutional ambidexterity concept, we need an approach

that leverages institutional complexity in practice.

Developing this practice approach to institutional ambidexterity is the

focus of this chapter, which unfolds as follows: First, we review existing

approaches to institutional complexity. Then, we visit the ambidexterity

literature to gauge the promise it holds for addressing the puzzle of

institutional complexity. Third, we introduce practice theory as a

perspective that fruitfully connects individual, organizational and

institutional levels of analysis (e.g., Barley, 2008; Bourdieu, 1990;

Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Smets et al., 2012; Whittington, 2006),

building a conceptual model to illustrate our argument. Finally, drawing

on the relatively few examples from the institutional theory literature, we

outline the types of insights that a practice perspective on institutional

ambidexterity can generate and indicate promising avenues for future

research.

Institutional Complexity: The Story So FarSince Friedland and Alford’s (1991) seminal work, institutional

complexity, which is the encounter of ‘incompatible prescriptions from

multiple institutional logics’ (Greenwood et al., 2011), has captured

institutionalists’ interest. Such complexity arises from an overlap of

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institutional orders with incompatible prescriptions (Thornton et al.,

2012); for example, where organizations operate across institutional

spheres with contradictory prescriptions (e.g., Greenwood & Suddaby,

2006; Smets et al., 2012) or face different constituents with divergent

demands (e.g., D'Aunno, Sutton, & Price, 1991; Greenwood, Magàn Diaz,

Li, & Céspedes Lorente, 2010; Heimer, 1999). Over time and based on

the intellectual priorities in the broader field of institutional theory, this

interest has taken three different guises that we outline below.

Institutional Complexity as Occasion for ChangeInstitutional logics are the building blocks of institutional complexity

and initially rose to prominence as a means of theorizing about the

heterogeneity in institutional environments (Battilana & Dorado, 2010;

Seo & Creed, 2002; Thornton & Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012).

Complexity allowed institutionalists to counter critiques of being overly

focused on homogeneity and stasis (Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997) and to

theorize institutional change arising endogenously, rather than from

exogenous regulatory, social, or technological shocks (Edelman, 1992;

Garud, Jain, & Kumaraswamy, 2002; Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003). Seo

and Creed (2002) argue that institutional contradictions can function as

an endogenous trigger of change, because they make actors aware of

alternatives to their institutionalized, taken-for-granted ways and

motivate them to pursue more favourable alternatives (e.g., Djelic &

Quack, 2003; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Seo & Creed, 2002; Smets et

al., 2012; Thornton, Jones, & Kury, 2005). Given the predominant

preoccupation with explaining institutional change, such research

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depicted complexity as transitory, en route to a state of relative stability

in which one logic dominates over another (Marquis & Lounsbury, 2007;

Reay & Hinings, 2005; Thornton, 2002; Townley, 2002).

Institutional Complexity as Contested CoexistenceMore recently, institutional theorists have come to recognize that

institutional complexity may not be transitory, but permanent

(Greenwood et al., 2011; Zilber, 2011); especially for those organizations

which, by their very nature, are ‘an incarnation or embodiment of

multiple logics’ (Kraatz & Block, 2008). In these organizations,

contradictory prescriptions from different legitimating audiences

systematically collide in everyday operations and institutional complexity

must be managed continuously. Therefore, studies of such organizations

made efforts to leave the field level and ‘get inside’ organizations to

understand organizational responses to institutional complexity (e.g.,

Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Pache & Santos, 2010). However, they

retained a focus on the incompatibilities and tensions that characterize

the overlap of competing logics (Greenwood et al., 2011), as reflected in

the imagery of ‘turmoil’ (Hallett, 2010); ‘threat’ (Jarzabkowski,

Matthiesen, & Van de Ven, 2009) and ‘uneasy truce’ (Reay & Hinings,

2005). As a result, suggested organizational responses, building on

Oliver’s (1991) seminal work, have been largely defensive. These may

involve resistance to institutional pressures (Townley, 1997), use of

organizational status to avoid or defy problematic stakeholders (e.g.,

Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Smets et al., 2012), or

compartmentalization of compliance with different sets of expectations

5

into different organizational or geographic units (e.g., Binder, 2007; Dunn

& Jones, 2010; Jarzabkowski et al., 2009; Lounsbury, 2007). Common to

the majority of these responses is their focus on simplifying the situation

and reducing the tensions of complexity by keeping apart competing

logics and the practices and people that enact them. Advocating an

approach of not letting the right hand know what the left hand is doing,

such studies did not fully consider that organisations that are ‘dextrous

with both hands’ might not only avoid tensions, but also reap distinctive

benefits.

Institutional Ambidexterity as Embracing ComplexityMost recently, institutional scholars have revisited relationships

between logics in a more nuanced fashion, discovering potential for more

fruitful relationships between coexisting logics (e.g., Almandoz, 2012;

Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Greenwood et al., 2011; Kraatz & Block, 2008;

Smets & Jarzabkowski, forthcoming). Ironically, benefits of awareness

and reflexivity were already highlighted by Seo and Creed (2002); indeed,

Friedland and Alford pointed out that coexisting logics ‘are

interdependent and yet also contradictory’ (1991; emphasis added; see

also Scott, 1991). This makes intuitive sense, as there are benefits in

scientific and well-managed patient-care (Dunn & Jones, 2010; Kitchener,

2002), more client-oriented or multi-disciplinary professional services

(Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Suddaby & Greenwood, 2005; Thornton et

al., 2005), or positive feedback loops between commercialized research

outputs and ideas or funding for future research (D'Este & Perkmann,

2011; Perkmann & Walsh, 2009). Institutional scholars, given their

6

predominant focus on incompatibility and tension, have largely neglected

such interdependencies. Yet, interdependence indicates that truly

ambidextrous approaches to complexity, in which the left hand not only

knows what the right hand does, but can skilfully complement its actions,

are much more apposite to address the conundrum of institutional

complexity.

Greenwood and colleagues (2011) suggest borrowing from the

ambidexterity literature to provide new insights into the integration of

competing logics. The basic premise of ambidexterity is the ability to

simultaneously perform contradictory processes when both are critical to

organizational success (March, 1991; Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). This

change in perspective is helpful for institutionalists insofar as it moves

from attempting to resolve complexity to balancing its components in

pursuit of distinctive outputs and identities (Goodrick & Reay, 2011;

Kraatz & Block, 2008; Reay & Hinings, 2009). Based on Simsek’s (2009)

distinction of ‘structural’ and ‘blended’ hybrids, two different approaches

to ambidexterity have been proposed in institutional theory; neither of

which, however, seems to be currently delivering on the promise of

embracing institutional complexity. Structural differentiation arises from

current work on compartmentalization that assigns compliance with

different expectations to different organizational units. Where and how

subsequent integration occurs, however, remains unclear to date.

Blended hybrids sidestep this problem by allowing different logics to

pervade the organization and relying on individuals to strike an

appropriate balance (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; D'Aunno et al., 1991;

7

Smets et al., 2012). So far, this appears to be the ‘gold standard’ of

institutional ambidexterity. However, several problems remain. For

example, suggestions for facilitating logic blending are currently limited

to recommendations of using human resource policies to create an open

and receptive context (Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Smets et al., 2012).

How this is to be done and what individuals inhabiting these contexts do

to enact different logics, however, remains obscure. Furthermore, it is

questionable that an indistinguishable blend of competing logics and the

practices that enact them would always be desirable. As Battilana and

Dorado (2010) foreshadow, blended hybridization may produce ‘slippage’

towards either logic. From a theoretical perspective, slippage may herald

institutional change, rather than balanced complexity with distinct but

coexistent logics. Empirically, failure to discriminate between, and

sustain, competing logics may herald the neglect of critical standards, as

experienced in the case of Enron and other corporate scandals in which

commercial goals superseded professional standards (Gabbioneta,

Greenwood, Mazzola, & Minoja, forthcoming; Grey, 2003). Alternatives

that can integrate practices governed by competing logics on an ongoing,

practical basis in order to sustain them as interdependent yet separate

have thus rarely been explored in the (institutional) ambidexterity

literature. We consider this neglect both theoretically and empirically

problematic. We now briefly visit the foundations of ambidexterity in the

strategy literature, before developing a practice-theoretical variant that

we consider more suitable for addressing remaining blind spots in the

8

study of institutional complexity and the attendant concept of institutional

ambidexterity.

Ambidexterity in the Strategy Literature: A False PromiseThe ambidexterity literature suggests that successful firms are

ambidextrous; ‘aligned and efficient with today’s business demands

[exploitation] while simultaneously adaptive to changes in the

environment [exploration]’ (March, 1991; Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008). As

discussed above, Greenwood et al. (2011) link this concept to institutional

theory through labelling ‘exploitation’ and ‘exploration’ as different logics

of learning. Other scholars argue that, as ambidexterity can been used to

signify an organisation’s ability to do two different (apparently

conflicting) things at the same time more generally, it is applicable to

logics other than exploitation and exploration (Gibson & Birkinshaw,

2004). Ambidexterity, the ability to excel at two contradictory things

simultaneously, is posited as both possible and desirable for

organizations. It is thus portrayed as an organizational resource that links

to organizational performance, which is the central theoretical

proposition and empirically explored relationship in the ambidexterity

literature (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004; He & Wong, 2004; Simsek, 2009;

Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). Achieving ambidexterity is not, however,

assumed to be easy, as the simultaneous fulfilment of competing demands

is filled with potential tensions and trade-offs (Andriopoulos & Lewis,

2009; Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008; Smith & Tushman, 2005). The

literature has explored three main ways of achieving organizational

ambidexterity: structure, organizational context (culture) and leadership

9

(Raisch & Birkinshaw, 2008; Simsek, 2009). Initially, structural solutions

proposed that distinct organizational units should pursue either

exploration or exploitation (Benner & Tushman, 2003; Burgelman, 2002;

Gupta et al., 2006; O'Reilly & Tushman, 2004; Smith & Tushman, 2005;

Tushman & O’Reilly, 1996). Then, contextual ambidexterity focused on an

organization’s culture, suggesting that if management created a suitable

context, for example by engendering trust, ambidexterity would be

apparent at all levels of the organizations (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004).

Finally, given that both these bodies of research focus on the upper

echelons of management that are either the strategic integrating apex

(Smith & Tushman, 2005); or responsible for creating a supportive

business-unit context (Birkinshaw & Gibson, 2004), a large body of work

has focused on leadership and leaders’ characteristics that enable

organizational ambidexterity (Carmeli & Halevi, 2009; Jansen et al., 2009;

Lubatkin, Simsek, Yan, & Veiga, 2006; Siggelkow & Levinthal, 2003;

Smith, Binns, & Tushman, 2010; Smith & Tushman, 2005)

In considering the ambidexterity literature, issues emerge regarding its

capacity to provide a theoretical foundation for managing institutional

complexity and the desire to embrace interdependence and integration

between divergent logics. First, there is a surprising lack of integration in

the ambidexterity literature (Simsek, 2009). Indeed, ‘organizational

ambidexterity’ was initially treated as ‘virtually synonymous with

structurally differentiated hybrids’ (Greenwood et al., 2011) and any

integration that does occur is usually located at the apex of an

10

organization rather than something that is imbued at all organizational

levels (Smith & Tushman, 2005).

Second, ambidexterity remains an explicitly organizational construct,

which partly explains the lack of attention to the practical doing of

ambidexterity by managers. The literature lacks integrative models that

span multiple levels of analysis, such as the individual and institutional

levels (Gupta et al., 2006; Raisch, Birkinshaw, Probst, & Tushman, 2009;

Simsek, 2009). In particular, contextual and structural approaches

exclude a micro focus on how individuals perform ambidexterity or macro

perspectives on the institutional ramifications of ambidexterity (Simsek,

2009). While the lineage of the term ‘ambidextrous’ is explicitly individual

– the capacity of an individual to do two things at once – as a metaphor in

organization studies, ambidexterity has not focused on the individual per

se or how actors do ambidexterity (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009; Gupta et

al., 2006). This is true even when authors argue that ambidexterity

resides at the individual level, such as Gibson and Birkinshaw (2004),

who propose that individuals should use their own judgement to achieve

ambidexterity, but focus on the characteristics of their context rather

than on how the individuals might do that. Tellingly, in painting a multi-

level picture of ambidexterity, Bledow et al. (2009) include only one

explicit ambidexterity citation in their summary of the individual level

(Mom, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2007), drawing the rest of their

literature from other research domains.

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Bledow et al.’s (2009) model is also explicitly intra-organizational, with

no discussion of the broader organizational environment, leading to our

second point that the ambidexterity literature is almost exclusively

internally focused on organizational capabilities. It is not concerned with

legitimacy and adherence to externally imposed rules of action

(Greenwood et al., 2011). When the inter-organizational environment is

considered, it is a secondary focus behind intra-organizational

performance and resources, such as how alliances may be a source of

intra-organizational ambidexterity (Rothaermel & Deeds, 2006), or how

particular characteristics of an organizations’ immediate, local

environment may impact the ambidexterity-performance link (Jansen, van

de Bosch, & Volberda, 2005; Jansen, van de Bosch, & Volberda, 2006;

Levinthal & March, 1993). Consequently, ambidexterity does not provide

institutional theorists with the means to link the ambidextrous doing of

institutional complexity at the individual level, with the organizational

level and the broader institutional field. In its current conceptual state, it

is a false promise for studying the problems and benefits of institutional

complexity.

Fulfilling the Promise: Institutional Ambidexterity in PracticeIn this section we draw together the concept of institutional

ambidexterity, the shortcomings that currently prevent it from fulfilling

its promise, and our suggestion of practice theory as a way to address

those shortcomings in a conceptual model of our argument.

Ambidexterity presents a potential solution to how organisations can reap

the benefits of interdependent logics, by suggesting that they may

12

embrace two potentially contradictory courses of action simultaneously.

However, as shown in Figure 1, it is primarily an organisational level

construct that does not adequately address the issues of logics in action.

That is, ambidexterity neither examines the institutional logics within

which potential contradictions are embedded, nor the actions that people

take in coping with coexistence in more or less complementary ways.

Hence, we need an underpinning theoretical approach that can flesh out

institutional ambidexterity as a concept that embraces the potential

benefits of institutional complexity and also examines how actors work

within such complexity to perform ambidextrous associations between

logics.

INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE

Practice theories span multiple levels from institutional to individual

within which institutional complexity is socially accomplished. From a

practice perspective, all action is situated within, produces and re-

produces the dynamics of its wider social context. Thus, by looking at the

actions of individuals at the nexus of different institutional logics, such as

health care, educational, arts and regulated organizations, we can see

how actions that are situated within multiple logics construct

ambidexterity. Institutions themselves cannot be ambidextrous; rather,

people do institutional ambidexterity in their everyday actions and

interactions as they work within and enact multiple logics.

Practice theory (e.g. Jarzabkowski, 2005; Jarzabkowski, Balogun, &

Seidl, 2007; Schatzki, 2001) directs attention to, ‘how people engage in

13

the doing of “real work”’ (Cook & Brown, 1999) but also the ‘shared

practical understanding’ which gives it meaning and makes it robust

(Schatzki, 2001). The focus is on how actors interact with, construct and

draw upon the social and physical features of their context in the

everyday activities that constitute practice. Practice theorists have thus

sought to go beyond the dualism of institutions and action that still

permeates much institutional theory (Barley, 2008; Hallett, 2010), by

demonstrating that institutions are constructed by and, in turn, construct

action (e.g. Bourdieu, 1990; Giddens, 1984; Sztompka, 1991; Turner,

1994). For these theorists, the collective practice that constitutes

institutional order exists only through the way that it is enacted in the

mundane, practical actions of actors, as depicted by the double-headed

‘practice’ arrow in Figure 1. Practice theory thus takes actions,

interactions and negotiations between multiple individuals as the core

unit of analysis (Jarzabkowski et al, 2007). In these actions and

interactions, actors instantiate, reproduce and modify the shared or

collective practice (Schatzki, 2002)that is the focus of institutional theory

(Jarzabkowski, 2004; Whittington, 2006). A practice lens can thus provide

insight into how actors perform institutional ambidexterity within their

work; enacting competing understandings about ‘how to go on’ (Chia &

Holt, 2009; Giddens, 1984) and coping with the resultant tensions in

practical ways that perform the ambidexterity of working within and

between multiple logics (Denis, Langley, & Rouleau, 2007).

Recent developments in institutional theory show sensitivity to the

practice approach. For example, a recent book exhorts institutional

14

theorists to examine logics in action, devoting an entire chapter to

practices as the material enactments of institutional logics (Thornton et

al., 2012), while other studies explicitly propose a practice approach as a

means of understanding how actors cope with and respond to

institutional complexity (e.g., Jarzabkowski et al., 2009; Smets et al.,

2012). In contrast to existing accounts that locate institutional complexity

in field-level ‘contradictions’ (Seo & Creed, 2002), such studies propose

that institutional complexity is experienced as ‘part of the ordinary,

everyday nature of work, rather than exceptional phenomena’

(Jarzabkowski et al., 2009). Practice theoretical approaches thus address

the gap in Figure 1, by showing how we may understand institutional

ambidexterity at the collective practice level through a focus on people’s

practical coping with institutional complexity. The majority of such

studies furnish insights into practical actions in situations of novel

institutional complexity, such as changes in the juxtaposition of logics

within an organisation. Examples include Jarzabkowski et al’s (2009)

study of a shift in the association between market and regulatory logics in

a telecoms company, Smets et al’s (2012) study of German and English

professional logics colliding in a law-firm merger, or Zilber’s (2002) study

of the way that practices become imbued with different meanings during

a transition from feminist to clinical institutional logics. However, the

practice theory focus on everyday, practical coping indicates that there

may also be significant value in moving beyond novelty to also examine

cases of long-standing or routine institutional complexity.

15

Individual level: Action and interaction in doing ambidexterityWe now examine some of the main findings from such practice-oriented

studies of institutional complexity, in order to develop the final section of

our conceptual framework about the practical understandings through

which actors perform institutional ambidexterity. ‘Practical

understanding’ is a practice term that refers to the actions – the know-

how and embodied repertoires – that compose a practice (Schatzki, 2002:

77-78). While practical understandings are firmly grounded in actors and

their actions, they encompass the collective practice within which people

tacitly understand or have a ‘feel for’ how to perform the social order (see

also Bourdieu, 1990; Giddens, 1984). They thus provide a useful unit of

analysis for practice-based approaches to institutional theory. While not

intended to be exhaustive, this section illustrates some insights that a

focus on the practical, mundane doing of institutional ambidexterity in

action can provide.

First, is an expanded practice repertoire whereby individuals

incorporate both traditional local practices, for example, English- and

German logics of legal practice, and new hybridized practices in their

work (Smets & Jarzabkowski, forthcoming). As these authors showed,

German lawyers could undertake cross-border financing for international

clients according to international standards, whilst also retaining those

practices specific to their domestic markets, to be activated when

required in local transactions. The finding of an expanded practice

repertoire gives empirical credence to theories about the potential

benefits of institutional complexity (Greenwood et al., 2011) beyond

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suggestions that they expand individuals’ cultural tool kit (Swidler, 1986).

Specifically, they show that the expanded portfolio need not be cultural,

but may also be practical. We are thus motivated to think not only of

‘strategies to respond’ to complexity, but also of the generative capacity

of complexity (Kraatz & Block, 2008) to expand the practical toolkit of

actors.

A second, related form of practical understanding is ‘situated

improvising.’ Smets et al. (2012) show how urgency and high stakes in

meeting client expectations encouraged lawyers to experiment and

respond in a localized fashion to institutional complexity. These actions

were simply actors’ practical efforts to find ways around obstacles to

getting the job done in an institutionally complex environment.

Intriguingly, such situated improvising can unfold effects at the

organizational and institutional level. It may broaden practitioners’ zone

of competence and consolidate in an expanded practice repertoire (Smets

& Jarzabkowski, forthcoming) or radiate to the level of the field and,

under specific circumstances, re-arrange dominant field-level logics

(Smets et al., 2011).

A third practical understanding is mutual adjustment (Jarzabkowski et

al., 2009; Lindblom, 1965), in which individuals adjust in various ways to

the logics governing each other’s actions, without the need for an

overarching coordinating device or purpose. Jarzabkowski et al. (2009)

highlight mutual adjustment in a utilities company facing contradictory

market and regulatory logics. In their study, actors working to different

17

logics recognized their interdependence and therefore tried “to

accommodate the other, advocating tolerance of the other’s position in

relation to their own logic” (ibid, p. 300). They show that pragmatic

collaboration and recognition of interdependence between activities

governed by divergent logics can guide practice as individuals adjust, in

various ways and to varying degrees, in relation to one another. Their

practice study thus complements and extends Reay and Hinings’ (2009)

inter-organizational level findings about how truces between logics are

constructed.

A fourth practical understanding is switching. The idea of switching

resonates with ideas of compartmentalization (Kraatz & Block, 2008;

Meyer & Rowan, 1977), in so much as different logics are separated into

different divisions and actors. However, it is distinct insofar as it allows a

single actor to shift between logics by enacting them at different times or

in different spaces, so switching between compartmentalized logics. This

practical understanding draws from DiMaggio’s (1997) theorization of the

capacity of individuals ‘to participate in multiple [inconsistent] cultural

traditions’, and Delmestri’s (2006) depiction of individuals as ‘possible

bearers of multiple institutionalized identities.’ Delmestri shows the

capacity of managers to switch between different institutionalized modes

of practice according to the way that different logics underpin their roles

and identities. For example, managers that were exposed to greater

institutional complexity were able to maintain multiple professional

modes of practice and apply them in different contexts. Zilber (2011)

provides another example of how this occurs in practice, indicating how

18

the same actors used language and situational cues to switch between

logics, and participate in and promulgate different discourses, at an

industry conference. Such ‘cues’ of language and meeting format connect

to DiMaggio’s (1997) argument that switching is usually connected to a

circumstantial trigger, such as language in Zilber’s case. In sum, this

ability for an individual to switch between multiple logics, and thus

participate in their associated practices, enables them to maintain what

might otherwise be considered inconsistent modes of action.

Individuals in action and interactionWhile practice theorists have always focussed on individuals through

their actions and interactions (Jarzabkowski et al, 2007), institutional

theory also suggests other, more cognitive and identity-based approaches

to the individual that may also provide insights into institutional

ambidexterity (Creed, Scully, & Austin, 2002; Greenwood et al., 2011;

Lok, 2010; Rao et al., 2003). Such approaches suggest that personal

identity and experience-base shape how practitioners cope with

institutional complexity, and that organizations can skilfully harness

these personal characteristics. For instance, Delmestri (2006) identified

middle managers’ personal self as a critical intervening variable in their

engagement with local and foreign practices in multinational

corporations. Smets et al (2012) found that international law firms

preferred more ‘cosmopolitan’ recruits who were multi-lingual, had lived

or studied abroad and, as they were less wedded to a particular way of

‘doing things’, appeared to be more flexible in improvising around

institutional contradictions. Likewise, Battilana and Dorado (2010) show

19

that prior experience with – and attachment to – a particular logic

hampered organizational hybridization in a microfinance bank. Here,

recruits that arrived as a blank sheet, rather than with a fully formed

‘commercial’ or ‘social’ professional identity were considered more likely

to develop ambidextrous capabilities to support organizational

hybridization. Individual characteristics and experiences are thus

important in the context of institutional ambidexterity. They shape

individuals’ responses to specific logics and the complexities that arise at

their interstices, and thereby help or hinder organizational engagement

with coexisting and potentially contradictory logics.

However, from a practice perspective such identity and experience are

only antecedents to practical understandings and potential ambidextrous

capacities. The individuals whose identities are being considered still

have to be seen as individuals-in-interaction. To focus on them as

individuals per se, in terms of their cognitive and person-centred

characteristics, without considering how these characteristics are

situated within and shape the wider collective practice would be

reductionist (Schatzki, 2002; Turner, 1994), taking institutionalists back

to overly individualistic, disembedded, or cognitive views of institutions

and their complexities. This would not only constitute a step backwards in

the evolution of institutional theory (Delbridge & Edwards, 2008;

Delmestri, 2006; Hirsch & Lounsbury, 1997), but also fail to harness

practice theory’s distinct ability to link individual-level action and

interaction to the organizational and institutional dynamics that are

critical for understanding institutional ambidexterity.

20

Organizational level: Novel and routine complexityAs shown in Figure 1, the opportunity for ambidexterity arises when

contradictory logics come together in an organisational context,

generating practices that enact and construct institutional complexity.

However, we still know little about different characteristics or forms of

such ambidexterity, and their connection to different individual practices.

Pache and Santos (2010) thus outline the need for increased

understanding of when particular strategies may or may not be used in

response to institutional complexity. Such studies could focus on a

number of triggering elements at the organisational level, such as

urgency (Smets et al., 2012), the extent to which complexity is internally

or externally imposed (Pache & Santos, 2010); and the level of scrutiny

(Aurini, 2006; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). However, these elements all

indicate a focus on conditions of novel complexity that trigger a change in

practical understanding. We argue, therefore, that there is a particular

need for studies of organisational context that embody routine

complexity, and comparisons with contexts of novel complexity.

The majority of the institutional literature has focused on novel

complexity, including those few studies that have focused on individual

practice (Jarzabkowski et al., 2009; Smets & Jarzabkowski, forthcoming;

Smets et al., 2012). In general, institutionalists have been alerted to

institutional complexity by relatively recent clashes between commercial

and professional logics. Consequently, their primary focus has been on

moments of flux and crisis in which competing logics collide (e.g.,

Battilana & Dorado, 2010; Greenwood & Suddaby, 2006; Jarzabkowski et

21

al., 2009; Reay & Hinings, 2009; Smets et al., 2012). While insightful, this

may predispose a focus on urgency, contestation, crisis, and problematic

understandings of complexity (Goodrick & Reay, 2011; Lawrence,

Suddaby, & Leca, 2009). Instead, the call for greater attention to the day-

to-day actions of individuals at work (Powell & Colyvas, 2008) can help

institutional theory as a whole resist the ‘search for drama’ (March,

1981). While we urge further practice studies of the novel we therefore

highlight the need for a sustained focus on the routine. In settings that

have been characterized by institutional complexity for a sustained period

of time, solutions may become ‘settled’ into everyday, taken-for-granted

practical understandings of ambidexterity, characterized by an explicit

lack of struggle and noise (Smets et al., 2012). As such, institutional

complexities that form a well-rehearsed part of everyday practice may

become unremarkable and mundane (Chia & Holt, 2009). Nonetheless,

these routine practical understandings remain effortful accomplishments

(Giddens, 1984) and clashes over the appropriate enactment of different

logics can still occur. However, actors in such contexts may have a

different set of practical understandings through which they both enact

ambidexterity and also cope with the inevitable clashes that occur. To

understand institutional ambidexterity as a routinized phenomenon, we

thus need to study how institutional complexity is managed on an ongoing

basis in organizations that have practiced and retained multiple,

potentially competing logics over a long period of time. A practice

approach is particularly suited for such a research agenda, because it is

attuned to what people do when institutional complexity is settled into

22

routinely enacted patterns of everyday working practice and, hence, less

visible, than when they craft overtly strategic responses to novel

complexity or institutional crisis (Chia & Holt, 2009).

Power and politicsInstitutional theory has long acknowledged the importance of power

and politics in organizational dynamics (DiMaggio, 1988; Jarzabkowski et

al., 2009; Kostova & Zaheer, 1999). Indeed the concept of institutional

complexity helped researchers highlight these issues (Greenwood et al.,

2011). Despite the somewhat sanitized picture of routinized practice

described above, we are usefully reminded that all contexts that generate

ambidexterity involve power and politics in determining how and when to

work within and between potential contradictions. It is apparent that the

novel furnishes greater visibility of these concepts than the routine (e.g.,

Jarzabkowski et al., 2009). Nonetheless, one role of practice studies could

be to surface the hidden, often forgotten, sources of power and politics at

play, highlighting the persistence of such dynamics even when they are

not readily apparent. Concepts such as expanded repertoires and

routinized practices are ‘power-laden’, even if they do not require the

same degree of overt political negotiation as open conflict (Clegg,

Courpasson, & Phillips, 2006). We thus expect that studies of

ambidexterity might focus on the way that concepts of power and politics

play out at the practical level of individuals in action and interaction and

at the organisational level.

23

Institutional complexity in context: Characteristics of collective practice

A practice approach to institutional complexity has the ability to

connect the individual, organisational and institutional levels of analysis

(Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Smets et al., 2012). We further argue that

this practice approach can illuminate the nature of institutional

complexity in its specific context. Specifically, we suggest that the

characteristics of the collective practice in which logics come together

influence how the nature of a particular institutional complexity is

constructed. Smets and Jarzabkowski (forthcoming) show that actors,

through their practice, can construct the same two logics and their

associated practices as strange, contradictory, commensurable and

complementary. A focus on practice thus transcends simplistic ideas that

certain logics are compatible or contradictory per se. Rather, we argue

that (in)compatibility is always conditioned by the specific situated

practice in which those logics come together. For example, professional

and commercial or managerial logics are likely to be more compatible in

consulting or business service firms (Smets et al., 2012) than in

healthcare (Reay & Hinings, 2009; Ruef & Scott, 1998). Similarly,

professional and commercial logics are easier to hybridize within the

freedom of practice inherent in private educational contexts (Aurini,

2006) than in the more restrictive and regulated practice of public

education contexts (Hallett, 2010). In other examples, medical

practitioners may have established practices and experiences that

provide cost-effective social good, so that actors can affiliate with and

24

move between the multiple logics that govern their organisation. By

contrast, a microfinance organization interested in blending commercial

and community logics might need to employ practitioners with no prior

affiliation with either logic (Battilana & Dorado, 2010). Hence, logics such

as ‘community’, ‘commercial’, and ‘professional’ are not absolute in being

either conflicting or complementary. Rather, they are interdependent in

particular ways or constellations according to the particular collective

and situated practice in which they are enacted.

ConclusionThis chapter has outlined a practice research agenda for studying

institutional ambidexterity that links the individual, organizational and

institutional levels within which ambidexterity is enacted. We have

developed Figure 1 as a conceptual model of our argument that is

grounded in institutional theory, the literature on ambidexterity, and the

benefits of a practice approach in fulfilling the promise of institutional

ambidexterity. In particular, we suggest that scholars should focus on

individuals in action and interaction, as they develop practical

understandings about how to cope with institutional ambidexterity.

Furthermore, we highlight the benefits of comparing and contrasting

contexts of novel and routinized organizational ambidexterity; in

particular proposing that routinized ambidexterity provides a fertile

avenue for future practice research. Finally, we propose that the

collective practice that constitutes institutional complexity is particular to

its specific context, as logics may be more or less contradictory or

interdependent. Hence, actors will generate varying practices according

25

to their particular contexts, in order to cope with and construct

institutional ambidexterity in ways that go beyond our existing insights

into institutional complexity. We therefore highlight the practice

approach as a rich avenue for future research that can fulfil the promise

of institutional ambidexterity as a solution to the problems, and enabler

of the benefits, of institutional complexity.

Future research is unlikely to discover much novel insight if it

continues to do ‘more of the same’. Given the shift in focus that comes

with a practice approach to institutional ambidexterity, commensurate

methodological adjustments should be made so that a new research

agenda is accompanied by a new methodological agenda. Recent

practice-theoretical insights into institutional dynamics have already been

derived from an increasing focus on micro-dynamics and the use of

qualitative and ethnographic methods (Jarzabkowski et al., 2009; Smets

et al., 2012; Zilber, 2002, 2011). We expect this trend to continue and

intensify, making in-depth cases studies and real time ethnographies the

methods of choice for the research agenda laid out here. As institutional

theory is also concerned with embedded and long-standing patterns of

social order, these real-time studies may need to be considered as critical

incidents for drilling deep into institutional phenomena in action, even as

they are, ideally, combined with more mainstream, large-scale

institutional methods (Dunn & Jones, 2010; Greenwood et al., 2010; Ruef

& Scott, 1998; Thornton, 2002). This combination holds the promise of

providing the kind of multi-level data that is needed to bring a practice

approach to institutional ambidexterity into its own by linking individual,

26

organizational and institutional levels of analysis (e.g., Lounsbury &

Crumley, 2007; Smets et al., 2012).

Further potential lies in the refinement of qualitative methods to make

them more acutely sensitive to different aspects of practice. Promising

avenues include a greater focus on the minutiae of practical actions and

interactions, as advocated by micro ethnographers (Streeck & Mehus,

2005) or video ethnographers (LeBaron, 2005; LeBaron, 2008; LeBaron &

Streeck, 1997). If the practices by which logics are enacted, rather than

the logics themselves take the foreground, then the embodied

interactions within which identities are formed and institutional divides

bridged yield pertinent data (LeBaron, Glenn, & Thompson, 2009;

Streeck, Goodwin, & LeBaron, 2011). Further, the contexts in which

practices unfold are not only institutional but also mundanely material.

People do things with ‘things’ in different places and spaces. While the

role of boundary objects in bridging organisational divides has long been

recognized (Carlile, 2002) and the affordances of technologies and

materials has been recognized in practice studies (Leonardi, 2011;

Orlikowski & Scott, 2008; Orlikowski, 2010), materials and spaces, their

impact on interaction ,and on the instantiation of different logics has so

far not been studied from an institutional perspective. Methodologies that

look beyond the allocation of spaces (e.g., Kellogg, 2009) to consider their

features and impacts on human interaction hold great promise for

advancing a practice approach to institutional ambidexterity.

27

Finally, the new research agenda not only opens opportunities for new

methodologies, but also holds a new challenge. Studying established

complexities and ‘settled’ responses is predicated on the researcher’s

ability to observe the nexus of divergent logics as they come together in

practice. Finding that ‘nexus’ – that point in an organization, or in time –

at which the routinized coming together of contradictory logics can be

studied in real time will be a critical methodological challenge. Especially

where organizational responses to institutional complexity are settled and

routinized, no ‘drama’ will signal a complexity of note that may appear

worthy of study. By its routinized nature, it will be less visible and less

immediately interesting and yet it is in precisely such everyday, settled

enactment that we may gain the deepest insights into how actors perform

institutional ambidexterity. It is thus vital that scholars generate the in-

depth knowledge of an empirical context and the openness and interest to

explore whatever ‘goes on’ quietly at the nexus of institutional logics if

they are to uncover how institutional ambidexterity is accomplished in

practice, particularly in contexts of routine complexity.

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Figure 1: A practice approach to institutional ambidexterity

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