Resumen de Efecto de la formalización y la confianza organizativa sobre la capacidad de ambidestreza. Estudio empírico en la industria agroalimentaria ecológica española
During the last decades, ambidexterity has aroused great interest among organizations and academics. To obtain a complete perspective of the concept of ambidexterity, recent research has suggested the in-depth study of its background. Previous studies emphasize that the ambidexterity needs integration mechanisms and contextual factors to increase knowledge flows through the exploitation and exploration organizational units (Gibson & Birkinshaw, 2004; Jansen, Tempelaar, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2009). Based on an extensive literature review, we believe that formalization and trust stand out as key variables for understanding and implementing ambidexterity because they are important attributes for the optimal implementation of management systems and organizational strategies.
As a result of the foregoing, the present investigation intends to study the relationship that enabling formalization, coercive formalization, and trust have on organizational ambidexterity in depth. New research questions will be opened, mainly the question of how these factors affect exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity capabilities. In addition, we intend to investigate the role of trust as a moderating factor in the relations of organizational capabilities and types of formalizations, which will be key to knowing its true impact. To contrast the proposed hypotheses, and in accordance with the need to investigate in more diverse industries to understand the effect of ambidexterity, Spanish organic agri-food industry was selected. The proposed model was tested using data collected from 239 firms, and a hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine survey data.
This research has several implications and contributions that allow us to have a more complete perspective of organizational ambidexterity. On the one hand, the study of formalization made it possible to find a methodology that allowed to distinguish between formalization types in organizations. On the other hand, we analyzed the role played by organizational trust with these capabilities, as well as its impact on the relationships between formalization types and the described capabilities. We must also emphasize that beyond the simple balanced search of exploration and exploitation activities contemplated in the previous studies on ambidexterity, we made a theoretical and empirical contribution expanding the understanding of the concept under the dynamic capabilities approach by involving the development of synergies.
