Abstract:
Ambidexterity is a concept where firms innovate by exploring new products and/or services, and at the same time optimize their current processes and/or products through exploitation of existing markets. Ambidexterity is defined as the firm’s ability to simultaneously explore and exploit. Exploitation is about efficiency, increasing productivity, control, certainty, and variance reduction while exploration is about search, discovery, autonomy, and enhancing variation. Scientific literature finds that ambidexterity, being able to explore and exploit at the same time, can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage and can be essential for long term
survival of the firm. Also, it appears that that ‘dynamic capabilities’, such as the ability of
firms to integrate, build and manage internal and external competencies to address rapidly changing environments, is a crucial factor to understand the firms’ ambidexterity strategies. However, the situation differs for small energy suppliers, which are often experiencing a lack of resources, which makes it difficult to invest in innovation capabilities. Also, the firm’s business environment may affect its ability to build and manage dynamic capabilities that enable ambidexterity.
