Balancing present needs and future options: how employees leverage social networks with clients

摘要

During the past 50 years, it has been suggested that organizational performance should be aligned with and adaptive to a firm's environment. Organizations do not only have to cope with current environmental demands but also have to permanently adjust their structures and processes to future ones. Firms' ability to be ambidextrous - that is, to strike a balance between exploiting their current and exploring future competences - is thus considered crucial for their success. However, management scholars have repeatedly mentioned difficulties with reconciling exploitation and exploration's internal tensions. These tensions arise because exploitation is aimed at leveraging the existing capabilities and knowledge stocks through refinement, efficiency and selection, whereas exploration aims to create future capabilities outside the current knowledge domains via variation and creativity.