Purpose

For nearly three decades, numerous scholars have searched for a robust relationship between firm performance and organizational ambidexterity—so far with questionable results. The aim of this short essay is thus to critically examine the performance of applied performance measurements.

Design/methodology/approach

After discussing methodological issues and revealing a conceptually neglected “level” distinction in organizational ambidexterity studies, we contribute to conceptual clarity as to whether exploration and exploitation ought to be conceived as continuous or orthogonal.

Findings

First, even if the dichotomy of exploration and exploitation is orthogonally conceptualized, at least one trade-off, either on the level of the explanans or the level of the explanandum, can be bypassed but cannot conceptually be denied. Second, we conclude that explaining overall firm performance with the relation of just two variables (exploration and exploitation)—referring to the inherently conflicting title of this paper, “Reduced to the Max”—is a hazardous endeavor.

Research limitations/implications

Based on these insights, future research may benefit from studying organizational ambidexterity and firm performance more qualitatively and paying more attention to the declared level distinction.

Originality/value

The paper reveals a crucial neglect of level and provides an answer to one of the core questions of organizational ambidexterity research: that of continuity vs orthogonality.

中文翻译：

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精简到最大：公司绩效和组织灵活性研究

目的

近三十年来，许多学者一直在寻找公司绩效与组织灵活性之间的稳固关系，到目前为止，结果令人怀疑。因此，本文的目的是严格审查所应用性能测量的性能。

设计/方法/方法

在讨论了方法论问题并揭示了组织歧义性研究中概念上被忽视的“层级”区别之后，我们为概念上的明确性做出了贡献，即应将勘探和开发视为连续性还是正交性。

发现

首先，即使将勘探和开发二分法正交地概念化，也可以绕过在权衡水平或权衡水平上的至少一个权衡，但不能在概念上予以拒绝。其次，我们得出的结论是，仅用两个变量（勘探和开发）的关系来解释公司的整体绩效（指的是本文固有的矛盾标题，即“减少到最大”）是一种危险的尝试。

研究局限/意义

基于这些见解，未来的研究可能会受益于更定性地研究组织的灵活性和公司绩效，并更加关注已声明的级别差异。

创意/价值

本文揭示了对水平的关键性忽视，并为组织歧义性研究的核心问题之一提供了答案：连续性与正交性。