Organizational ambidexterity within supply chain management: a scoping review

Background: Organizational ambidexterity is an emerging concept and it permeates too many functional domains in the discussion of organizational performance. The importance of understanding this concept motivates researchers to explore organizational ambidexterity as internal and external capabilities in the context of supply chain. Despite its importance in building oriented capabilities to organizations, little information is known about organizational ambidexterity in supply chain context. The objective of this review is to produce a comprehensive mapping of themes related to organizational ambidexterity studies in supply chain research, particularly in improving firm performance. Method: A scoping review of the literature was conducted using Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and EconBiz databases to identify what is the nature of published scientific literature on this topic and what are the emerging themes of organizational ambidexterity in relation to supply chain studies. Result: This study found three main themes and eleven sub-themes in relation to inter-organization ambidexterity in the supply chain context. The main themes include learning process, outcome and leadership. The review indicates that most of the studies are conducted in understanding learning process. Conclusion: The management of supply chain has a positive association with organizational ambidexterity. Supply chain operations involve selection, development, and implementation of new process(es) or technology (exploitation) - the outcome of a prior search procedure (exploration), which has been described as a sequential approach to exploration and exploitation and both processes are important especially in a dynamic environment. The findings from this scoping review indicate the importance of developing and managing a supply chain that supports exploration and exploitation practices. Therefore, managers should understand that maximizing a firm's current skills is critical to profitability and market share. While continuous refinement of existing knowledge is important, it is the generation and application of new knowledge that leads to increased value (profitability) and competitive advantage. Organizational ambidexterity within supply chain management provides significant benefits to big firms in improving their long-term efficiency. This offers avenue for future research to compare the effect of organizational ambidexterity in small firm.