Organização para inovação substantiva e incremental por meio de ambidestria: evidências a partir de um estudo de caso brasileiro

Abstract

Companies are increasingly dedicated to innovation, however, these activities, especially in the case of disruptive innovations, are often costly and have long-term results. It may lead to a competition for resources with ongoing operations, which are responsible for maintaining the company in the short term. The so-called "ambidexterity" is the organizational ability to simultaneously perform "exploitation" and "exploration", exploiting existing skills through incremental innovation and improvement, without abandoning the exploration of new opportunities through disruptive/substantive innovations. However, this may require different organizational structures and work contexts. Thus, this research aimed to analyze, from the organizational point of view, how an ambidextrous Brazilian company organizes and undertakes efforts in the development and balancing of exploitation and exploration. A single case study was done, with longitudinal characteristics, qualitative, non-experimental and a descriptive analysis was promoted. In addition, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, seeking to better understand the phenomenon of organizational ambidexterity, its concept, types of application and contexts. Data collection took the form of semi-structured interviews with engineers, managers and analysts related to the areas of innovation, product development, engineering and manufacturing, as well as informal conversations and documentary analysis. The results showed the existence of several ambidextrous behaviors in the organization of the company. However, the company does not have separate structures for exploitation and exploration, pointing, therefore, the absence of Structural Separation. This could be due to the existing matrix-subsidiary relationship regarding innovation and the importance of tacit knowledge in the automotive sector. The innovation process is usually formalized following the Stage-Gates model, and both incremental and substantive/disruptive innovation follow the formal process developed at headquarters. However, sporadically, incremental innovation is conducted informally within engineering departments. In this sense, there is a certain "Contextual Ambidexterity ", especially in the work of engineers, who do not see their daily activities as exploitation, as they really are. The presence of "Parallel Structures" within the organization was noticed in the work of the engineers, who have their time formally divided between the development of exploration projects and the usual functions of exploitation, as well as in the work of the Department of Concept and Integration of the Vehicle, which, in addition to developing exploration activities, acts in part in project management and in the exploitation activities carried out in Product Engineering. Finally, the "longitudinal" approach evidenced a Time Balancing" behavior due to the creation and subsequent disappearance of various innovation initiatives, in addition to the large variation in the number of employees dedicated to innovation activities over time. A relevant contribution to the ambidexteritys literature was to show how the ambidextrous behaviors manifest themselves in the practice, within the analyzed company. From this, it was noticed the possibility of presenting different ambidextrous behaviors in a company, and even in the development of a single project, according to its type and complexity. This possible transition between "types" of ambidexterity is not something evidenced in the literature, therefore, it can be considered a pertinent contribution of this research.