Ambidexterity : senior executive's lived experiences of implementing strategy in large corporate firms

Abstract

This research project identifies a gap in the strategy implementation literature in which the lived experience of senior executives in large corporate companies is not well understood. Since senior executives are at the nexus of strategy implementation, being responsible for developing goals and measures that technically facilitate effective implementation, it was important to capture their lived experiences. Capturing lived experiences provided an important and novel contribution to the literature, as well as a contribution to an approach to make senior executives more effective at implementing strategy. 10 in depth interviews based on the narrative enquiry approach were conducted with senior executives across large corporate companies. The interview data was then coded, and themes emerged from the data. It was discovered that senior executives acutely experience challenges with energising themselves and others to ensure that strategy implementation occurs, and must navigate strategic paradoxes, uncertainty and maintenance of organisational sustainability in the strategy implementation process. It was found that senior executives who were able to employ and take advantage of multiple manifestations of ambidexterity, possessed certain management styles, leveraged particular personality traits, and possessed certain cognitive and emotional frames were better equipped to implement strategy more effectively than senior executives who did not possess these qualities.