Exploration and exploitation: do actual behaviors match individuals’ perceptions?

Research on contextual ambidexterity assumes that an organization’s capacity to pursue simultaneously exploration and exploitation leverages on organizational solutions encouraging a balance between these two learning orientations. However, still limited attention has been devoted to the investigation of contextual ambidexterity at the individual level of analysis. Starting from this gap, this paper addresses the following research questions: How do individuals perceive the learning orientation requested to them by their job? Do individuals’ behaviors match their perceived orientation? How does the matching/mismatching between perceptions and behaviors can be explained? To address these issues a multiple case study across 16 managers and assistants of R&D and Sales units of four medium enterprises located in Northeast Italy was carried out. Our findings show that the perceptions and the actual behaviors, as component of the personal ambidexterity, are distinct and independent. Perceived and actual orientations emerge in various different combinations creating a mismatch at individual level as well as some inconsistencies between different hierarchical levels and business units. The determinants of these inconsistencies can be explained by considering the individuals’ working experiences, their expertise and motivation and also the decisions and changes in the firm processes in which individuals have been involved. (ISSN: 1932-7498)