Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2017
  • Chapter
  • Advancing Organizational Theory in a Complex World

Getting Started with Ambidexterity

By: Andrew Binns and Michael Tushman
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

This paper demonstrates the value of thinking about ambidexterity as having three distinct moments—ideation, incubation, and scaling—that share common features for success, such as the role of the senior team, and that also have distinct disciplines. Incubation is a frequent point of breakdown for firms that seek to build new businesses inside existing corporations; promising ideas often simply do not progress. There are many useful lessons to learn from the start-up movement about how best to organize and execute new ventures as “business experiments.” These lessons from the “start-up garage” enable established corporations to make progress on new ventures in a disciplined, fact-based way, while also moving at speed. We have identified eight key success factors for managing business experiments at the “incubation moment,” which appear to improve the prospects of success.

Keywords

Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Innovation and Invention

Citation

Binns, Andrew, and Michael Tushman. "Getting Started with Ambidexterity." Chap. 4 in Advancing Organizational Theory in a Complex World, edited by Jane Qiu, Ben Nanfeng Luo, Chris Jackson, and Karin Sanders, 60–73. Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society. London, UK: Routledge, 2017.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Michael L. Tushman

Organizational Behavior
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • May–June 2025
    • Harvard Business Review

    Sustainability as a Business-Model Transformation

    By: Ivanka Visnjic, Felipe Monteiro and Michael L. Tushman
    • October 2024
    • Strategic Management Journal

    Strategic Decision Making at Platform Transitions: The Case of Nokia (2010-2011).

    By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael Tushman
    • June 2024
    • Faculty Research

    Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress

    By: Michael L. Tushman and Kerry Herman
More from the Authors
  • Sustainability as a Business-Model Transformation By: Ivanka Visnjic, Felipe Monteiro and Michael L. Tushman
  • Strategic Decision Making at Platform Transitions: The Case of Nokia (2010-2011). By: Timo O. Vuori and Michael Tushman
  • Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress By: Michael L. Tushman and Kerry Herman
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.