Chapter 3 - Research Questions

In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.
Louis Pasteur

In our literature review, we have taken sides with the critical approach of stress testing a founding paper with evolutions of innovation management, project management but also with refinements of generative processes brought by design reasoning, theory and engineering design.

James March’s seed coming from problem-solving (March 1991), has spread from a concern of organizational learning developing an adaptive model to being the fertile ground for ambidexterity and innovation. The dichotomy operated between exploration and exploitation regimes has fed numerous studies, with more emphasis on the role of exploration, and confusion around what embodies really this two constructs. The articles (Birkinshaw and Gupta 2013; Gupta, Smith, and Shalley 2006) were critical in discussing the non-mutual conditioning of exploration/exploitation as introduced by (March 1991). They sketched the idea that the divide between these two may have changed in nature. They also encourage to think of it on two separate dimensions and avoid only considering it as two ends on a same continuum.

In less than 30 years and approximately 20,000 citations, the adaptive process of organizational learning rooted in a search-based model of problem solving has been largely superseded with what innovation management has become and its diverse approaches. The models, we have studied based on the literature review address part of these evolutions whilst still being all equally present in research and practice.

We have taken a stance regarding how generative processes challenge exploration vs. exploitation and see how they contribute to models of ambidexterity and how they are encapsulated in different modes of collective action such as project management. The notion of exploration is quite pervasive, and usually aims at supporting sustainable innovation. However, by considering input from design theory and reasoning, we have shown the numerous limitations, tensions left to how coordination and collective action should be conducted. For example, when considering the biology metaphors used in the literature and introduced in the review: adaptive evolution calls for mutation and selection, interactions call for an ecology of generativity, encapsulation in projects may lead to epicormic shoots at odds with organization design. The latter allowed questioning the nature and the management of organizational metabolism.

The management load comes then in different ways for leadership, or top management, middle management and agents, and raises in complexity when dealing with the loci and nature of generativity. Management prescriptions have had the tendency to call for advanced decision-making, cognition and action.

As these three pivoting dimensions are quite recurrent, we propose to have an enlarged vision of decision-making. Inspired by the neo-Carnegie research agenda (Gavetti, Levinthal, and Ocasio 2007, 531), we propose to stick with foundations “behaviorally plausible, decision-centred perspective on organizations". The stress test driven by design reasoning and theory will support such effort. The research program tailored at Centre for Scientific Management in Mines ParisTech started off from a former tradition of studying implementation and performativity of operational research tools and methods (Segrestin et al. 2017). Later, it constituted itself as an extension of H.Simon’s work: design theory and expandable rationality (Hatchuel 2001). Our literature review at least brings forward the originality of looping back with origins and more ‘traditional’ management issues as design theory and innovation management have constituted its own path.

Model description categories

First of all, we should start by clarifying the descriptors enabling a clearer comparison between models as these were introduced all along the literature review. We had started from James March’s seminal paper (March 1991) and methodological literature review (Wilden et al. 2018) with a concern for organizational learning, rationality and foolishness, and its contribution to innovation management. Diving into the literature of ambidexterity allowed giving another flavour to the dichotomy of exploration/exploitation with some concern for organization design, resource allocation, dynamic capabilities and paradoxes. As the question of implementing ambidextrous organization and prescribing sometimes heavily contingent recommendations, we proposed to look at the decision-making and the contributions from generative processes challenges. The second chapter, studied the projectification of the economy and how innovation management could be encapsulated. Embedding generative processes in the case of exploration-dedicated project, raised numerous questions on the organization hosting such projects, reconsidering the matrix and organic forms. Finally, the associated organization design and decisions to be made accordingly permit rethinking the environmental and cognitive fits in cope with change.

Model of collective action

All of the research discussed in the literature review addressed in some way how action should be carried out to support their model. Sometimes, the recommendation was quite ‘meta’ allowing it to be transferrable to different research domains, sometimes it was more centred on the agent (decisions, responsibility, cognition, relationships) and in other cases it was quite abstract with constructs such as dynamic capabilities.

The loci of generative processes and their organization is depicted in the way individuals, teams and organizations will contribute and interfere with it. The drive and control of such generative forces is placed on different management tools and individuals. The effort is placed on the relationships and knowledge interplay (Hatchuel 2011; Segrestin et al. 2017).

Innovation potential of attraction

The innovation potential of attraction will be constituted by different sub-categories contributing at different levels of the firm: individual, technical, systemic, social and organizational.

Generative process

The generative processes come in different practices, more or less formalized or even institutionalized. They have different generative engine, leading action in different directions and contributing to the valuation process in different ways. The innovation potential will come from the novelty, the fluency and also defixation power (Smith, Ward, and Schumacher 1993; Ward 2007, 1994; Agogué, Le Masson, and Robinson 2012; Le Masson, Hatchuel, and Weil 2011; Houdé 1997). The attraction comes from the way in which a group of individual participate to the joint generative effort.

It is also crucial to understand the nature of fixation effects and interdependencies addressed, and of course what is taken for granted in the exploration process. The behavioural aspect appears critical as it involves what bounds rationality, and what can expand it, and the tools and methods used to support such constraint or effort. Specification of mental models and performance beliefs to drive generativity will be key as they address potential epistemic interdependencies (Puranam, Raveendran, and Knudsen 2012).

Environment cognition

The environment cognition relates to the generative processes locus and its engagement into its environment. It considers mainly how the system is shaped and how it regards its own extension with ‘environment’. Different devices and mechanisms can be imagined to prepare for uncertainty and the unknown.

Not only it targets the perception and decisions made to cope with the environment, but also how action occurs purely as a means to engage with the environment and deal with uncertainties and the unknown. The cognitive fit with elaboration of mental models will support the appropriate environmental fit (Martignoni, Menon, and Siggelkow 2016; Posen and Levinthal 2012). The innovation potential of attraction will be supported by how the system’s extension into the environment is managed through the generative process, implying some level of awareness that is taken into account by different individuals (agents, middle/top management).

Organization design

Organization design was addressed in different ways in our literature review. The forms adopted by the firm were seen as important to support generative processes but it is also key to understand what contributes to the implementation of outputs. Moreover the beliefs and alternatives supporting the organization designs will be closely to product development with the mirroring hypothesis in mind.

As the organization design is supposed to be the result of a change to better respond to the environment, this potential never-ending process for turbulent and complex environment calls for a certain generative fit by opposition to the traditional organizational fit (Avital and Te’eni 2009; Van de Ven, Ganco, and Hinings 2013). The innovation potential of attraction here is then expressed by considering what make the structures to reshape around a proposed or even sketched new organizational design.

Overall, the organization design will support the generative processes, engaging with environment if they metabolize through structure and processes of the organization. Relationships and knowledge will dynamically evolve in parallel.

Research questions and preliminary hypothesis

The portrait made with our descriptors and models drawn from the literature review reveal the assumptions made by these and their potential limitations. These mainly appear since we tasked ourselves to use design theory and reasoning to stress test several foundational approaches made at the edge of the literature in innovation management, organization theory and project management.

First, we propose to address that the fact that the original construct of balancing of exploration/exploitation may have suffered to a point where ambidexterity could severely jeopardize innovation management (Birkinshaw and Gupta 2013; Wilden et al. 2018; Gupta, Smith, and Shalley 2006). Such perspective is also valid for project management as the tension of exploration/exploitation typifies the nature and course of action of projects in the firm, and the associated temporary organization (Lenfle 2016).

Second, it is almost unthinkable to fully discard such concept. So, we propose to revisit the notion of adaptive process, along with interactive and encapsulated models, at the light of generative processes. We should, in a way, reconsider nuances between exploration and exploitation, their definitions to regenerate ambidexterity behaviour across the firm (cognition, product development, project) and ambidextrous organization. More specifically, the relationship between product design and organization design (Colfer and Baldwin 2016), and the importance of epistemic interdependencies could reveal ways of properly overcoming and managing organization design fixations, thus enabling the hybridisation of project and change management.

Third, if we manage to regenerate such construct with the fresh teachings of design theory and reasoning, we should of course be able to validate it. We should then also specify the new regime of collective action supporting it.

Based on the descriptors and the projection of our three models derived from the literature, we can identify several areas of commonalities. The dichotomy is usually enforced between exploration and exploitation, with of course, different value frames and performances. These modulations emphasize the paradox of dealing with both no matter the unit of analysis (middle/top management, organization design, project, resources, routines, etc.). There is a non-mutual conditioning between exploration and exploitation presented across the literature streams.

For instance, as exploitation picturing bounded rationality, exploration could be driven by foolishness or irrationality. Chaos could then perhaps provide some input for exploitation, but the role of exploitation providing some grounds for exploration is rarely, if not never, discussed (Wilden et al. 2018). Only James March sketched a possibility of nuancing the dichotomy (March 2006, 209)¹:

It is argued that the link between rationality and conventional knowledge keeps rational technologies reliable but inhibits creative imagination. This characterization seems plausible, but it probably underestimates the potential contribution of rational technologies to foolishness and radical visions.

Such cleavage is also enforced in the nature of project management for exploration and the required organizational ties. Interactionism blurs the dichotomy but instead raises numerous questions on the management and control of organization design, identity and change direction.

In order to sum up, we propose to define a common model of non-mutual conditioning between exploration and exploitation regimes. It is declined over the four descriptors introduced earlier.

The innovation potential of attraction specify the non-mutuality between the product design and development for radical innovation and organization design. The mirroring hypothesis pictured a static view of the mutuality, but we are interested in the change process.

Despite the interactionist perspective stressing the reciprocity sustained through circulation of concepts, the emergent nature of value, recombination of routines, the role of artefacts and metaphors, it is not very clear how the managerial action is achieved to balance and control design fixations and epistemic interdependencies. Especially, they don’t necessarily review the separation of both regimes and how it could be articulated differently. So there is also a non-mutual conditioning of coordination and collective action across the different level of analysis.

RQ1: How does the dichotomy between exploration/exploitation compromise sustained innovation?

First of all, the difficulties raised by generative processes challenging organizational forms and action regimes supporting innovation, encourage us to specify: What are the characteristics of exploration project management floating between intra-organization and inter-organization settings? It appears crucial to understand the underlying mechanisms and tension points where generativity strikes against organization boundaries and rules. Our interest is in linking the design theories and product development with such concern to contribute to questions raised in the literature (Gavetti, Levinthal, and Ocasio 2007, 532):

how organizational rules and routines interact with formal and informal decision-making structures is an important unanswered question that must be answered to develop a more integrated theory of organizations

Due to the separation operated by exploration and exploitation to support organizational learning, and limitations addressed by interactionist and project management literature, the construct of ambidexterity may have been outdated by practices and literature refinements in innovation management: Does the dichotomy of exploration/exploitation jeopardize innovation management at the light of generative processes?
As suggested in the literature, nuances could be disentangled between the exploration and exploitation regimes, so we could ask ourselves: How generative processes contribute to exploration struggle with exploitation constraints (design rules, fixation effects, interdependencies)?
Finally we can summarize our first target into:

How does the dichotomy between exploration/exploitation compromise sustained innovation?

RQ2: What model of ambidexterity can be designed to overcome and manage organization design fixations?

If exploration/exploitation dichotomy’s construct could actually kill innovation, we need to tackle the underlying behavioural foundations in order to disentangle associated difficulties. A first hint would be to deeply revisit the way decision-making is constructed due to the interference of generative processes supported by design reasoning and theory.

Several rules, fixation effects and epistemic interdependencies, which are representative of formal and informal patterns of exploitation, could be directly addressed by exploration activities. More precisely, they could be among the requirements and be the purpose of generative processes to sustain innovation in the firm.How could organization design and change be simultaneously managed along a radical innovation project?

The environment cognition and the associated (mirrored) organization design bearing new product development projects reveal their design rules, fixation effects when challenged by generative processes. The ecology of concepts, organization mutations and epicormic shoots triggered and challenged by exploration activities as knowledge-interactions dynamics are constantly strained (Hatchuel 2011): How does it metabolize with innovative design, organizational concerns and strategy?

We propose then to synthesize these questions and first assumptions into:

How can ambidexterity be revisited to overcome and manage organization design fixations?

RQ3: How can intra/inter-BU exploration projects be metabolized in the organization to support radical innovation for the conglomerate?

The previous two questions encouraged the detection of an anomaly in the practice of innovation management and the design of a new model reconfiguring and extending the domain of validity of the ambidexterity construct. We consequently need to think of the managerial action of the new model.

Since, we will propose to root our research in the field offered by a conglomerate of SMEs evolving the aircraft equipment market (Zodiac Aerospace), we propose to emphasize the organization design and behavioural approaches arising from the inter-organizational relationships. Thus, it heavily challenges the edges of interactive and encapsulated models, as organization structures tend to be the by-product of product development.

Finally, our last research question can be summarized into:

How can intra/inter-BU exploration projects be metabolized in the organization to support radical innovation for the conglomerate?

References