Individual Ambidexterity and Entrepreneurship
Most new ventures are founded by former employees of organizations. Employees make discoveries while working for organizations and decide to exploit them on their own, especially when parent firms do not see the value in their discoveries, or choose not to exploit them due to a lack of fit with the firm’s strategy. When employees leave to start new ventures, we call their ventures employee spinouts . Ambidextrous behaviors have been observed in entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs display ambidextrous through boundary-spanning relationships, by avoiding excess exploitation and keeping time aside for exploration, by using platforms for discussing issues related to exploration, and by shifting focus from exploration to exploitation and vice versa as the current situation requires (Volery et al., 2013). The entrepreneurial process is often conceptualized as stage-based. For example, Kazanjian and Drazin (1990) suggest four stages: conception and development, commercialization, growth, and