How can the Organisational Ambidexterity concept be applied to the automotive industry as it aims to exploit current vehicles sales profit pools and explore autonomous electric mobility services?

Abstract

The Automotive Industry is facing unprecedented disruption from electrification, connectivity, autonomous driving, and diverse mobility. Throughout its 130-year history, the industry has been built on increment change and could now be facing an existential crisis if it does not respond to these disruptors. Organisational Ambidexterity (OA) is the dual challenge of exploiting current profit pools whilst also exploring future revenue streams. The literature presented four antecedent themes that will form the basis of this research (Differentiation vs Integration, Individual vs Organisation, Static vs Dynamic and Internal vs External). The most recent a priori body of knowledge is set against a backdrop of mergers and acquisitions within the automotive industry to achieve globalisation, scale and explore new markets. The current backdrop of facing disruption has received very little attention to date, which this thesis has set out to redress. OA is a social construct, created by the perceptions and actions of the actors within the research site. The nature of disruption is also a mutually constructed reality, assessed by the actors according to their own beliefs on the scale and impact on their organisations and themselves. A subjectivist ontological approach is taken, with an interpretivist epistemology viewing the world as assimilated through perception and discourse. This research is qualitative, using semi-structured in-depth elite interviews to gather data, and represents privileged access. Analysis will be using the Constant Comparative Method, with the coding steps carried out manually. The researcher is embedded in the research setting and will take a participant-observer approach. This methodology of elite interviews, reinforced with emic indwelling and manual coding, delivered rich insights in the current context of the automotive industry. This thesis makes contributions on three fronts. The contribution to theory provides an upto-date view of OA within the automotive industry, assesses the relevance of the four antecedent themes, and identifies three emergent themes – Collaboration, Speed and Scale. The contribution to practice is to provide managers and organisations insights and guidance on how OA could be applied. The findings provide privileged insights into how collaboration operates, identifies some of the challenges, and empathises with the Traditional and Contemporary OEM’s and their different stances. Outside of the Automotive industry, any industry that is facing disruption can gain transferrable insights. The contribution to methodology is demonstrating that elite interviews, underpinned by emic indwelling, can deliver rich insights from a privileged setting.