Organizational research has indicated the need for organizations to balance efficiency and innova... more Organizational research has indicated the need for organizations to balance efficiency and innovation to retrieve growth and high performance. A remaining question is, can public sector organizations be efficient and innovative? We use the theoretical framework of ambidexterity and ambidextrous design to frame this question. More precisely has ambidexterity literature proposed two designs to simultaneously achieve a balance between exploitation, efficiency and, exploration, innovation: structural ambidexterity and contextual ambidexterity. Based on these designs, we selected four design and two leadership conditions: differentiation, centralization, forceful leadership, autonomy, context, and enabling leadership and performed a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to answer the following research question: “What is the role of ambidextrous design and leadership for public sector organizations seeking to balance efficiency and innovation?” We gathered data through a detailed quanti...
The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic that d... more The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic that does not seem to go away so easily. The grassroots movement Responsible Research in Business and Management, for instance, is a very active and prominent advocate of the need to change current research practices in the management domain, broadly defined. One of its main critiques is that current research practices are not apt to address day-to-day management challenges, nor do they allow such management challenges to feed into academic research. In this paper, we address this issue, and present a research design, referred to as CARE, that is aimed at building a bridge from rigor to relevance, and vice versa. In so doing, we offer a template for conducting rigorous research with immediate impact, contributing to solving issues that businesses are struggling with through a design that facilitates causal inference.
PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for effective crisis commu... more PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for effective crisis communication in public emergencies including the relevance of planning and training and rehearsal; to explore the role of different stakeholders and how social media influence effective crisis communication.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research design was employed. Two events were analysed, via the synthesis model for handling crisis communication in the public sector, as cases. First, via post-crisis semi-structured interviews, a gas explosion in the city of Antwerp was analysed. Second, via participant observation of a training and rehearsal exercise, more insight was gained on the role of training and social media for crisis communication.FindingsThe findings of this paper provide empirical evidence that (1) effective crisis communication is communication that is diversified across different crisis stages and diverse stakeholders; (2) that different internal social media tools...
International Journal of Public Sector Management, 2016
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how public cultural organizations use ambidextrou... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how public cultural organizations use ambidextrous design to balance exploitation and exploration given their organizational structure that mainly stimulates exploitation. Design/methodology/approach The authors use an abductive methodology and, perform an in-depth comparative case study. The data sample consists of two Belgian public cultural centers located in the Flemish area. In all, 21 semi-structured interviews where analyzed using Nvivo. Findings Results show, first, that although both cases have the same formal organization chart, their informal structure differs. Second, both cases have a different point of view toward exploitation and exploration. Third, no “pure” ambidextrous designs were found. Finally, the paper formulates theoretical propositions for ambidexterity and public sector research. Research limitations/implications Limitations of this paper are threefold. First, the authors only compared two cases, so generaliza...
Organizational research has indicated the need for organizations to balance efficiency and innova... more Organizational research has indicated the need for organizations to balance efficiency and innovation to retrieve growth and high performance. A remaining question is, can public sector organizations be efficient and innovative? We use the theoretical framework of ambidexterity and ambidextrous design to frame this question. More precisely has ambidexterity literature proposed two designs to simultaneously achieve a balance between exploitation, efficiency and, exploration, innovation: structural ambidexterity and contextual ambidexterity. Based on these designs, we selected four design and two leadership conditions: differentiation, centralization, forceful leadership, autonomy, context, and enabling leadership and performed a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to answer the following research question: “What is the role of ambidextrous design and leadership for public sector organizations seeking to balance efficiency and innovation?” We gathered data through a detailed quanti...
The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic that d... more The rigor-versus-relevance debate in the world of academia is, by now, an old-time classic that does not seem to go away so easily. The grassroots movement Responsible Research in Business and Management, for instance, is a very active and prominent advocate of the need to change current research practices in the management domain, broadly defined. One of its main critiques is that current research practices are not apt to address day-to-day management challenges, nor do they allow such management challenges to feed into academic research. In this paper, we address this issue, and present a research design, referred to as CARE, that is aimed at building a bridge from rigor to relevance, and vice versa. In so doing, we offer a template for conducting rigorous research with immediate impact, contributing to solving issues that businesses are struggling with through a design that facilitates causal inference.
PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for effective crisis commu... more PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence for effective crisis communication in public emergencies including the relevance of planning and training and rehearsal; to explore the role of different stakeholders and how social media influence effective crisis communication.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research design was employed. Two events were analysed, via the synthesis model for handling crisis communication in the public sector, as cases. First, via post-crisis semi-structured interviews, a gas explosion in the city of Antwerp was analysed. Second, via participant observation of a training and rehearsal exercise, more insight was gained on the role of training and social media for crisis communication.FindingsThe findings of this paper provide empirical evidence that (1) effective crisis communication is communication that is diversified across different crisis stages and diverse stakeholders; (2) that different internal social media tools...
International Journal of Public Sector Management, 2016
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how public cultural organizations use ambidextrou... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how public cultural organizations use ambidextrous design to balance exploitation and exploration given their organizational structure that mainly stimulates exploitation. Design/methodology/approach The authors use an abductive methodology and, perform an in-depth comparative case study. The data sample consists of two Belgian public cultural centers located in the Flemish area. In all, 21 semi-structured interviews where analyzed using Nvivo. Findings Results show, first, that although both cases have the same formal organization chart, their informal structure differs. Second, both cases have a different point of view toward exploitation and exploration. Third, no “pure” ambidextrous designs were found. Finally, the paper formulates theoretical propositions for ambidexterity and public sector research. Research limitations/implications Limitations of this paper are threefold. First, the authors only compared two cases, so generaliza...
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