Ambidexterity in knowledge acquisition: a middle management exercise in firm administration

We propose a conceptual framework to explain how middle managers conduct knowledge inflow management in order to facilitate organizational ambidexterity. The framework comprises two dimensions: knowledge acquisition orientation (which refers to knowledge acquisition being internal or external to a business unit) and knowledge acquisition activities (which include the use of structural and contextual mechanisms to receive knowledge inflows). We interviewed 64 informants to obtain data on three foreign hypermarket retailers in China. Our findings suggest that middle managers manage vertical knowledge inflows (top-down and bottom-up) and horizontal knowledge flows by utilizing individual components of structural and contextual mechanisms. These two types of mechanisms facilitate middle managers’ ability to achieve ambidexterity at the business-unit level, which facilitates organizational ambidexterity.