Ambidexterity is a highly tension-filled strategic concern that attempts to combine the fundamentally divergent logics of exploration and exploitation. While the present research is concerned with the management of these tensions, little consideration is given to effects that result from this unfolding process over time and are manifested in critical thresholds. In our study, we reveal the pivotal role of handling these thresholds for the direction in which ambi-dexterity processes develop. We build on a six-month ethnographic study of a company in the European energy market (EnergyCo) to investigate the process of building an incubator (IncuCo). We show changes between a phase of more control that promotes integration and inhibits progress and a phase of driving ambidexterity towards acceleration that promotes differentiation and creates counter-movements. Highlighting the within-phase tensions and between-phase thresholds, we contribute to research on the microfoundations of hybrid ambidexterity by highlighting the role of thresholds to manage the complex dynamics underlying hybrid ambidexterity and the multiple interests of actors, which we theorize as double faces of ambidexterity.

In this paper, we consider how emerging, controversially discussed technologies are discursively constructed. We argue that for such technologies, meaning is neither societally institutionalized, nor do social actors frame this meaning in a purely intentional way. Building on a hermeneutic sociology of knowledge perspective, we discuss how societal knowledge and heterogenous practices of actors are communicatively co-constructed and guide the becoming of technology. We illustrate the meaning dynamics using the example of the discourse around Big Data Analytics (BDA) in Germany from 2010-2020 and reveal three interpretive frames that unfold from the recursive relations of societal knowledge and social actors. The implication of our paper is that the discursive construction of emerging technologies can only be understood through an actor concept that understands social actors as both producers and …

The global waste problem constitutes one of our grand societal challenges and requires a sustainable transition of the economy. One way to achieve this transition is to move to a circular economy. Realizing such a transition encompasses multiple actors from politics, business and the society and a broad range of measures such as regulations, new business models and a change in consumption behavior. This research sets out to analyze how the realization of the circular economy is realized through the systematic interaction of a circular business model and multiple stakeholders. We draw on the literature on hybrid organizations and circular economy and develop a single case study of a circular startup that works towards reducing waste through interaction with its value network. We develop a conceptual model that illustrates how a social enterprise uses practices at multiple levels to address critical growth episodes and their associated hybridity challenges, contributing to a transition toward a circular economy. Our findings advance understanding of hybrid organizing as a multi-level phenomenon and the role of stakeholder interactions for circular transitions.