According to O’Reilly and Tushman (2007, 10), central to the adaptive process are the notions of a firm’s ability to exploit existing assets and positions in a profit producing way and to simultaneously explore new technologies and markets; to configure and reconfigure organizational resources to capture existing as well as new opportunities. This capacity has been referred to either as exploration and exploitation or ambidexterity.
The term “organizational ambidexterity” was coined by Duncan (1976) as a tool for managing trade-offs between the conflicting demands of exploration and exploitation. Since the seminal work of March (1991) on the dual nature of organizational learning there has been more discussion on how to be efficient and innovative simultaneously. This has been reflected in building a firm's abilities on how to both exploit existing resources and to explore potential opportunities in an ambidextrous manner.