Keeping Ambidexterity and Knowledge Dynamics Onboard. A Case Study of Norwegian Olympic Shipping

The purpose of this study is to describe, analyze and understand how a company keep ambidexterity and knowledge dynamics onboard during change and growth through defining, evolving and defending the vision of working smarter, greener and safer. The research questions are: Q1: How does ambidexterity manifest itself at the micro level? Q2: What kinds of hurdles exist when the noticeable conditions for ambidexterity are elevated from an individual to an organizational knowledge level? The answer to Q1 is that dividing the responsibilities for exploration and exploitation activities to separate managers are of importance, and that the individual power of these managers will impact the trajectory of the company. The answer to Q2 is that the main concern moving from an individual to an organizational knowledge level is how to organize and energize exploitation activities. Methodology. This is a case study using the Norwegian Olympic Shipping as a case. We gave the management group of 22 an executive one third of a Master of Management program in 2013 and we got through this program access to all needed primary and secondary sources about the company itself and about their branch of business. All the participants worked with a project assignment analyzing different subjects for the practical realization of the company's strategy for the period 2014-2020. The project assignments included proposals for improvements and implementations and we will follow up this in august 2014. The case represents an action based methodological paradigm. Practical implications. This is an exploration of how a company has kept the ambidexterity and knowledge dynamics in a long period growing from a small shipping company to a medium sized shipping company on its way to become a large global shipping company. The entrepreneurial spirit is kept in the shipping company through empowerment, engagement, participation around the agreed upon vision to become greener, smarter and safer. The top-down control work in a dialectical relationship with bottom-up and the company can then take well care of their long term practice of working at the edge of their business.