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Developing Organizational Ambidexterity: Enabling Service Innovation in a Hospital Setting

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Abstract

In Chapter 13, Hoholm et al. discuss controversies in the healthcare sector by studying the nature of innovation projects at the Clinic of Innovation at Oslo University Hospital and its efforts to improve organizational ambidexterity in the area of service innovation. This includes more room for exploration, and improving their capacity to translate and exploit service innovations in use. Using the notions of ‘exploration’ and ‘exploitation’ (March, Organization Science 2:71–87,1991) the authors show how successful innovation requires two different organizational capacities and discuss how a complex knowledge organization like a hospital may increase its ability to handle both, often referred to as ‘organizational ambidexterity’ (Junni et al., The Academy of Management Perspectives 27:299–312, 2013). The authors propose three conditions for driving ambidexterity: organizational responsibilities and roles, provisional evaluation methods, and systematic cross-case learning.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Health&Care 21 Action list, http://www.forskningsradet.no/prognett-helseomsorg21/Nyheter/The_Action_plan_for_the_HealthCare21_strategy_is_now_ready/1254013726261/p1253985487368

  2. 2.

    Source: OUH homepage, November 4, 2016.

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Correspondence to Thomas Hoholm .

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Hoholm, T., Strønen, F., Kværner, K.J., Støme, L.N. (2018). Developing Organizational Ambidexterity: Enabling Service Innovation in a Hospital Setting. In: Hoholm, T., La Rocca, A., Aanestad, M. (eds) Controversies in Healthcare Innovation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55780-3_13

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