Description
Book SynopsisOrganizations are under constant pressure to be ambidextrous. They must be able to exploit existing processes, routines and systems at the same time as they must engage in exploration through playfulness, relaxed control and experimentation. We know little about the human costs and challenges of ambidexterity. In this volume we explore the impact of ambidextrous organizations on individuals' working lives. The authors analyze how employees are required to follow routines at the same time as they are expected to break these routines. They also explore how the individual dilemmas of ambidexterity play out in the lives of precarious work, online communities, management consultants, workers in the automotive industry, and consumers of pop-management books in the US. The result is a rich and fascinating picture of individuals whose working lives are made up of a continued tension between the quest to be exploitative and explorative.
Table of ContentsList of Contributors. Advisory Board. The Ambidextrous Employee: Exploiting and Exploring People's Potential. Making, Breaking and Following Rules: The Irvine Case. In Pursuit of the Ambidextrous Graduate: Potentiality between Exploration and Exploitation. By Hook or By Crook: Flexible Workers between Exploration and Exploitation. “Some might Call it Work . . . but We don’t”: Exploitation and the Emergence of Free Work. March Meets Marx: The Politics of Exploitation and Exploration in the Management of Life and Labour. Coordination and Learning in Wikipedia: Revisiting the Dynamics of Exploitation and Exploration. Workload, Aspiration, and Fun: Problems of Balancing Self-Exploitation and Self-Exploration in Work Life. Outsourcing your Life: Exploitation and Exploration in “the 4-Hour Workweek”. Exploitation, Exploration and Exaltation: Notes on a Metaphysical (Re)turn to ‘One Best Way of Organizing’. Managing ‘Human Resources’ by Exploiting and Exploring People's Potentials. Research in the sociology of organizations. Research in the sociology of organizations. Copyright page. Dedication.
