Author Abstract
Organizations face simultaneous imperatives to exploit and explore. Paradoxically, exploitation tends to drive out exploration, rendering organizations rigid and vulnerable to environmental change. Drawing on the Carnegie School, we propose a model where perturbation moderates the relationship between exploitation and exploration. We posit that highly disciplined organizations can sustain virtuous cycles of exploitation and exploration by deliberately perturbing their own processes. We provide illustrations from Toyota and formulate testable hypotheses about the mechanisms of perturbation.
Paper Information
- Full Working Paper Text
- Working Paper Publication Date: July 2008, revised June 2009
- HBS Working Paper Number: 09-011
- Faculty Unit(s): Organizational Behavior; Technology and Operations Management