The technological gatekeeper “orchestra conductor” of organizational ambidexterity

Many researches highlight the prominent role of technological gatekeepers in collecting and integrating external knowledge to foster innovation. However, to our knowledge, none of them, specifically, examines the role that these agents might play in reconciling exploitative and exploratory innovations. To address this gap, we rely on an in-depth case study of an innovative enterprise to better apprehend the importance of the roles played by this relational agent of innovation, and how these roles can be reflected trough the articulation of exploitative and exploratory innovations. The aim of this study is, therefore, to identify the role of the TG in managing the tensions between these two logics of innovations and to better understand the mechanisms involved in achieving organizational ambidexterity. Our research shows that this actor occupies a central position contributing to fluidify the flow of knowledge between the exploration and exploitation units to better articulate them. JEL Codes: O31, O32