Towards an ambidextrous government: Strategies for balancing exploration and exploitation in open government

Abstract

Governments are often putting their efforts in the operation and execution of existing services without having the means to innovate. Ambidexterity is the ability to operate existing services and to innovate at the same time Ambidexterity is a concept originating from organizational studies in the private sector and is hardly used in the public sector. The goal of this paper is to identify strategies used by governments to combine exploitation and exploration. Factors influencing ambidexterity were derived from the literature and categorized in political, organizational, technological and economical categories. These factors were used to analyze two case studies. The cases revealed strategies used by government to move from exploitation to exploration. Strategies include providing incentives, like awards and prizes, to involve resources that are external to the government. The strategies can be classified as contextual ambidexterity.