The Role of Ambidexterity in Managing Buyer–Supplier Relationships: The Toyota Case
通过丰田案例，研究买方企业如何利用模糊性和明确性、结构分离与整合等机制，帮助供应商同时实现短期和长期效益，解决探索与利用的权衡问题。
Most ambidexterity theories deal with managing exploration–exploitation trade-offs among business units within firms or between alliance partners, but these theories remain yet to be extended to the buyer-supplier relationship level. Through an in-depth case study of the Toyota Motor Corporation, we illustrate how buying firms can simultaneously achieve short-term and long-term benefits with their long-standing suppliers. Taking two inherently different activities as a starting point—mass production with its focus on exploitation and product development with its focus on exploration—we show that the deliberate use of ambiguity and explicitness can function as a countervailing mechanism against overemphasizing either exploration or exploitation. We also show that structural separation and structural integration are two organizational systems that can be used by buying firms to help suppliers realize ambidexterity in their operations. Finally, we argue that “requisite security” can help to motivate suppliers to address the paradoxical tensions deliberately created by buying firms.