Exploring the Antecedents of Organizational Ambidexterity (the case study of Alborz Insurance Company)

Abstract
 Organizational ambidexterity is one of the significant ideas of management that relates the long-term success of an organization to its ability to exploit current capabilities and discover new core competencies at the same time. Nevertheless, it is considered a relatively complex challenge for the organization, because creating a balance between the conflicting requirements of realizing what is described as organizational ambidexterity, requires investigating and knowing the contexts of its formation. The current research aims to identify the antecedents of organizational ambidexterity in the branches of Alborz Insurance Company in a qualitative way. Semi-structured interviews with purposeful sampling and theoretical saturation stopping criteria were used to collect information, as well as thematic analysis method to identify their pattern. By coding the obtained data and recognizing the themes, their communication pattern was drawn as a model. The reliability and validity of extracted themes were checked and confirmed by several methods. The results indicate 45 basic themes, 12 organizing themes and 5 global themes; multi-dimensional management, multi-dimensional human resources, multi-dimensional architecture, multi-dimensional internal environment and external environment factors have an effect on organizational ambidexterity, the use of which provides the basis for the realization of an ambidextrous organization and achieves a competitive advantage and maintains it in the long term.
Introduction
Due to the constant changes in the business environment and technological advancements, organizations must keep up with speed to stay in the game. The way some managers solve today's challenges has led to the research of many researchers and the presentation of the term organizational mastery, which is a key driver for performance. The way some managers solve today's challenges has led to the research of many researchers and the presentation of the term organizational ambidexterity, which is a key driver for performance. An ambidextrous organization is an organization that explores and exploits at the same time and has the ability to manage today's business and adapt to future needs. If companies succeed in implementing organizational ambidexterity, they are more likely to succeed than other companies that focus solely on exploration or exploitation; because it becomes easier for them to adapt to current environmental changes (Gianzina-Kassotaki, 2017).
Case study
Research shows the difference in the factors underlying the formation of organizational ambidexterity in the private and public sectors (Priyanka, Jain, & Dhir, 2020); researches shows that these factors are not investigated in the private sector of Iran.  The current research gap and the expressed desire of Alborz insurance company managers as a private insurance company whose managers understand the dynamic and competitive environment of the industry well and seek to regain their competitive position of the past years, encouraged the researchers to investigate the antecedents of organizational ambidexterity. Therefore, the current research seeks to answer this question: What are the antecedents of organizational ambidexterity in Alborz Insurance Company?
Materials and Methods
The current research is qualitative and applied. The statistical population includes faculty members and experts in the field of management and familiar with the insurance industry, who are also interested in organizational excellence. The research method is thematic analysis, which is a method to recognize, analyze and report the patterns in qualitative data, and it is an interactive process that includes six steps (Scharp & Sanders, 2018);  In order to realize the validity and reliability of the research, at the stage of selecting the topic, a comprehensive review of the theoretical foundations was carried out to ensure the validity of the research and to design appropriate questions, as well as conduct interviews with study and consultation with experts. To check the reliability, two methods of test-retest reliability and inter-coder reliability have been used.
Discussion and Results
The results indicate 5 global themes; multi-dimensional management, multi-dimensional human resources, multi-dimensional architecture, multi-faceted internal environment and external environment factors. Multi-dimensional management includes two organizing themes: 1. manager's belief and persuasion and 2. Manager’s ability. Multi-dimensional human resources also includes two organizing themes: 1. individual characteristics and 2. Individual skills. Multi-dimensional architecture includes 1. Coordination mechanism and 2. Network feature. The multi-dimensional internal environment also includes 1. The organization's approach, 2. Human resource management policies, 3. The organization's knowledge base, and 4. Organizational culture. The aspects of the external environment also include two organizing themes: 1. legal and political and 2. Social.
Conclusion
The main goal of the current research is to identify the antecedents of organizational ambidexterity, meaning the balance between exploitation and exploration, and it is considered a vital matter in a dynamic and competitive environment. By creating a balance between exploitation and exploration, the organization can have long-term growth and continuous innovation and maintain its market share in the 5 key concepts mentioned.
Therefore, it is recommended to pay attention to personality traits in the recruitment of human resources (the theme of The multi-dimensional human resources) and in promotion to managerial positions (the theme of multi-dimensional management) to the ability and commitment of people to the field of mastery, in the arrangement of the structure of the organization (the theme of multi-dimensional architecture) and the relationship with the environment, both internal and external, should be considered as the conditions of organizational ambidexterity.