Managing the temporal tensions inherent to organisational ambidexterity: A practice-based approach

The purpose of the 40th EGOS Colloquium 2024 – hosted by the University of Milan-Bicocca – is to investigate what elements represent the crucial crossroads for organizations of the present and the next future. The concept of "Crossroad" can refer to a place where one road crosses another, an intersection that has the potential to connect people traveling from different sites and moving in different directions. It can be seen both as a central meeting space and as a location "between worlds", vibrant of vital energy, where people can melt together or assimilate into a harmonious whole with a common culture. At the same time, a crossroad symbolizes a crucial point in time when a decision becomes inevitable: going on the same way, along a straight path, is no longer suitable, and the traveller has to look for new directions to not remain stuck. In this sense, crossroads may also be emblematic of a time of uncertainty, for people not being able to clearly see where to turn to face new incoming issues. Contemporary organizations are at the crossroads in both these connotations: in time, because the potentially pervasive transformations led by digital innovation, massive data, and artificial intelligence call for new strategies of action to be fully and sustainably exploited; in space, since they are dealing with the governance of major humanity challenges (e.g., climate change, migrations, pandemics) in an increasingly interconnected world, and this requires new forms of coordination to achieve effective cooperation, oftentimes at the global level and including heterogeneous institutions (e.g., governments, large corporations, associations, and so forth).