The Effect of Application Ambidexterity on Firm Agility

Firm agility is quickly becoming an essential capability for companies to effectively compete in hypercompetitive environments. At the same time, firms are using applications that enable close integration coupled with an increased ability to reconfigure processes. Such applications should manifest a balance between integration and reconfigurability. This is the concept of applications ambidexterity. The IS literature has selectively focused on either integration or reconfigurability. By focusing on only one characteristic we have been unable to understand the IT agility relation. Research suggests that integration and reconfigurability alone cannot explain the true nature of the IT agility relation. This conceptual paper attempts to understand the complementary effects of integration and reconfigurability on firm agility. It contributes to the literature by theorizing the role of IT application ambidexterity on firm agility through the mediating variables of knowledge exploration, knowledge exploitation and process adaptability.