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The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations manage and integrate exploration and exploitation across the innovation project portfolio. Such ambidextrous capabilities are required for organizations to innovate and succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Understanding how exploration and exploitation projects are integrated can illustrate ways to enhance ambidexterity and boost learning for the benefit of both approaches.

A multiple-case study approach was used to explore innovation portfolio management in six large organizations that emphasize innovation in their strategies.

The findings draw upon concepts of paradox and contingency to reveal that the inherent tension between formality and flexibility in managing innovation project portfolios is aligned with the need for organizational ambidexterity that maintains effective exploitative innovation while supporting explorative innovation capabilities. Four integration mechanisms are identified that enhance ambidexterity across the innovation portfolio by embedding processes for transition from exploration to exploitation and cross-fertilizing knowledge to build innovation capability across both exploration and exploitation.

Managers may find inspiration on ways to enhance learning by bridging exploration and exploitation projects from the four types of integration mechanisms. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of the tension between formality and flexibility in project and portfolio management may also help guide organizations to effectively develop ambidextrous approaches to enhance overall innovation outcomes.

In contrast to perspectives which suggest that paradox and contingency approaches represent disparate perspectives, the authors demonstrate how they can complement each other and work together through innovation portfolio management to support ambidexterity at the portfolio and project levels.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Firms can optimize innovation outcomes by creating portfolios containing both exploitation and exploration projects. Development of ambidexterity capabilities helps attainment of such aims as companies will be more able to manage the inherent paradoxes of an integrated portfolio and the need to balance formality and flexibility in the approach.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

This research focuses on the interactions between architects and end-users during the design process of housing projects, both experiencing challenges and friction points when meeting.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review (SLR), based on and adapted from Kitchenham and Charters' work (2007). The thematic analysis of N = 104 identified articles reveals 13 main themes and 30 subthemes specific to architects, end-users and the interactions of architects and end-users, and 3 main groups of other actors intervening in these dynamics. The authors organize the data by actors and the actors' social encounters, themes and subthemes. The authors focus on some aspects, given possible evolution of practices.

The authors question the role of architects and the ways both parties share respective knowledge. The authors also discuss the various scales of social encounters depicted through literature, from traditional discursive meetings to participatory practices, and raise the lack of convincing tools genuinely used in current housing architecture practices. Finally, the authors point out the need for further field research in order to practically bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners.

The authors present an overview of the most relevant papers, organized in a table and grouped by themes. This represents a major output of this SLR, and gives the concerned readers the opportunity to get a grasp on readers' sub/theme of interest.