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This paper aims to examine the key challenges experienced and lessons learned when organizations undergo large-scale agile transformations and seeks to answer the question of how incumbent firms achieve agility at scale.

Building on a case study of a multinational corporation seeking to scale up agility, the authors combined 36 semistructured interviews with secondary data from the organization to analyze its transformation since the early planning period.

The results show how incumbent firms develop and successfully integrate agility-enhancing capabilities to sense, seize and transform in times of digital transformation and rapid change. The findings highlight how agility can be established initially at the divisional level, namely with a key accelerator in the form of a center of competence, and later prepared to be scaled up across the organization. Moreover, the authors abstract and organize the findings according to the dynamic capabilities framework and offer propositions of how companies can achieve organizational agility by scaling up agility from a divisional to an organizational level.

Along with in-depth insights into agile transformations, this article provides practitioners with guidance for developing agility-enhancing capabilities within incumbent organizations and creating, scaling and managing agility across them.

Examining the case of a multinational corporation's exceptional, pioneering effort to scale agility, this article addresses the strategic importance of agility and explains how organizational agility can serve incumbent firms in industries characterized by uncertainty and intense competition.

This article couples organizational theory with practice with the union of action learning and the ambidextrous organization. It aims to show how action learning contributes to the creation and sustainment of an ambidextrous (learning) organization.

A side-by-side comparison of action learning and the ambidextrous organization was used.

Action learning “teaches” and promotes the framework and processes of ambidexterity and the practical creation of learning organizations. An action learning team in action performs like an ambidextrous organization to the extent that “acting” is synonymous with exploitation and “learning” with exploration.

Action learning is a powerful tool for the ambidextrous organization, serving as a template for the practitioner to create a learning organization.

This paper extends the literature on organizational structure, leadership, culture and change as it relates to ambidexterity, learning organizations and action learning. It integrates learning theory through action learning with the practice of the ambidextrous organization. A synergistic theory/practice circle is created through the combination of the processes of “theory informing theory” from academia and “practice informing practice” from industry, creating a “theory informing practice and practice validating and updating better theory” circle.

Acting entrepreneurially in nascent industries is a complex endeavor characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. Nevertheless, entirely new industries do emerge, often as a direct result of entrepreneurial behavior. We extend and apply discovery and creation approaches to study entrepreneurial behavior during industry emergence by means of qualitative analysis of a film about the personal computer (PC) industry℉s formative years. We find that discovery and creation behavior are fundamentally interrelated and share a common element: bricolage. Moreover, ideological activism is a major component of entrepreneurial behavior in a new industry℉s formative years during both creation and discovery processes. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The paper aims to clarify the multivariate effects of follower communication apprehension (CA) and demographic dissimilarity on follower perceptions of the leader–follower relationship quality (i.e. measured by leader–member exchange (LMX) theory). This study examined the possible mediating effects of follower CA on the relationship between demographic dissimilarity and LMX.

Research was collected from self-report ratings of one member of the dyad; several proactive techniques were utilized to reduce common method variance in the development and administration of the survey instrument. In total, 260 (N = 260) full-time hospitality industry employees participated in the study.

The results of this study indicate demographic dissimilarity has minimal effect on LMX and CA. However, the results indicated that follower CA was negatively related to follower perceptions of LMX quality. In addition, the results indicated that tenure working with the supervisor was negatively related to follower CA and positively related to follower perceptions of LMX quality.

Research results may lack generalizability, and causality cannot be confirmed. Future studies utilizing longitudinal designs and/or data collected from each member of the dyad may provide support for current findings.

This paper includes implications for understanding how situational characteristics influence follower CA and perceptions of LMX to encourage supervisors to increase communication with new subordinates, especially during the organizational acculturation process, thus reducing turnover. Furthermore, the significant relationship between age dissimilarity and CA offers practical implications for managing and celebrating generational differences in the workplace and bridging the gap between generations by maximizing communication between supervisors and subordinates. Communication is an essential consideration in the hospitality industry linked to creativity, relationship building and enhanced service experiences. Ultimately, this paper provides guidance for leaders to build sustainable, positive relationships with subordinates through more effective communication and build more inclusive service-based organizations.

This paper contributes to communication and leadership management practices by addressing four major problems: (1) limited research on situational characteristics that inhibit LMX quality, (2) limited research on communication variables as antecedents to LMX, (3) minimal research on the relationship between CA and LMX and (4) non-existent research on CA as a mediating variable in the relationship between demographic dissimilarity and LMX.