Blending in: A Case Study of Transitional Ambidexterity in the Financial Sector
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I have read the paper "Blending In: A Case Study of Transitional Ambidexterity in the Financial Sector." The main idea this paper focuses on is the ambidextrous process. Using an inductive, qualitative approach this study provides a several insights on this issue.
Let me start by saying that I do not have a background in research on organizational ambidexterity specifically, so my comments focus primarily on the sustainability and methodological components of the paper. That said, I could follow the main gist of the story quite easily. While I have a quite favorable impression of the paper, I also have some concerns, which are explained in more detail below:
Comment 1:
The story presented in the paper focuses on organizational ambidexterity and digital transformation. Given the choice of an outlet such as Sustainability, I am having a hard time connecting the story to sustainability issues. This concern is echoed throughout the paper, from the introduction, literature review, results and discussion.
Intro:
The link to sustainability is missing altogether in the introduction. Aside from two vague, ad-hoc references of “long-term sustainability” I don’t see any relevance to sustainability concepts. How does digital transformation and a “blended” ambidexterity relate to sustainability concepts – do digital processes have a lower environmental impact, improve credit conditions or products for consumers, etc.? I think this is of central concern to the readership of the journal.
Literature review:
The lack of links to sustainability is further elucidated in the literature review. Leaving aside whether one agrees with the notion that corporate sustainability is the “optimal use of environmental, physical, human and organizational resources while simultaneously cultivate their development over time,” which is often repeated throughout the paper, I question how optimal use would even be measured. Also, the Smith and Lewis reference that much of this paragraph is based on is missing from the bibliography.
Regardless, by focusing so much on the organizational ambidexterity literature, I believe you are missing the opportunity to engage much of the sustainable business model literature. Aside from the Yip and Bocken (2018), you don’t cover a lot of ground. You allude to the digitalization efforts and their socio-economic impact through the Wang and He (2014) and Yeo and Jun (2020) papers but your methods presumably didn’t uncover and informant testimony relating to digitalization efforts and positive social impacts. I find this a bit strange and it indicates that sustainability applications of digitization efforts was not a core piece of the initial research design. Similarly, simply referencing the Yip and Bocken article and its focus on short-termism I found the connection as to why digitalization alleviates this concern totally unconvincing. As organizational ambidexterity is most likely a newer theoretical model for readers of this journal, I think further explaining why digitalization efforts lead to a focus on long-term sustainability (your words) is of central importance. You may even consider first introducing ambidexterity and then developing a second section of the literature review that explains its relevance to sustainability issues in finance/digital transformations/etc.
Missing reference:
Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381- 403.
Comment 2:
The structure of the data and methods section is not very informative. In that section, you address quickly cover the firm under observation, the sample selection, a sample description and (partially) the method of analysis. All of these elements should be included in this section. However, they are currently too vague to give the reader a good understanding of your approach. In that vein, I recommend to:
* provide more background on DNB – I found the last sentence (page 4, lines 192-194) particularly confusing – what specifically does it mean when you say that DNB wants to “improve its innovative capabilities through a comprehensive reform of its operations aimed towards the integration of an ambidextrous approach”? Is this the language that DNB uses to communicate its digital transformation? Is digital the onl
* give sufficient information regarding your interview material (what do you ask?) – You mention that you used semi-structured interview guides… I think adding this as an appendix is standard procedure for qualitative-based studies
* you mention that you started with “semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders across operations across operations.” Banks of course have many operational departments so it’s not clear how many people were involved in this step, what their roles were, what kind of questions you asked, etc.
* describe how you put your results together (in the third part of your results section).
Especially the description of your interview material (set of questions) is of major relevance to assess your methodology and results!
Other issues:
- Abstract: You start the second sentence of the abstract by stating: “While the economic literature has recognized several forms of ambidexterity, the relationship between them and their relative merits remain unclear.” Since you don’t engage with economic literature at all in this manuscript, I would suggest changing the sentence to “while the management literature”
- To be honest, I find your limitations to be uninspiring and uninformative. I encourage you to think more deeply about how your limitation section can advance scholarship by highlighting issues that go beyond the obvious.
- Typos: In general, I found the writing very good. However, there were also quite a few typos so you should probably give the manuscript a thorough review in this regard:
p2 line 45: “over times” should be “over time”
p2 line 69: “cultivate” should be “cultivating”
:
Author Response
Reply to reviewers
We thank the reviewers for their generous work. In the following text, we replicate the reviewers’ comments, with our reply offered in italics.
REVIEWER 1:
I have read the paper "Blending In: A Case Study of Transitional Ambidexterity in the Financial Sector." The main idea this paper focuses on is the ambidextrous process. Using an inductive, qualitative approach this study provides a several insights on this issue.
Let me start by saying that I do not have a background in research on organizational ambidexterity specifically, so my comments focus primarily on the sustainability and methodological components of the paper. That said, I could follow the main gist of the story quite easily. While I have a quite favorable impression of the paper, I also have some concerns, which are explained in more detail below:
We would like to thank Reviewer 1 for taking the time to engage with our work in such a constructive and helpful manner, despite the topical mismatch.
Comment 1:
The story presented in the paper focuses on organizational ambidexterity and digital transformation. Given the choice of an outlet such as Sustainability, I am having a hard time connecting the story to sustainability issues. This concern is echoed throughout the paper, from the introduction, literature review, results and discussion.
We agree with Reviewer 1 that the link between these topics has not been sufficiently highlighted. Following their helpful suggestions, we have modified all sections of the manuscript to meet this key concern. Details are provided below.
Intro:
The link to sustainability is missing altogether in the introduction. Aside from two vague, ad-hoc references of “long-term sustainability” I don’t see any relevance to sustainability concepts. How does digital transformation and a “blended” ambidexterity relate to sustainability concepts – do digital processes have a lower environmental impact, improve credit conditions or products for consumers, etc.? I think this is of central concern to the readership of the journal.
A paragraph has been added (lines 34-42) to introduce the fundamental link between blended ambidexterity and sustainability in the financial services context.
Literature review:
The lack of links to sustainability is further elucidated in the literature review. Leaving aside whether one agrees with the notion that corporate sustainability is the “optimal use of environmental, physical, human and organizational resources while simultaneously cultivate their development over time,” which is often repeated throughout the paper, I question how optimal use would even be measured.
A line has been added to describe what optimal use means in this context (lines 144-149).
Also, the Smith and Lewis reference that much of this paragraph is based on is missing from the bibliography.
Thanks for the reminder, we have fixed the reference (lines 695-696).
Regardless, by focusing so much on the organizational ambidexterity literature, I believe you are missing the opportunity to engage much of the sustainable business model literature. Aside from the Yip and Bocken (2018), you don’t cover a lot of ground. You allude to the digitalization efforts and their socio-economic impact through the Wang and He (2014) and Yeo and Jun (2020) papers but your methods presumably didn’t uncover and informant testimony relating to digitalization efforts and positive social impacts. I find this a bit strange and it indicates that sustainability applications of digitization efforts was not a core piece of the initial research design. Similarly, simply referencing the Yip and Bocken article and its focus on short-termism I found the connection as to why digitalization alleviates this concern totally unconvincing. As organizational ambidexterity is most likely a newer theoretical model for readers of this journal, I think further explaining why digitalization efforts lead to a focus on long-term sustainability (your words) is of central importance. You may even consider first introducing ambidexterity and then developing a second section of the literature review that explains its relevance to sustainability issues in finance/digital transformations/etc.
We agree with Reviewer 1 in regard to all the points raised in this crucial comment. In order to address these issues, we have operated the following changes:
- We have restructured the section according to Reviewer’s 1 suggestion, introducing and discussing ambidexterity first before moving to its relevance for sustainability issues;
- We have strengthened our argument on the relevance of ambidexterity for sustainability by expanding our references (adding Ciasullo, M. V., Montera, R., Cucari, N., & Polese, F. (2020);, Hahn T, Pinkse J, Preuss L, Figge F. (2016);
Gomes, P. J., Silva, G. M., & Sarkis, J. (2020); Minatogawa V, Franco M, Durán O, Quadros R, Holgado M, Batocchio A. (2020)) in a new paragraph (lines 162-172)
- We have made our argument more explicit by re-connecting ambidexterity and sustainability towards the end of the section (lines 197-203).
Missing reference:
Smith, W. K., & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, 36(2), 381- 403.
Comment 2:
The structure of the data and methods section is not very informative. In that section, you address quickly cover the firm under observation, the sample selection, a sample description and (partially) the method of analysis. All of these elements should be included in this section. However, they are currently too vague to give the reader a good understanding of your approach.
We have addressed these concerns following the helpful suggestions graciously provided by Reviewer 1. Details are provided in response to each comment listed below.
In that vein, I recommend to:
* provide more background on DNB – I found the last sentence (page 4, lines 192-194) particularly confusing – what specifically does it mean when you say that DNB wants to “improve its innovative capabilities through a comprehensive reform of its operations aimed towards the integration of an ambidextrous approach”? Is this the language that DNB uses to communicate its digital transformation? Is digital the onl
To meet these concerns, we have added a sentence providing some much-needed context for DNB (lines 219-224). We have also reworked the cited sentence to improve readability and clarify its meaning (lines 222-224).
* give sufficient information regarding your interview material (what do you ask?) – You mention that you used semi-structured interview guides… I think adding this as an appendix is standard procedure for qualitative-based studies
We have added the interview guide in a dedicated appendix at the end of the manuscript.
* you mention that you started with “semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders across operations across operations.” Banks of course have many operational departments so it’s not clear how many people were involved in this step, what their roles were, what kind of questions you asked, etc.
We have provided the required information, adding the number of people contacted, their roles and the mode through which contact was made (lines 233-239)
* describe how you put your results together (in the third part of your results section).
We have added a paragraph dedicated to describing the process leading from the data structure to the final text (lines 262-270)
Especially the description of your interview material (set of questions) is of major relevance to assess your methodology and results!
We definitely agree with Reviewer 1 here; we hope the information added could be of help there.
Other issues:
Abstract: You start the second sentence of the abstract by stating: “While the economic literature has recognized several forms of ambidexterity, the relationship between them and their relative merits remain unclear.” Since you don’t engage with economic literature at all in this manuscript, I would suggest changing the sentence to “while the management literature”
We agree with the suggestion, which has been implemented (line 9).
To be honest, I find your limitations to be uninspiring and uninformative. I encourage you to think more deeply about how your limitation section can advance scholarship by highlighting issues that go beyond the obvious.
We have to confess that the section in question did not receive the time and care it should have. We have reworked it entirely, eliminating some of the most obvious comments, highlighting some previous elements that we maintain may be of interest to other researchers, and adding a new consideration inspired by the helpful comments of Reviewer 1, hopefully making it a more interesting read (lines 652-664).
Typos: In general, I found the writing very good. However, there were also quite a few typos so you should probably give the manuscript a thorough review in this regard:
p2 line 45: “over times” should be “over time”
p2 line 69: “cultivate” should be “cultivating”
We again thank Reviewer 1 for the advice. We have fixed a number of typos through the document, including the two explicitly mentioned.
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic treated by the paper is very interesting and suitable for the Journal.
The fact that is is based on a real case -i.e., the Norwegian bank DNB- is very instructive.
Occasion is given to the reader the appreciate tensions between the ''business as usual'' attitude and the ''seek of innovation''.
Overall. The paper is suitable for publication.
As minor correction. Some paragraphs end with a dot, while others do not. Please harmonize the writing.
Author Response
Reply to reviewers
We thank the reviewers for their generous work. In the following text, we replicate the reviewers’ comments, with our reply offered in italics.
REVIEWER 2:
The topic treated by the paper is very interesting and suitable for the Journal.
The fact that is is based on a real case -i.e., the Norwegian bank DNB- is very instructive.
Occasion is given to the reader the appreciate tensions between the ''business as usual'' attitude and the ''seek of innovation''.
Overall. The paper is suitable for publication.
As minor correction. Some paragraphs end with a dot, while others do not. Please harmonize the writing.
We thank Reviewer 2 for the kind words. We have edited the text to eliminate typos such as those mentioned.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
This review is very much improved and the authors are to be commended for their hard work in addressing my concerns, which have by and large been addressed. By connecting the paper's relevance to the field of sustainability, I think you have increased the appeal to readers of the journal.
