Enabling “Career Ambidexterity” as a New Learning Paradigm in Management Classrooms for the Innovation Economy

Enabling “Career Ambidexterity” as a New Learning Paradigm in Management Classrooms for the Innovation Economy

The innovation and digital transformation economy have created challenges and opportunities in career development. Among those challenges include how individuals can better exploit core competencies while allowing for innovation, defined as “ambidexterity” in strategy research. In this session, we extend this definition and build from Jackson et al.’s (2017) career ambidexterity paper with a design thinking approach from Burnett and Davis’s (2016) work. Specifically, we outline in two exercises where students can 1) identify why ambidexterity is of strategic importance to today’s organizations, and 2) how to target pockets or opportunities in their resumes and career paths around this problem.