Managing Creative Teams in Small Ambidextrous Organizations: The Case of Videogames

Ambidexterity, the simultaneous management of exploration and exploitation activities, is difficult to apply in small and medium-sized organizations (SMEs) in the creative industries, because these companies need to constantly innovate to keep up with technological developments and support the creativity of their teams while at the same time continuing to rationalize production. Contextual ambidexterity, which is most suited to SMEs in this sector, relies on the management of social context and performance as well as a creative climate that is conducive to innovation. To identify the management practices of these ambidextrous companies, the authors study videogame development studios. These feature both contextual and temporal ambidexterity with specific creative team management practices, such as the combination of a wide variety of skills, development of numerous interactions between collaborators, affirmation of a creative culture, proximity leadership, empowerment, steering through objectives, strong capitalization, and knowledge sharing by and involvement of the entire staff in the design process. These practices lead to a social and creative climate that is good for creativity and also supports performance management. The small company that is subject to considerable constraints and that cannot separate the two activities becomes ambidextrous as a result of active creativity management within its development teams.