Managing ambidextrous organizations for corporate transformation: a case study of Fujifilm

The concept of ambidextrous organizations, allowing exploration and exploitation activities to coexist within an organization, has attracted considerable interest. We aim to advance the framework of ambidextrous organizations by incorporating the concept of product substitutability. We initially focus on the substitutability of an exploratory product for an existing core product, propose cannibalistic and complementary types of ambidextrous organizations, and discuss their effective management. This is followed by an in‐depth case study of Fujifilm, illustrating how distinguishing between two types of an ambidextrous organization explains effectively the corporate transformation process of Fujifilm.