Strategic Leadership, Organisational Ambidexterity, and Long-Run Performance Evidence from Indian Conglomerates
Author(s): Deepak Raghunathan, Saraswathi Menon, Vivek Narayan
Affiliation:
Page No: 65-68-
Volume issue & Publishing Year: Volume 3, Issue 3, 2026/03/18
Journal: International Journal of Modern Engineering and Management | IJMEM
ISSN NO: 3048-8230
DOI:
Abstract:
Organisational ambidexterity — the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation — is theorised as the strategic capability sustaining long-run competitive advantage through technological and market discontinuities. India's business group conglomerates face an unprecedented ambidexterity challenge in 2024-25: simultaneous management of core business exploitation (defending margins in legacy sectors facing digital disruption) and new frontier exploration (renewable energy, electric vehicles, semiconductors, AI infrastructure) under the altered policy landscape of Atmanirbhar Bharat 2.0 and India's emerging geopolitical positioning as a China+1 manufacturing destination. This study updates the ambidexterity-performance analysis of 28 major Indian conglomerates through 2025, incorporating five additional years of data and extending the exploration index to include clean-energy transition investment and semiconductor/AI infrastructure capex alongside traditional R&D metrics. Updated CMIE Prowess data (2010-2025) combined with qualitative analysis of 198 chairman addresses and 94 leadership interviews reveals that high-ambidexterity groups now generate 2.9x higher 15-year cumulative TSR than low-ambidexterity peers — up from the 2.7x figure in the prior 10-year measurement. Reliance Industries' clean-energy pivot (Rs. 75,000 crore announced investment) and Tata Group's semiconductor joint venture with Powerchip demonstrate that India's leading conglomerates are operationalising exploration at a scale and technology frontier that has no precedent in prior Indian ambidexterity research.
Keywords:
organisational ambidexterity, strategic leadership, Indian conglomerates, Atmanirbhar Bharat, clean energy transition, EV, semiconductors, TSR, exploration, exploitation 2025
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