Navigating Platformization Tensions in Manufacturing: An Organizational Ambidexterity Perspective

This study investigates how manufacturing firms navigate tensions that arise during platformization, as they gradually integrate exploratory, platform-based activities into traditional, product-based, exploitative activities. While previous literature has emphasized how manufacturers address the technological and strategic tensions of platformization, we explore its organizational dimension through a 12-year longitudinal single-case study of a leading European woodworking machinery manufacturer that evolved from product-centric operations to an orchestrator of a digital multisided platform. First, we identify three tensions throughout the platformization process: i) customer interaction; ii) value source; and iii) control, increasingly broadening their coverage in terms of the business model’s value mechanisms (delivery, creation, capture). Second, by adopting a multi-level view of organizational ambidexterity, functional and team, we identify six organizational mechanisms to address the platformization tensions. At the functional level, tensions are managed through an increasing degree of structural separation between units pursuing either exploration or exploitation. In contrast, at the team level, cross-functionality serves as a compensatory mechanism to maintain connections between progressively separating units. Our study contributes to extant conversations on platformization as a business model innovation process and organizational ambidexterity in manufacturing, offering practical implications for managers considering a platformization journey.