Communicational ambidexterity as a new capability to manage social media communication within organizations

Central to our inquiry is how organizations manage and accommodate conflicting demands in managing internal communication when they adopt social media that allows for more open and distributed communication. Drawing on ambidexterity theory we investigate and analyze the tensions and capabilities necessary to effectively manage two distinct types of internal communication (1) organizationally produced content and (2) user-generated content. We propose and unpack the concept of communicational ambidexterity to theorize the capability that enables organizations to accommodate and efficiently manage these two potentially conflicting modes of communication within organizations.