Conciliating Exploration and Exploitation at Middle-Manager Level: The Case Study of a European Bank introducing Big-Data

This manuscript examines, in a context of radical innovation, the effectiveness of cross functional teams mediating between exploration and exploitation and the knowledge processes that enable organizational ambidexterity. To do so, we conducted a 9 month case study at one of the biggest European banks which is introducing Big Data technologies to support the activity of its corporate relationship managers. The case study focuses on the relationship between the R&D Department and the ICT services provider of the bank and gives evidences that cross-functional teams involving directly these two poles are not, at the first step, the most effective solution at middle-manager level.