L'innovation radicale : entre cluster ambidextre et organisations spécialisées

Based on a comparative study of Lucent Technologies and Cisco Systems, the article explores an interorganizational perspective of ambidexterity. Cisco Systems focuses on exploitation and externalizes exploration through a strategy of acquisitions of start-ups. The Cisco’s quality of embeddedness in networks of innovation in the high-tech cluster located in Silicon Valley, specially its relationships with venture capital firms understood as “transitors” of innovation, is a dimension that explains the success of its externalized ambidexterity.