Ambidestria organizacional na gestão pública : equilibrando inovação e eficiência operacional no Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia de Sergipe (IFS)!?

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate how the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Sergipe (IFS) balances exploration and exploitation, the central dimensions of organizational ambidexterity. Exploration was understood as the pursuit of new knowledge, experimentation, learning, and institutional adaptation, whereas exploitation was associated with the improvement of existing processes, operational efficiency, standardization, control, and continuity in the provision of public educational services. The research adopted a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory approach and was designed as an embedded single-case study, with the Rector’s Office, Aracaju Campus, and Propriá Campus as its subunits of analysis. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and document analysis, encompassing institutional and normative documents, management reports, resolutions, and meeting minutes. Content analysis, conducted with the support of ATLAS.ti, enabled the cross-analysis of evidence from interviews and documents. The results indicate that ambidexterity at IFS is not predominantly manifested through disruptive innovations or separate structures dedicated to innovation and efficiency, but rather through incremental, collaborative, and adaptive practices developed in the day-to-day activities of administrative and educational management. Exploration was identified in practices involving cooperation and institutional articulation, organizational learning, technological and administrative modernization, and adaptation in response to constraints. Exploitation, in turn, was manifested through operational efficiency, control and monitoring, institutional governance, process standardization, and adaptive bureaucracy. It is concluded that, at IFS, ambidexterity can be understood as a situated institutional capability built upon the organization’s concrete operating conditions and the articulation between stability and adaptation, systemic coordination and local autonomy, and control and learning. As a theoretical contribution, the study broadens the understanding of ambidexterity in public educational contexts by demonstrating that its operationalization can occur through incremental, collaborative, and adaptive practices conditioned by institutional constraints and by tensions between systemic coordination and local autonomy. As a practical contribution, the study proposes guidelines for operationalizing ambidexterity at IFS, whose elements may support reflection and further research in other public educational contexts with similar characteristics.