From Experimentation to Strategy: The Ambidextrous Balancing Act of Developing News Recommender Systems

Despite advances in news recommender systems (NRS) research, their application in news organisations remains limited, hampered by practical obstacles and organisational challenges. This study applies the multi-stakeholder framework alongside ambidexterity theory to analyse the complex decision-making dynamics in applying NRS within two large commercial news organisations. Based on 11 in-depth interviews with different stakeholders, two “balancing acts” emerged. The first is stakeholder alignment through two strategies: knowledge management with dummy-proof presentations and “showcasing success” to help increase stakeholder buy-in for NRS. The second balancing act is managing trade-offs between exploration and exploitation in a roadmap developed by the multidisciplinary team of product owners (POs), ensuring a balanced allocation of resources for NRS innovation and optimisation. This research shows how organisational ambidexterity supports successful technology integration and provides insights for implementing emerging technologies in complex multi-stakeholder news media environments.