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This study aims to analyse how a hotel company manages ambidexterity when operating different business models in different markets located in the same country.

This research was conducted using a qualitative case study, and the subjects were selected using the theoretical sampling technique. A corporation managing two hotel business units located in the same city but operating different business models – a premium and a low-cost business model – were selected as subjects.

The empirical evidence revealed that an ambidextrous business model can be realized through integration or separation of appropriate domains of business activities. The empirical findings further showed that exploitations are easier to integrate than explorations.

The authors found that firms using structural separation for managing premium and low-cost business models can avoid market cannibalism and achieve synergies between different business models if business model ambidexterity is well managed.

This study extends research in the area of ambidexterity and business models. It responds to calls to examine how firms using structural separation implement business model ambidexterity in practice, particularly in service sectors. By analysing the details of activities within the business model, the authors advance the understanding of which domains are suitable for an integration or separation approach.

As the transition between exploration and exploitation is a unique challenge for SMEs, what mechanism(s) might facilitate this transition? Building on the entrepreneurship literature's entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development framework, this study hypothesizes that the novelty-centered business model (NCBM) may serve as such a mechanism.

Based on cross-sectional survey data collected from 169 Italian SMEs in various sectors, this study tests the mediation, moderation and moderated mediation relationships using the statistical PROCESS procedure.

Supporting the hypotheses that exploration and exploitation are positively associated within SMEs, that NCBM mediates this relationship and that the indirect relationship between exploration and exploitation by way of NCBM is stronger for SMEs with employees of medium to high creative human capital, the results suggest that SMEs can more effectively exploit new ideas identified in the exploration phase by developing an NCBM and accessing their creative human capital.

Although the robustness checks confirm the direction of the proposed hypotheses, given the cross-sectional nature of the dataset used, a longitudinal study would further validate the proposed framework.

SMEs can successfully achieve the transition between exploration and exploitation by reinventing their business model to compensate for their limited resources in terms of financial or relational capital. They can further enhance their ability to reinvent their business model and, in turn, to exploit innovations by hiring and retaining employees with greater creative human capital.

This study draws on the entrepreneurial opportunity, ambidexterity (exploration-exploitation) and business model literature to enhance our understanding of the role of the NCBM design concept (business model innovation) as a mechanism to achieve temporal ambidexterity in SMEs.

The academic discipline of ambidexterity is recognized as an established field within strategic management and organization theory. Extant works in the field recognize the recent burgeoning academic emphasis on ambidexterity and suggest either an impending focus or a decline of the field. Although there have been attempts to review the field of ambidexterity, most of these reviews have not followed a systematic and scientific approach for extricating the key themes emerging within. The purpose of the study is to inductively and systematically capture the main elements constituting the current boundary of the field.

To achieve the stated purpose, this study uses data/text mining to analyze abstracts of scholarly ambidexterity papers published over the past two decades (1997-2016) in academic journals. Using text-mining, lexical analysis is performed to compute the frequency distribution of words. The frequently occurring words are studied in detail and their association with ambidexterity is also studied by means of co-relation. This analysis (used for generation of first order themes) is then complemented by a manual analysis of each first order theme to come up with trends and sub-themes lying within.

The analysis extracts eight distinct themes that indicate the current boundary of ambidexterity research. The findings highlight the potential areas for future academic attention such as networks, business models, leadership, dynamic capability and their inter-linkages with the field of ambidexterity. Overall, the field of ambidexterity is receiving heightened academic interest coupled with a dynamic proliferation across a host of related management fields. Apart from the required future consolidation, the field also needs new insights to enhance its explanatory power.

This study analyzes abstracts of 504 works on ambidexterity (in the last two decades) to inductively indicate the current boundaries of the field using a data/text mining approach. Papers that do not explicitly mention ambidexterity in their abstracts, title or keywords are not included in the analysis.

The insights of the analysis will not only help researchers but also offer practitioners a good view point about the myriad of paths (not restricted to contextual, structural and temporal) through which ambidexterity can be promoted within and at the organization level.

The three-fold contribution of this study is a systematic and scientific approach adopted to define the current boundary of the field of ambidexterity, followed by an exploration of a set of eight distinct themes and finally the identification of ongoing debates, research gaps and future research questions in light of the analysis performed.

Ambidexterity refers to the ability to balance contradictory items and has been extensively described in relation to technological advancement in large-sized manufacturing firms. Few studies on hospitality and tourism firms have described the balancing of innovative developments, often focusing on the operational level of firms. Ambidexterity could though be understood also in dimensions of customer/market development and collaborative interaction. This paper describes and discusses ambidexterity in the dimensions of technological advancement, customer/market development and collaborative interaction in service firms to inspire this debate and bridge the gap between strategy and the service field.

A case study describing a service firm's 25-year development functions as the empirical source of inspiration to understand how service firms also in tourism and hospitality sectors would work with strategies and their developments related to technology, customers and collaboration. The case study is analysed using an activity-based time schedule to capture dimensions of ambidexterity and how they are linked to one another.

The findings indicate how the service firm balanced exploitation and exploration over time, rather than allowing such activities to occur simultaneously and in parallel. Generally, the firm only managed to explore in one dimension at the time.

The paper broadens the lens on ambidexterity to include collaboration and customer involvement and the link among the various dimensions of ambidexterity. It also discusses how ambidexterity in these dimensions may be handled by service firms so as to inspire strategic developments among tourism and hospitality firms.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on business model (BM) design by deepening the relationship between BM design themes and performance in a sample of firms based in a developing country. In particular, the authors deepen the relationship between business model novelty (BMN), business model efficiency (BME), the trade-off between novelty and efficiency – that the authors call BM ambidexterity – and performance.

Data are drawn from a sample of 107 manufacturing and service firms based in a developing country (Albania). Hierarchical regression is used to assess the impact on firm performance from the two BM design themes and their interaction.

The authors find novelty-centred BM design is significantly related to firm performance while efficiency-centred design has no direct effect on performance. However, the authors also find that BME positively moderates the relationship between BMN and firm performance.

The relationship between BM design and firm performance can be better understood if contextualised. In the paper, the authors find that different types of BM designs have different impacts on the performance of firms based in a developing economy. While novelty matters, quite surprisingly the authors find no support for efficiency. Additionally, the authors find the interaction between the two design themes (BM ambidexterity) to have a positive impact on firm performance.

The surveyed firms based in a developing economy appear to benefit from novelty-centred BM designs. Efficiency-centred designs have a more ambiguous role: while efficiency alone seems not to pay off, an efficient BM design may facilitate the market exploitation of a novel design.

This study responds to a precise call for additional quantitative empirical studies on the relationship between BM and performance. The study also contributes to an emerging stream of research focused on BM ambidexterity.

This paper aims to investigate how different trajectories can be detected and classified in business models (BMs) at the level of their underlying product development value-structure (value-creation and appropriation), and what are the drivers. Such BMs are run by multinational firms to accommodate various technologies and innovations; however, this is stressful because of inherent incompatibilities and conflicts.

An explorative study of six product cases from Du Pont’s Textiles Fiber Division (DTFD), namely, nylon yarns, knits and wovens, DTFD blockbusters, Coolmax^®, MicroMattique™, filling materials and Supriva™, is conducted.

In value-creation, technology push or market pull yields resultant technology-forward or market-back trajectories. For value appropriation, new growth opportunities or continuous market expectations lead to breakthrough or continuous innovations. Consistent and inconsistent combinations of these trajectories yield four differential drivers: technological breakthrough, market-back technology, continuous technology and continuous market-back. This is supported by relevant supply chain strategies, either focused through joint ventures and licensees for commodities or vertically integrated for specialty products.

The paper adds to the analysis of ambidexterity in the value structure of BMs along constituent value-creation and appropriation, thus providing a logical lens to understand various complementarities that exist in terms of opposing technology trajectories and product innovation repertoire.

This study contributes to the knowledge of product innovation management in the textile industry, where both large-scale innovation and operational excellence are challenged over the past few decades.

The lessons learnt address the fundamental issue of higher value generation through configuration of multiple contrasting value-structure elements.

This study examines the relationship between knowledge management (KM) capability and innovation ambidexterity, and their subsequent influence on firm performance. It also investigates whether organizational structure – in terms of connectedness and centralization – helps to develop a suitable context that either hinders or catalyzes the effectiveness of KM capability in predicting innovation ambidexterity.

Data were collected from 336 manufacturing organizations in Pakistan using a random sampling technique. Partial least square-based structural equation modelling (PLS–SEM) was employed to analyze the data.

Results reveal that KM capability is positively linked with innovation ambidexterity and firm performance. Innovation ambidexterity positively mediates the link between KM capability and firm performance. Connectedness positively moderates the association between KM capability and innovation ambidexterity. However, centralization negatively moderates the link between KM capability and innovation ambidexterity.

This research offers theoretical insights into when and how KM capability is effective in prompting performance through innovation ambidexterity by creating a suitable context.

The study indicates that innovation may develop in an ambidextrous manner in an organization as long as the organization is proficient in creating a suitable context, i.e. structure to support it. Organizations should strive to develop sustained KM capabilities because these are seminal for enabling the challenging task of exploiting existing resources for innovation while also tapping on new opportunities for explorative breakthroughs.

This research contributes to a novel understanding regarding the importance of KM capability in fostering manufacturing organizations to engage in ambidexterity by creating a suitable context where optimal amount of each form of innovation activities is calibrated using KM capability.

1. Knowledge management capability is crucial for simultaneous exploitation and exploration of innovation

2. Innovation ambidexterity (i.e. simultaneous exploitation and exploration of innovation) fosters firm performance

3. Innovation ambidexterity mediates the positive effect of knowledge management capability on firm performance

4. Connectedness strengthens the relationship between knowledge management capability and innovation ambidexterity

5. Centralization weakens the effect of knowledge management capability on innovation ambidexterity

6. Innovation can be developed in an ambidextrous way in organizations as long as organizations have knowledge-based competencies and proficient in creating suitable context

Knowledge management capability is crucial for simultaneous exploitation and exploration of innovation

Innovation ambidexterity (i.e. simultaneous exploitation and exploration of innovation) fosters firm performance

Innovation ambidexterity mediates the positive effect of knowledge management capability on firm performance

Connectedness strengthens the relationship between knowledge management capability and innovation ambidexterity

Centralization weakens the effect of knowledge management capability on innovation ambidexterity

Innovation can be developed in an ambidextrous way in organizations as long as organizations have knowledge-based competencies and proficient in creating suitable context

This paper aims to highlight how initial business models can be converted into a larger-scale solution for tapping into the emerging base-of-the-pyramid markets.

This study uses a qualitative, multi-case research design with 20 organizations tapping into the water market at the base-of-the-pyramid.

This paper explores three business models innovations: fostering value-in-context, allowing for modifiability and embracing organizational ambidexterity.

Due to our qualitative research approach, generalizability of our findings is limited.

The description of the three business model innovations offers guidance for executives to make their business models financially more sustainable in base-of-the-pyramid markets.

The water sector represents one especially interesting sector to examine business model innovations. For, among social goods, safe water remains a huge challenge to date where 700 million people remain without access to an improved water source.

Previous business model discussion in base-of-the-pyramid markets focuses on commercial goods. The authors focus on water as a social good. They demonstrate that the existing recommendations that business models in base-of-the-pyramid markets should be inclusive, complex, collaborative and scalable are mandatory, but not sufficient. In addition, business models should foster value-in-context, allow for modifiability and embrace organizational ambidexterity.

Given that the literature in terms of business ambidexterity is continually growing, the of this paper is to identify the future research suggestions made by several authors with regard to ambidexterity and to group them into meaningful themes.

A systematic literature review (SLR) of peer reviewed journal articles in the field of ambidexterity was conducted. A total of 128 relevant articles were selected, which were published in 58 journals over the past 2 decades (2000–2021).

The plethora of the future research suggestions made by several authors with regard to ambidexterity are analytically presented. Moreover, based on these suggestions, meaningful future research themes were revealed and these were further classified into three broad categories, namely “factors influencing the adoption of ambidexterity and its success”, “the types of ambidexterity” and “the effects of ambidexterity”.

The subjectivity of grouping the future research suggestions into themes as well as not examining the interrelationships among these themes, are limitations of the present study. Based on these limitations, future literature review studies can be conducted.

As this is a SLR focusing on developing future ambidexterity research themes, there are no direct practitioner implications. However, practitioners may benefit from future research prompted by this SLR.

This study contributes to management literature by suggesting future research not only on organizational ambidexterity like previous studies, but also on four different approaches to ambidexterity.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the individual effects of boundary-spanning search from suppliers (supplier-side search (SS)). It is proposed that SS contributes to innovation ambidexterity (IA) and then business performance (BP). Further, this paper includes buyer–supplier relationships (BSRs) and competitive intensity (CI) as moderators to clarify boundary conditions.

An ordinary least squares regression was employed to test hypotheses, based on 184 sets of data from Hong Kong manufacturing firms. The SPSS version of PROCESS was utilized.

The results show that IA partially mediates the relationship between SS and BP. Contingently, the direct effect is negatively moderated by BSRs and CI.

This paper confirms the partial mediating effect of IA on the relationship between SS and BP. Additional mediators, such as organizational innovation and marketing innovation, can be examined in the future.

This paper contributes to practice by suggesting that suppliers are a rewarding single source for firms to undertake boundary-spanning search. IA plays a significant role in reinforcing the effects of SS on BP and should be implemented with sustaining efforts. BSRs and CI can be detrimental and should be responded to cautiously.

This paper highlights the individual effects of SS on BP. Furthermore, the underlying process and boundary conditions are analyzed. The exploitation-exploration framework is applied throughout the entire study.