Research on dual business models has highlighted the challenge for firms when they compete with different business models in a market. Drawing from ambidexterity literature, we investigate the question of how firms integrate or separate business models at the level of value chain activities, which constitute the core operational activities within each business model. We employ a qualitative research approach based on 11 case studies of Western firms that implemented a low‐cost business model in parallel to their premium business model in emerging markets. We find that firms may become ambidextrous in their business models by means of domain separation. In doing so, firms may separate value chain activities to address different additional customer segments in emerging markets. This study contributes to the emerging topic of dual business models and provides the ground for future research on ambidexterity in a global context.

No abstract

As SMEs increasingly internationalize their innovation activities, our study strives to improve our understanding of the coordination mechanisms that SMEs can adopt to orchestrate these activities. Building on the evolutionary theory of organizations, we link three established coordination mechanisms (centralization, formalization, and socialization) to the time-to-market of SMEs' product innovations. We also argue that the complexity of the internationalized R&D tasks moderates the relationship between the three coordination mechanisms and time-to-market. Survey data from 103 SMEs with international innovation activities broadly support our theoretical account. With respect to the main effects, our findings suggest that a high degree of centralization tends to prolong the time-to-market, whereas formalization tends to shorten it. The moderation results further indicate that centralization can become more beneficial when a firm internationalizes highly complex R&D tasks, while formalization tends to become less beneficial with increasing task complexity. Main and moderation effects with respect to socialization are inconclusive. We discuss the implications of these findings for the academic literature and management practice.