The relationship of strategic management, ambidexterity and internationalizm: A research on SMEs

SMEs have many advantages in understanding the changes in the market and customer expectations. Thanks to their flexibility in production and decision making, their potential to gain competitive advantage in domestic and international markets is high. However, in order to realize this potential, SMEs need to balance their ability to develop the existing and innovate the new. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between organizational ambidexterity (exploration and exploitation) and internationalization level in SMEs in the context of dynamic capabilities theory and the regulatory role of strategic management in this relationship. For this purpose, data gathered from 456 SMEs in a field study. The hypotheses were tested through structural equation model. Results show that the exploitation dimension of organizational ambidexterity positively affects the internationalization level of the firm, however the exploration has no effect on internationalization. Moreover, the implementation of strategic management has a regulatory role between exploration and internationalization level. On the other hand, strategic management does not have such regulatory effect between the exploitation dimension and internationalization. According to the results of the research, the SMEs that already implement exploitation activities would become ambidextrous and launch the exploratory activities only if they actively implement strategic management