Strategic Ambidexterity and Performance in International New Ventures

We drew on the literature on ambidextrous organizations to propose that international new ventures (INVs) that concurrently pursue paradoxical pairs of strategies-known as the capability of strategic ambidexterity-can achieve superior performance. These paradoxical strategies are: (a) few investments and many countries, and (b) standardization and innovation. Our hypotheses were tested using data from 70 Canadian INVs. This is the first study that attempts to theoretically and empirically link ambidexterity and INV performance. Our findings suggest that INVs that are capable of pursuing and implementing paradoxical strategies achieve superior performance over those lacking such capability Copyright (C) 2008 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.