Export Ambidexterity in Small- and Medium-sized Family Firms: A Case of New Zealand Clustered Wineries

<p>Ambidexterity, defined as the ability to simultaneously explore new knowledge and exploit existing knowledge, allows firms to adapt over time, build a sustainable competitive advantage and achieve growth in the long run. However, due to the tensions and trade-offs between exploration and exploitation, pursuing ambidexterity or developing a more balanced strategy can be challenging. Previous research on ambidexterity has focused primarily on large and well-established organizations and the outcomes of ambidexterity such as performance, whereas little is known about how ambidexterity of small- and medium-sized family businesses in an international business context is managed, especially with regard to exporting, which is the most common form of internationalisation for those firms. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand how small- and medium-sized family firms manage ambidexterity in exporting. Specifically, I shed light on both market and product domains in exporting and further the impact of industrial cluster on firms’ approach to becoming ambidextrous. Using data from semi-structured interviews with six family-owned wineries located in the Marlborough wine region, New Zealand, the research provides evidence that family firms’ unique characteristics, that is, the socioemotional wealth, guide them to particular types of export exploration and exploitation activities in both market and product domains. These are not only aligned with their non-economic goals but also create synergies among seemingly contradictory ambidextrous activities. These findings suggest a behaviour logic and path to explain how ambidexterity in exporting is achieved, through combining and integrating exploration and exploitation in a balanced way. The findings also show that cluster membership improves family firms’ ability to achieve export ambidexterity by providing access to critical resources. Overall, the study adds to the growing body of literature on family business internationalisation and organizational ambidexterity by focusing on the export context. It further links ambidexterity research to industrial cluster literature.</p>

Export Ambidexterity in Small- and Medium-sized Family Firms: A Case of New Zealand Clustered Wineries

<p>Ambidexterity, defined as the ability to simultaneously explore new knowledge and exploit existing knowledge, allows firms to adapt over time, build a sustainable competitive advantage and achieve growth in the long run. However, due to the tensions and trade-offs between exploration and exploitation, pursuing ambidexterity or developing a more balanced strategy can be challenging. Previous research on ambidexterity has focused primarily on large and well-established organizations and the outcomes of ambidexterity such as performance, whereas little is known about how ambidexterity of small- and medium-sized family businesses in an international business context is managed, especially with regard to exporting, which is the most common form of internationalisation for those firms. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative case study is to understand how small- and medium-sized family firms manage ambidexterity in exporting. Specifically, I shed light on both market and product domains in exporting and further the impact of industrial cluster on firms’ approach to becoming ambidextrous. Using data from semi-structured interviews with six family-owned wineries located in the Marlborough wine region, New Zealand, the research provides evidence that family firms’ unique characteristics, that is, the socioemotional wealth, guide them to particular types of export exploration and exploitation activities in both market and product domains. These are not only aligned with their non-economic goals but also create synergies among seemingly contradictory ambidextrous activities. These findings suggest a behaviour logic and path to explain how ambidexterity in exporting is achieved, through combining and integrating exploration and exploitation in a balanced way. The findings also show that cluster membership improves family firms’ ability to achieve export ambidexterity by providing access to critical resources. Overall, the study adds to the growing body of literature on family business internationalisation and organizational ambidexterity by focusing on the export context. It further links ambidexterity research to industrial cluster literature.</p>

Systematic Design Approach for Functional Integration of Vehicular Wireless Power Transfers Modules

This paper presents a systematic design approach to the development of functionally integrated mechanical-electrical lightweight systems. The development of these systems requires the end-to-end consideration of all product domains involved, aspects of lightweight design and their mutual interdependencies. To manage this complexity, a specialized approach is developed, which extends the V-model of VDI 2206 problem-specific and purpose-oriented. In line with the proposed approach, this work presents the conception and evaluation of three functionally integrated on-board receiver units of automotive wireless power transfer systems for electric vehicles. These concepts provide a significant reduction of the vertical dimensions, which significantly increases the applicability and transferability of wireless power transfer systems.

Architecture for Big Data Storage in Different Cloud Deployment Models

Cloud Computing is a new computing model that distributes the computation on a resource pool. The need for a scalable database capable of expanding to accommodate growth has increased with the growing data in web world. More familiar Cloud Computing vendors such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, IBM and Rackspace offer cloud based Hadoop and NoSQL database platforms to process Big Data applications. Variety of services are available that run on top of cloud platforms freeing users from the need to deploy their own systems. Nowadays, integrating Big Data and various cloud deployment models is major concern for Internet companies especially software and data services vendors that are just getting started themselves. This chapter proposes an efficient architecture for integration with comprehensive capabilities including real time and bulk data movement, bi-directional replication, metadata management, high performance transformation, data services and data quality for customer and product domains.