Succeeding in Emerging Market Environments: Towards Strategic Multidexterity

Abstract

Ambidexterity research has adopted a dichotomous view of paradoxical strategies. In this paper we expand the core idea of paradox to three business strategies of quality improvement, revenue growth, and cost reduction, and introduce the construct of Strategic Multidexterity for success in emerging markets. In emerging markets characterized by fast growing, resource constrained, and hyper competitive environments, ambidexterity may not be beneficial. On the contrary it may be harmful to firm performance. Strategic multidexterity however can enable firms to achieve enhanced performance in such environments. We use a unique primary dataset collected from manufacturing firms in India to empirically demonstrate support for our core assertion that to succeed in resource constrained, fast growth and hypercompetitive environments, firms must be good, fast and cheap, simultaneously.