Enabling social media as a strategic capability for SMEs through organizational ambidexterity

Abstract

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have widely implemented social media as part of their communicative strategies. However, there are few studies on the development of social media for SMEs. This study draws from the literature regarding dynamic capability to argue that organizational ambidexterity, —both exploitation and exploration—may influence the social media strategic capability of SMEs. Based on data collected from 221 SMEs, structural equation modeling was applied in investigating the effects of ambidexterity on social media strategic capability, as well as to examine the moderating role of environmental dynamism. The results confirm that, in the SME context, organizational ambidexterity of both exploitation and exploration have significant and positive effects on social media strategic capability where exploration was found to be more effective than exploitation. Also, environmental dynamism was found to moderate the effect of exploitation, shedding light on the influence of uncertainty on strategic social media decisions. Overall, this study contributes to the limited knowledge of social media as a strategic capability and enriches the literature on organizational ambidexterity and social media for entrepreneurship. Drawing on these results, we suggest that SMEs should consider applying organizational ambidexterity when implementing social media as one of their crucial strategies.