Organisational ambidexterity and industrial clockspeed theories in understanding dynamic managerial capabilities: a multiple case study

Today, to have a competitive advantage, firms are in need of developing managerial capabilities to make sure strategic decisions taken at the corporate level are translated into actions that are properly implemented and managed in the field. While researchers acknowledge the importance of managerial capabilities for the competitiveness of firms, research commonly fails to address managerial capabilities with the proper empirical approaches. Therefore, in this study, an X-Y axis framework based on organisational ambidexterity and industrial clockspeed theories, was developed and is proposed here as a tool for analysing dynamic managerial capabilities. Using an explorative approach, case studies and observation were used to illustrate the issue regarding two tourism destinations. Results show that similar managerial capabilities have different intended uses and outputs that affect the competitiveness of the case destinations. For example, while governance is used to quickly exploit resources in Erciyes, it is just the reverse in Cappadocia. The proposed framework can be applied not only to tourism destinations but also to other areas of product or service management.