Ambidexterity in Indonesian SMEs: A systematic review and synthesis for future research

Abstract

The Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic has caused problems for Indonesian SMEs, in terms of supply chain and changes in their markets’ demand. SMEs cannot survive only by exploiting their existing businesses, but also by trying to explore new opportunities and ways of doing business. SMEs will have better performance if they can balance exploration and exploitation, hereinafter referred to as ambidexterity. Demand for ambidexterity is difficult because SMEs usually have limited resources and capabilities. Based on the literature review, the resource-based view (RBV) is the most frequently used perspective to discuss ambidexterity. This shows that the SMEs only focus on their internal resources so they experience a lack of resources. Based on this gap, the resource dependence theory (RDT) and social network theory are integrated with the RBV to broaden the discussion of ambidexterity in SMEs, to solve their resource-related problems.