Competitiveness in the hotel sector and its effect on the environment involves integrating environmental issues in hotel management. Current environmental challenges often require firms to cope with contradictory processes. Ambidexterity is a firm’s capability to deal with conflicting demands and could be helpful in increasing a firm’s environmental management system (EMS) adoption. Furthermore, given the complexity of technological advances, environmental requirements demand inter-firm collaboration. The aim of this study is to further an understanding of how hotels can increase EMS adoption by providing a framework of the contributing effect of alliances and ambidexterity. Results from tests using logistic regression and bootstrapping techniques on a sample of 306 Spanish hotels confirm the importance of ambidexterity because of its positive and direct effect on EMS adoption, and because of the mediating effect, which helps transform the benefits of firms’ participation in strategic alliances into their adoption of EMS. This study contributes to the literature on ambidexterity by highlighting the importance for firms to develop this capability. It also contributes to a better understanding of the drivers of EMS adoption, introducing the integrated effect of hotel participation in alliances and ambidexterity. Hotel managers should endeavor to develop ambidexterity capability to facilitate EMS adoption.

The ability of companies to develop simultaneously innovations that exploit their   current knowledge, while exploring new opportunities that go beyond their present knowledge is recognized as organizational ambidexterity and essential in the achievement of sustained performance above the average of the industry. The concept of ambidexterity, includes exploration and exploitation. Exploration requires search, discovery, experimentation, risk-taking and innovation, while exploitation consists of behavioral patterns characterized by refinement, implementation, efficiency, production and selection. Top managers are crucial to balance trade-offs among these competing objectives regarding exploration and exploitation and to reduce the organization’s tendency to focus only in one of them. Top managers act as a leaders in the process of exploiting existing competencies while also exploring new opportunities. In this study we are going to review the literature to extract the characteristics of ambidextrous leaders capable to cope with these tensions, in order to achieve organizational innovations.

Long-term survival is one of the main goals of family business. Nevertheless, very few firms survive to the third generation. The concept of organizational ambidexterity could add insights into the explanation of family firm (FF) survival. In the literature, organizational ambidexterity is defined as the capability to explore new knowledge, processes, and opportunities while exploiting current ones to achieve a greater competitive advantage and ensure the survival of the firm. The aim of this chapter is to review the literature that analyzes relationships between FF specificities and organizational ambidexterity to propose a framework of the antecedents of ambidexterity in this context. This could be a useful tool to better identify FF specificities that will support long-term survival through their influence on organizational ambidexterity.

Long-term survival is one of the main goals of family business. Nevertheless, very few firms survive to the third generation. The concept of organizational ambidexterity could add insights into the explanation of family firm (FF) survival. In the literature, organizational ambidexterity is defined as the capability to explore new knowledge, processes, and opportunities while exploiting current ones to achieve a greater competitive advantage and ensure the survival of the firm. The aim of this chapter is to review the literature that analyzes relationships between FF specificities and organizational ambidexterity to propose a framework of the antecedents of ambidexterity in this context. This could be a useful tool to better identify FF specificities that will support long-term survival through their influence on organizational ambidexterity.