Organisational ambidexteritythe ability of a company to successfully link exploitation and explorationis a fruitful approach for cross-border management. It is a crucial concept for media companies that, because of the dual (cultural and economic) character of their products, need to reconcile strategies of mere expansion with local customisation when engaging across borders. Drawing on semistructured interviews with international media managers, this article captures patterns of ambidextrous strategising and organising in cross-border media activities. The article focuses on digitisation, which has altered the opportunities for balancing exploration and exploitation in internationalisation. The analysis reveals how, in this context, exploitation takes centre stage and how patterns of ambidexterity differ significantly depending on the media type and the background of the company.

This article contributes to theoretical discussions in the field of transnational media management research. We argue that investigating media companies’ activities abroad from a strategy-as-practice perspective can overcome shortcomings implied in research predominantly focusing on strategies applied by entire companies. This is especially valid in times of digitization where changing technological frameworks force media companies to internationalize and restructure their business models. Based on a comparative qualitative analysis of interviews with 34 international senior media managers, this article provides a typology of cross-border activities related to three types of motivations: economic, organizational and socio-political. Relating activities and motivations provides a useful heuristic to systematically compare activities of most diverse media companies beyond objectives such as profit and growth. This sheds light on processes of digitization as related to numerous emerging organizational activities abroad with yet unclear economic trade-offs.

The media economy and production literature offers insights into the international activities of media companies that provide products in ‘world languages’. Researchers point out that English-language content and, thus, English-language companies have a linguistic advantage and dominate the global media market. In comparison, there is limited knowledge of how companies that originate from non-dominant-language territories expand their activities abroad. This is all the more relevant as digitisation and fragmentation transform markets and new business opportunities arise. Against this background, we ask whether media companies from non-dominant-language markets can benefit from new constellations and business models to overcome linguistic and strategic disadvantages. We use the example of German-language media companies to explore whether and how digitisation and, to some extent, fragmentation mediate the cross-border activities of non-dominant-language media companies. Using qualitative interviews with top media managers, we address their market perceptions and strategies regarding cross-border activities. In sum, market hierarchies remain persistent, as new challenges, such as portfolio redefinition and rising competition, emerge. However, companies focusing on generic products or niche markets can benefit from digitisation, as can companies that have already grew large and overcome their linguistic constraints.

Between all these challenges, questions on what a media company is today, how it might be defined and the kinds of features characterizing it often remain unanswered. These questions are rarely addressed by authors and scholars working in both business economics, journalism, media, and communication science, maybe because there is the existing assumption of a self-evident and generally accepted definition of the term "media company" (as argued by Sjurts, 2004, p. 390) which actually does not exist. The aim of this paper is therefore to offer an overview of the existing theoretical approaches used to define "media companies," to identify possible shortcomings of each definitional approach and, deduced from there, to suggest a theoretically sound and empirically applicable approach, which takes into account the challenges and needs of the actual media landscape.

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