Agglomeration, social capital and interorganizational ambidexterity in tourist districts

Knowledge is a basic factor of competitiveness with a firm’s exploration and exploitation capabilities acting as the main antecedents of innovation. However, a firm has two main options to obtain new knowledge: internal generation and external acquisition. This paper analyzes how tourism firms located in tourist districts develop ambidexterity through the combination of co-exploration and co-exploitation. Specifically, we study how the features that characterize a tourist district, such as the level of firm and institutional agglomeration, affect the development of co-exploration and co-exploitation capabilities, taking into account the mediation effect of social capital. The population under study includes all the Spanish hotels located in Spanish coastal towns, making a total sample of 210 establishments. The results confirm that agglomeration has a positive impact on the ambidexterity of Spanish hotels. Moreover, the results show that agglomeration causes an increase of social capital in hotels, and that social capital has a positive impact on ambidexterity. We find that social capital partially mediates the effect of agglomeration on ambidexterity. Some implications for managers and policymakers are presented.