This paper examines the conceptual development of RBV-KBV within an organizational ambidexterity framework and highlights how regional context, RBV-KBV, and firm dynamics inter-operate and co-create. Rather than viewing regional contexts as taken-as-given entities, it is important to see them as culturally, socially, and historically constructed and rooted phenomena. Drawing empirically on elite semi-structured interviews, our study provides novel insights into how SMEs manage resources and regional social capital in order to expand judiciously into international markets. It presents a novel conceptual ambidextrous organizational framework showing how companies move from a traditional exploitative and conservative form of regional cultural RBV-KBV to a more explorative and innovative internationalising one. Further, our study also contributes fresh insights into the explorative ‘hidden champions’ phenomenon by showing how the latent conservative RBV-KBV and its regional social capital-informed exploitative postures act as persistent moderating drivers of explorative internationalisation
