Designing an Ambicultural Business Model for Cause-based Partnerships: A Feasibility-study on the First Underwater Museum in Taiwan

Abstract

How to design the ambicultural business-model for cause-based partnerships (Parker & Selsky, 2004)? We attempt to apply the theoretical perspectives of ambiculture (Chen, 2014) and ambidexterity (Luo & Rui, 2009), in the empirical context of the first underwater-museum in Taiwan. Owing to the richness of underwater-cultural-assets located in the Penghu-islands, about 260-kilometers of land-and-marine distance from Taipei, we conducted this feasibility-study for evaluating the potential museum-sites and designing its business-model. The survey-results of logistic regressions on a sample of 331 respondents indicated that the identity of “marine-nation” was the most significant factor to welcome this proposed underwater-museum, and the tourist experiences and enthusiasm about “marine-culture” to influence their willingness to visit this museum in Penghu, among 9 independent variables. Such preliminary results imply that the ambicultural business model for ambidextrous innovation is important to cope with the challenges of cause-based partnerships, particularly when facing the resource constraints for sustainability. Following Chen’s definition of “ambicultural organizations” as a combination of the best of two or more entities—cultures, ideas, practices—while avoiding the shortcomings of each, we propose to change the museum business-model from a public agency to a public-and-private joint-venture, particularly focusing on fundraising activity through virtual-reality events approaching to global villagers. Following Luo and Rui’s specification of ambidexterity as comprising co-evolution, co-competence, co-opetition, and co-orientation, we propose underwater museums to form a global alliance to preserve-and-exploit as well as promote-and-explore marine-culture beyond national and organizational boundaries.



Author Information
Sonya H. Wen, Tamkang University, Taiwan

Paper Information
Conference: ACSS2019
Stream: Economics and Management

This paper is part of the ACSS2019 Conference Proceedings (View)
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Posted by James Alexander Gordon