Empowering leadership and contextual ambidexterity – The mediating role of committed leadership for continuous improvement

• Published in: European management journal 2020-06, Vol.38 (3), p.435-449
• Main Author: van Assen, Marcel F.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Commitment; Committed leadership; Contextual ambidexterity; Continuous improvement; Empowering leadership; Empowerment; Exploitation; Handedness; Innovations; Leadership; Management styles; Organizational behavior; Time use; Total quality
• ISSN: 0263-2373; 1873-5681
• DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2019.12.002

Organisations nowadays try to be ambidextrous, that is, to balance exploitation and exploration, at the level of the organisational unit, or even at the individual level. Recent studies found that important drivers for contextual ambidexterity are a high level of empowerment and an orientation towards continuous improvement (CI) and innovation. It is, therefore, to be expected that empowering leadership and leader commitment to CI are associated with contextual ambidexterity. However, literature about the relationships between empowering leadership, committed leadership for CI and contextual ambidexterity is scant. Based on two separate survey studies, we validated both the relationship between empowering leadership and contextual ambidexterity, and the mediating effect of committed leadership for CI in the organisational unit level and the individual level. The managerial implications of this research is that organisations that want to facilitate contextual ambidexterity should not only empower employees so that they can decide more independently on how to organise their time and make choices when they conduct exploratory activities and when they perform exploitative activities. Management must also act as committed ambassadors for CI, as CI functions as an integration mechanism to create both alignment and adaptability, and hence contextual ambidexterity.