Ambidextrous leadership and radical innovative capability: The moderating role of leader support

Radical innovation is a fundamental approach to achieving sustainable and competitive advantage. However, existing studies have not adequately explored the antecedents of radical innovation; in particular, consideration of leadership factors in a Chinese context is lacking. Ambidextrous leadership provides a new perspective for explaining radical innovation. In this study, we developed a moderation model and tested it with three-wave data of 511 employees from the Chinese mainland, linking ambidextrous leadership with radical innovative capability. The results support our hypotheses that high-empowering-low-directive leadership (punctuated ambidextrous leadership) is more beneficial for radical innovation, and strong leader support can strengthen this effect. However, our hypothesis that simultaneous ambidextrous leadership influences positively radical innovation capability was not supported. These findings indicate that leaders should change their original conservative and directive strategies to enhance radical innovative capability.