Linking organizational trust and performance through ambidexterity

Purpose The literature provides mixed empirical evidence on the trust-performance relationship. The purpose of this paper is to shed additional light on this relationship, using organizational ambidexterity as an explanatory variable. Design/methodology/approach A structural equation technique was used to examine survey data obtained from 377 Spanish organic agro-food industries. Findings The results obtained provide support to show that organizational ambidexterity has a mediating role in the relationship between organizational trust and firm performance, in the organic agro-food industry. Originality/value This research paper offers a new insight into how ambidexterity affects the organizational trust-firm performance relationship. Even though there is growing theoretical importance given to the concepts of trust and ambidexterity, the empirical evidence that demonstrates how both variables are related to firm performance, especially in emerging sectors, is scarce.