Empowering leadership and organizational ambidexterity: a moderated mediation model

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of empowering leadership on contextual ambidexterity. To this end, the authors underscore the underlying mechanism of perceived organizational support (POS). Furthermore, to provide more robust insights into this indirect effect, role ambiguity was examined as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a questionnaire survey. Data collected from 219 employees working in three IT small-and-medium enterprises located in Greece. Findings The findings indicated that empowering leadership is positively related to contextual ambidexterity through POS and, further, this indirect association is contingent on role ambiguity. Originality/value The study provides more insights into the important role of leadership in generating contextual ambidexterity. Thus, moderated mediation framework that has empirically tested considers both how and when empowering leadership affects contextual ambidexterity and provides important implications for both theory and practice.