This study advances prior theoretical research by examining the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and new venture performance with the introduction of exploratory and exploitative innovations as mediating variables. To fully understand the influence process of entrepreneurial leadership, we argue that environmental dynamism should be considered. Data on 168 new ventures in China indicate that entrepreneurial leadership is positively related to both exploratory and exploitative innovations, which in turn are both positively related to new venture performance. Our results also confirm that environmental dynamism moderates the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and both types of innovation (i.e., exploratory and exploitative). Thus, we contribute to the debate on the influence of entrepreneurial leadership on the pursuit of excellent new venture performance, not only by examining how entrepreneurial leadership affects new venture performance by pursuing two types of innovative activities (i.e., exploratory and exploitative innovations), but also by revealing how these relationships are contingent upon environmental dynamism.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effects of task and relationship conflicts on team creativity, and the moderating role of shared leadership in inter-organizational teams. An inter-organizational team normally comprises employees from collaborated organizations brought together to conduct an initiative, such as product development. Practitioners and researchers have witnessed the prevalence of conflict in inter-organizational teams. Despite significant scholarly investigation into the importance of conflict in creativity, a deep theoretical understanding of conflict framework remains elusive. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey was conducted in China to collect data. Consequently, 54 teams, which comprised 54 team managers and 276 team members, were deemed useful for the study. Findings By testing our hypotheses on 54 inter-organizational teams, we found that relationship conflict has a negative relationship with team creativity, whereas task conflict has an inverted U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with team creativity. Furthermore, when shared leadership is stronger, the negative relationship with team creativity is weaker for relationship conflict, whereas the inverted U-shaped relationship with team creativity is stronger for task conflict. Research limitations/implications The main limitation is cross-sectional, which cannot establish causality in relationships. Despite this potential weakness, the present research provides insights into conflict, leadership and inter-organizational collaboration literature. Practical implications The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams. Social implications Managers are struggling to identify ways to effectively manage team conflict when a team of diverse individuals across organizational boundaries are brought together to solve a problem. The findings of this study offer some guidance on how managers can intervene in the conflict situations of inter-organizational teams. Originality/value This paper provides understandings about how relationship and task conflicts affect team creativity in inter-organizational teams.

An inter‐organizational team, which consists of diverse members from different organizations to conduct an initiative, has been widely treated as a critical method to improve organizational innovation. This study proposes a multilevel model to test the relationship between shared leadership and creativity at both team‐ and individual level in the context of inter‐organizational teams. Multisource data were collected from 53 inter‐organizational teams. We obtain the following findings: first, shared leadership is positively related to both team creativity and individual creativity via knowledge sharing. Second, task interdependence positively moderates the relationship between shared leadership and knowledge sharing. Third, task interdependence positively moderates the relationship between knowledge sharing and team creativity, but does not moderate the relationship between knowledge sharing and individual creativity. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the findings.

Although prior studies have indicated the interrelationships between specific types of innovation strategy and specific elements of organizational culture, few studies simultaneously evaluate the relationship between the two multi-dimensional constructs in holistic perspective. Based on configuration theory, we conceptualize fit as 'profile deviation', and investigate the fit between an organization's culture and its innovation strategy. Data were collected from 183 Chinese organizations. We examine the hypothesis that greater fit between organizational culture and innovation strategy encourages superior innovation speed and innovation quality. Our results provide evidence that in the group of organizations exhibiting either exploratory or exploitative innovation strategy, the more similar the organizational culture configurations are to those of the top performers, the higher their innovation speed and innovation quality are. In the group of organizations exhibiting ambidextrous innovation strategy, the fit between organizational culture and innovation strategy is insignificantly associated with innovation speed and innovation quality. Implications for applying the culture-strategy fit in innovation management are discussed.

While there is a burgeoning trend to recognize leadership as an important enabler of new venture development and growth, scant research has explored the performance mechanisms of shared leadership in the entrepreneurial context. Based on the information processing perspective, we propose a moderated mediation model to examine how shared leadership in entrepreneurial teams advance new venture performance by identifying team reflexivity as a pivotal mediator and team boundary spanning as a crucial contingency. The data set from a cross-industry sample of 94 entrepreneurial teams indicated that shared leadership exerts a positive indirect influence on new venture performance via team reflexivity; and team boundary spanning moderates such indirect influence. Finally, how our findings contribute to the entrepreneurship, leadership, team research, and managerial practice are discussed.