A Socio‐Psychological Perspective on Team Ambidexterity: The Contingency Role of Supportive Leadership Behaviours

Abstract

In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that sociopsychological factors (i.e., team cohesion and team efficacy) may help team members to resolve paradoxical challenges and to combine exploratory and exploitative learning efforts. In addition, we theorize that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels. In doing so, we develop a multilevel contingency framework and propose that the effectiveness of teams to achieve ambidexterity is contingent upon supportive leadership behaviours at the organizational-level. Using multilevel, multisource, and temporally separated data on 87 teams within 37 high-tech and pharmaceutical firms, we not only reveal how team cohesion and efficacy may matter for the emergence of team ambidexterity but also show that the effectiveness of supportive leadership behaviours from senior executives varies across cohesive and efficacious teams.

Ambidexterity as Practice: Individual Ambidexterity Through Paradoxical Practices

“…A related stream of research focuses on the role of senior management in promoting ambidexterity within the whole organization rather than simply managing tensions arising between explorative and exploitative subunits. Nemanich et al (2007) explored the role of transformational leadership in promoting ambidexterity while Jansen et al (2016) argued that senior executives may play an important role in facilitating the emergence of ambidexterity at lower hierarchical levels through "the encouragement, of initiatives, the clarification of individual responsibilities, the provision of clear and complete performance evaluation feedback and the emphasis on a strong task orientation" (2016:948). Similarly, Kauppila and Tempelaar (2016) showed that employees exhibit higher ambidexterity when their group managers demonstrate a leadership style that couples strong managerial support with high performance expectations.…”

Team collaboration capabilities as drivers for innovation performance: The case of Spanish technology-based startups

“…On the other hand, Lechler 2001 The collective efficacy refers to the team members believing that they have the abilities and group capacity to overcome obstacles and achieve their goal(s) (Cohen and Bailey 1997). Team efficacy in the context of entrepreneurial efforts refers to how the group executes and coordinates their collective efforts to address challenges (Edmondson 1999;Arnold et al 2001;Jansen et al 2015) On the one hand, self-efficacy has been conceived as a predictor condition of entrepreneurial intentions. Drnovšek et al (2010) focus their analysis on "entrepreneurial self-efficacy", which is rooted in the individual's beliefs and motivations that support the initiative to found a business or start a business expansion processes (Krueger 1993;Drnovšek et al 2010;Tyszka et al 2011;Hattab 2014).…”

“…When the team holds enough cohesion and motivation both facilitate the knowledge exchange through communication and solve difficulties. Therefore, both are essential team factors where the team can deal together with unexpected problems and increase their commitment (Hoegl and Gemuenden 2001;Jansen et al 2015;Bjornali et al 2016).…”

“…The TCCs model construction, as we previously mentioned, was supported by empiric data from the survey respondents. For this purpose, we follow conceptually essential factors that facilitate collaboration capabilities in a TBS team such as relationships regarding collaboration at intra-organizational or intra-team level, according to Blomqvist and Levy (2006) and Ulbrich et al (2009) where trust (Fawcett et al 2011;Blomqvist and Levy 2006), communication and solving-problem aspects (Pinto and Pinto 1990) and team efficacy as goal-oriented crew's efforts (Jansen et al 2015), all represent essential factors that facilitate collaboration capabilities in a TBS team. These factors which also interacts with other conceptual dimensions of the organization, such as operational capabilities, in order to pursue increased the innovation performance of the company, which also in concepts that have to be introduced and assessed.…”

“…For instance, if a team member has obtained experience from previous affiliations, he/she can share that knowledge and business know-how with the others (Beckman 2006). Therefore, when a firm's founding members have both similar and diverse prior company affiliations, there is greater dynamism and team formation occurs more quickly, thus contributing to an increase in competitive advantage and ambidexterity, exploitative and explorative, in their organization (Colombo et al 2006;Beckman 2006;Kauppila 2010;Jansen et al 2015).…”