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

In addressing the notion of team ambidexterity, we propose that socio-psychological 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.