The role of Ambidextrous Leadership in developing Team-Level Ambidexterity: Exploring the supporting roles of Reflective Conversations and Ambidextrous HRM

Abstract

Version Accepted author manuscript Abstract This study highlights how constructs of importance to management in Africa – ambidextrous leadership and team learning – can extend or modify our existing management theories. Adopting an exploratory design with an interpretive philosophy, this study explores how supermarket store managers engage their subordinates in team learning sessions to enable their collective ambidexterity, facilitated by the presence of reflective conversations (RC) and ambidextrous human resource management (HRM) policies and practices. Based on our raw data, we develop a process-based model that shows how ambidextrous leadership behaviours can help develop team-level ambidexterity, including the supporting roles of RC and ambidextrous HRM practices in the process. This model thus seeks to motivate theoretically the future ambidexterity research in Africa, as the theoretical ideas and themes in this study can be replicated and be broadly applied to future ambidexterity research in the continent. This model will, therefore, contribute to the theoretical development of the African management literature and, accordingly, adds a significant value to the mainstream ambidexterity literature. </p