The ambidextrous leadership‐innovative work behavior relationship in the public sector: The mediating role of psychological ownership

• Published date: 01 November 2023
• Author: Elisavet Kousina,Irini Voudouris
• Date: 01 November 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13650

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The ambidextrous leadership-innovative work behavior

relationship in the public sector: The mediating role

of psychological ownership

Elisavet Kousina | Irini Voudouris

Department of Management Science and

Technology, Athens University of Economics

and Business, Athens, Greece

Correspondence

Elisavet Kousina, Department of Management

Science and Technology, Athens University of

Economics and Business, 12, Kodrigtonos str.,

Postal Code 112 57Athens, Greece.

Email: elkousina@aueb.gr

Abstract

Ambidextrous leadership reflects a style that combines opening and closing behav-

iors, which can stimulate employees to engage in both exploration and exploitation.

Drawing from tenets of ambidextrous theorization of leadership for innovation, this

study examines whether the exhibition of ambidextrous leadership by public sector

managers fosters public servants’innovative behavior and whether psychological

ownership feelings with the unit mediates such effect. Utilizing multisource and

multilevel data from 317 public servants across 109 working units, we find that

ambidextrous leadership, —that is, the interaction of opening and closing

behaviors—affects employees’innovative performance such that innovative work

behavior is highest when both opening and closing behaviors are high. We also find

that promotive-oriented feelings of psychological ownership mediate such a rela-

tionship. In light of our findings, important implications for policy makers, public

managers, and public sector’s promotion procedures are discussed.

Evidence for practice

•Public managers can spark their subordinates’innovative work behavior by

exercising an ambidextrous leadership style.

•Ambidextrous leadership, that is, the combination of high opening and high

closing behaviors, triggers employees’feelings of promotion-oriented psycho-

logical ownership of the unit and leads to the highest level of employees’inno-

vative behavior.

•The demonstration of ambidexterity qualities by leaders and the ability to pro-

mote employees’innovative behavior could be viewed as prerequisites for pro-

motion processes in the administrative hierarchy, as one of their primary tasks in

a rapidly evolving world is to promote public sector innovation.

•Policy makers should formulate such policies that foster education, training, and

skills development with an emphasis on ambidexterity for the purpose of

strengthening those behaviors that support and promote innovation in all

aspects of administrative action.

INTRODUCTION

Innovation in public sector organizations is a critical issue

as they strive to cope with unprecedented challenges

due to fiscal, demographic, sanitary, and ecological

pressures along with rising citizen expectations for a

more responsive and accountable government (Clausen

et al., 2020; De Vries et al., 2016; Lewis et al., 2018;Neo

et al., 2022). In that respect, employees’innovative behav-

ior is important (Miao et al., 2018), given its potential to

contribute to addressing changes and producing public

value for citizens (Moore, 2014). Studies in the public

administration literature that attempt to understand

innovative work behavior in the public sector are therefore

rising in importance (Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2013;

Suseno et al., 2020).

Received: 14 April 2022 Revised: 20 March 2023 Accepted: 6 April 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13650

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium,

provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

1478 Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1478–1495.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar

Within this body of research, some studies have recently

suggested leadership as a major driver of innovative behav-

ior in public organizations and examined the role of mainly

change-oriented leadership behaviors (Yukl, 2012)forindi-

vidual innovation (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017;Hansen&

Pihl-Thingvad, 2019; Miao et al., 2018). Although valuable

these studies have adopted a unidimensional, ‘either/or’

approach (Backhaus et al., 2022) failing to account for the

dynamic new terrain of leadership for innovation (Rosing

et al., 2011), within which public sector leaders may find

themselves (Miao et al., 2018;TrongTuan,2017). To effec-

tively lead for innovation public managers may be required

to display complex and often contradictory behaviors

to help their employees accept and cope with various

conflicting demands (Backhaus et al., 2022;Backhaus&

Vogel, 2022).

Against this backdrop, this study adopts the lens of

the ambidextrous theorization of leadership (Rosing

et al., 2011) and examines the effect of ambidextrous

leadership on the innovative work behavior of public ser-

vants. Ambidextrous leadership reflects a style that

describes the flexible switching between opening and

closing behaviors depending on tasks and situational

requirements. Combining such behaviors with leaders’

ambidexterity (i.e., the interaction of opening and closing

behaviors) can foster both explorative and exploitative

behaviors in their employees (Backhaus et al., 2022;

Rosing et al., 2011) enabling them to generate and imple-

ment new ideas (Klonek et al., 2020; Oluwafemi

et al., 2020). Applying a ‘both/and’approach ambidex-

trous leaders can support employees to deal with the

complex and ambiguous situations towards innovation

encountered in times of public administration transforma-

tion (Backhaus et al., 2022; Trong Tuan, 2017).

In addition to the direct effect of ambidextrous leader-

ship on innovative behavior, we pose that there are under-

lying mechanisms, rooted in individuals’psychological

state, that can effectively explain this relationship. This view

is in line with prior theoretical allegations pointing to the

necessity of understanding intermediary psychological

mechanisms through which leadership yields its effects

and influences innovative behavior (Aryee et al., 2012;

Backhaus & Vogel, 2022; Yuan & Woodman, 2010). In this

vein, we argue that ambidextrous leadership affects also

public servants’innovative behavior by enhancing their

psychological ownership. Psychological ownership is “the

state in which individuals feel as though the target of

ownership or a piece of that target is theirs”(Pierce

et al., 2003, p. 86) and can be exhibited in both promotive

and preventive-oriented feelings (Avey et al., 2009). It is

likely to evolve through employees’involvement and the

establishment of feelings of control over their work

(Fernandez & Rainey, 2006), which can successfully drive

employees’engagement in a range of proactive conducts,

such as innovative behavior (Parker et al., 2006).

Our theoretical propositions are tested on a sample of

317 public servants and their immediate department

heads, across 109 municipal authorities of the two

biggest cities in Greece. Our findings reveal that ambidex-

trous leadership exerts both a direct and indirect effect

on employees’innovative behavior, with the latter being

enacted through the enhancement of their promotive

psychological ownership feelings. More precisely, we

show that the innovative behavior of public servants is

highest when both opening and closing behaviors

are high, with all other combinations providing inferior

outcomes. The combination of high opening and high

closing behaviors results also in higher levels of pro-

motive ownership, which in turn positively relates to

innovative work behavior.

Our study makes several important contributions. First,

by theorizing and empirically validating the role of leaders’

ambidexterity in public servants’innovative behavior we

add to prior studies in the public management literature

that investigate the leadership–innovation relationship

(Bos-Nehles et al., 201 7; Günzel-Jensen et al., 2017;

Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019;Miaoetal.,2018). An

emerging research stream in the public leadership litera-

ture has emphasized the necessity to comprehend conflict-

ing yet complementary leadership behaviors to account

for the complex and controversial situations that public

organizations often confront (Backhaus et al., 2022;

Crosby & Bryson, 2018; Trong Tuan, 2017). Following this

line of reasoning, our study is, to the best of our knowl-

edge, the first to bring ambidextrous leadership into the

debate on public servants’innovative behavior. Second,

we show the mediating role of promotive psychological

ownership on the ambidextrous leadership–innovative

behavior relationship. Thus, our findings shed light on the

psychological outcomes that ambidextrous leadership can

contribute to, broadening the scope of the ambidextrous

leadership theory through the incorporation of psychologi-

cal aspects. Moreover, they add to prior literature concern-

ing the role of psychological ownership in the public

sector (Hassan, 2015; Mahsud & Hao, 2017) revealing that

the promotional rather than the preventive aspects are the

ones that provide value to public organizations. Taken

together our findings bring new insights into employees’

innovative behavior in public sector organizations

highlighting the role of leaders’ambidexterity for better

outcomes and expanding our understanding of how such

ambidexterity may further enhance public servants’inno-

vative actions via psychological ownership. At a practical

level, they provide managers and practitioners with a more

realistic picture of how the innovation imperative can be

actualized and how public sector leadership could be

shaped to effectuate it.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows.

Section two presents the theoretical background, fol-

lowed by hypotheses development in section three. Sec-

tions four and five present the data, their analysis, and

the results. Section six discusses the findings and presents

conclusions, implications, and suggestions for future

research.

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 1479