The Effect of Empowering Leadership on Ambidextrous Innovation in the Telecom Sector of Afghanistan

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effect of empowering leadership (EL) ‎on ambidextrous (exploratory and exploitative) innovation and the mediating role of ‎creative self-efficacy (CSE) in the telecom sector of Afghanistan on the basis of social ‎exchange theory (SET). To achieve the goal a quantitative methodology was employed ‎and analyses were performed using Smart-PLS (version 3.2.8) software. The results ‎disclosed that Empowering leadership positively and significantly affects both ‎exploratory and exploitative innovations. Furthermore, mediation analysis revealed that ‎creative self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between empowering leadership and ‎exploratory and exploitative innovation. The findings on creative self-efficacy as a ‎mediator can be considered a valuable contribution to the literature yet the current study had ‎some limitations too, like using a convenience sampling method and collection of the data ‎at one single point of time only. ‎