Discussion and conclusion
Theoretical implications This study has investigated the effects of particular organizational cultures on employee ambidexterity. Specifically, it investigated the role of a perceived culture of empowerment and a knowledge sharing culture. The study addressed the extent and mechanisms through which these supportive organizational cultures work to enable employees to engage in ambidextrous behaviour. In doing so, it has contributed to research that advocates the importance of individual level of analysis as compared to the organizational level (Prieto and Santana, 2012; Junni et al., 2013). Furthermore, the study extended the ambidexterity literature by linking supportive organizational cultures to the contemporary debate on employee explorative and exploitative activities that make up ambidexterity, and delving into the relationship with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In our study we started out with the idea that the organizational context should allow individuals to conduct explorative as well as exploitative activities simultaneously (e.g. Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004). This conceptualisation of ambidexterity, which is closely connected to contextual ambidexterity, implies that high levels of both explorative and exploitative activities are needed for being highly ambidextrous. Our operationalisation of ambidexterity captures the degree in which employees pursue high levels of exploration and exploitation simultaneously (in an additive fashion, conform Lubatkin et al., 2006). Findings indicate that a supportive organizational culture may influence ambidexterity. In particular, it was found that a culture of empowerment is positively related to ambidexterity (H1). These results offer support for conceptual studies such as Vera and Crossan (2004) by suggesting that an open attitude of senior management, which encourages employee contributions to decision making, is likely to help employees to overcome their innate hesitation to express radically new ideas. Furthermore, it stimulates employees to bring forward incremental improvements of products, services and production processes. In other words, in such a supportive organizational climate employees are empowered to experiment, improve work methods, and undertake ambidextrous activities. The additional analysis showed that particularly explorative activities are related to a culture of empowerment.
