Wear glasses for supervisors to discover the beauty of subordinates: Supervisor developmental feedback and organizational ambidexterity

Previous studies have shown that supervisor developmental feedback has a positive impact on individual-level innovation; however, systematic research on how supervisor developmental feedback affects innovation at the organizational level, especially organizational ambidextrous innovation, is lacking. Based on the data of 509 paired upper-level and lower-level questionnaires from 157 high-tech SMEs, we empirically test the impact of supervisor developmental feedback on organizational ambidexterity, the mediating effect of organizational learning and the moderating effect of different leadership styles between supervisor developmental feedback and organizational ambidexterity. The results indicate that supervisor developmental feedback has a positive effect on organizational ambidexterity and that organizational learning plays a fully mediating role between supervisor developmental feedback and organizational ambidexterity. Transformational leadership positively moderates the mediating effect of organizational learning between supervisor developmental feedback and organizational ambidexterity, while transactional leadership negatively moderates the mediating effect of organizational learning between supervisor developmental feedback and organizational ambidexterity. Finally, this paper constructs a moderated mediation model and presents various implications concerning how and when to promote organizational ambidexterity.