Title: Employees' empowerment and ambidextrous innovation: knowledge sharing as mediator and organisational trust as moderator

Authors: Sarra Berraies; Belgacem Bchini; Amira Houaneb

Addresses: Department of Marketing and Management, College of Business Administration, University of Bahrain, Sakhir, Manama, Bahrain; Laboratory ARBRE, Higher Institute of Management of Tunis, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia ' Department of Management and Human Resources, Higher Institute of Management of Tunis, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia; Laboratory ARBRE, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia ' Department of Business Administration, University Ibn Khaldoun Tunis, Montplaisir, 1073 Tunis, Tunisia

Abstract: This research investigates the mediating effect of knowledge sharing between employees' empowerment and exploitative, exploratory and ambidextrous innovations and the moderating role of organisational trust in the link between employees' empowerment and knowledge sharing. The analyse of data collected from 232 managers working in Tunisian Knowledge-Intensive Firms (KIFs) and performed via the Partial Least Squares method revealed that employees' empowerment is positively linked to exploratory and ambidextrous innovations. Also, findings indicated that knowledge sharing boosts exploitative, exploratory and ambidextrous innovations. Results provided evidence that organisational trust moderates positively the link between employees' empowerment and knowledge sharing. Few studies have addressed this topic within KIFs. This study offers important managerial implications for managers of KIFs that seek to encourage knowledge workers to develop their individual ambidextrous abilities and to share knowledge within organisations in order to achieve ambidextrous innovation.

Keywords: employees' empowerment; exploitative innovation; exploratory innovation; ambidexterity; organisational trust; knowledge sharing; knowledge-intensive firms; Tunisia.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2024.139615

European Journal of International Management, 2024 Vol.23 No.4, pp.648 - 676

Received: 16 Apr 2019
Accepted: 22 Dec 2019
Published online: 05 Jul 2024 *

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