Fostering Team Innovation in Tech Start-Ups: The Role of Team Ambidexterity as Mediator Between Servant Leadership Behaviour and Team Innovation

Abstract

Early technology start-up faces a lot of problems such as leader mentality, ecosystem, lack of general knowledge, and innovation. One of the root causes is the absence of leadership role. This study is constructed to fill a research gap on the influence of servant leadership behaviour to team innovation in technology start-up. The authors propose team ambidexterity as mediator to enhance the role of servant leadership behaviour in fostering team innovation. We also investigate the team climate as a moderator to support the team ambidexterity. The samples are 207 start-up members in Indonesia which aggregated into 59 clustered samples. The result shows that the team ambidexterity has a significant mediation effect between servant leadership behaviour and team innovation. Second result is team climate, which is a good moderator on team ambidexterity. These outcomes lead to research opportunities and practical implications to enhance the team innovation among start-ups