Hard, soft or ambidextrous? : which influence style promotes managers' task performance and the role of political skill

Kapoutsis, Ilias and Papalexandris, Alexandros and Thanos, Ioannis (2019) Hard, soft or ambidextrous? : which influence style promotes managers' task performance and the role of political skill. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 30 (4). pp. 618-647. ISSN 0958-5192

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Abstract

Ambidexterity at the manager level focuses on the crucial, but underexplored, role of managers’ knowledge, skills, and behaviors to address competing demands and promote organizational ambidexterity. As such, to successfully complete their assigned duties, managers need to employ the appropriate interpersonal style and calibrate their behavior to different contextual demands. This study highlights the role of the individual in the ambidexterity process by introducing the concept of influence tactic ambidexterity, to denote the frequent use of both hard and soft influence and investigating its role on task performance. Drawing on the literature on ambidexterity and HRM, we analyze data from a sample of 172 middle managers and their corresponding 68 supervisors working for multinational organizations, and provide evidence that influence tactic ambidexterity relates to higher levels and less variation in managers’ task performance compared to the sole use of either hard or soft tactics. Our findings also show that political skill positively moderates the relationship between influence tactic ambidexterity and a manager’s task performance. Therefore, this study suggests that influence tactic ambidexterity and political skill can be considered valuable HR assets for managers.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
Additional Information:
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in The International Journal of Human Resource Management on 20/09/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2016.1233447
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1407
Subjects:
?? ambidexterityinfluence tacticstask performancepolitical skillorganizational behavior and human resource managementstrategy and managementmanagement of technology and innovation ??
ID Code:
81534
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
27 Sep 2016 09:12
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
17 Dec 2023 01:34