Do Saudi Arabian Leaders Exhibit Ambidextrous Leadership: A Qualitative Examination

Abstract

The study identifies how subordinates of a multinational organization in Saudi Arabia perceive ambidextrous leadership’s explorative and exploitative factors. A qualitative design was adopted for the study. Data was collected from the employees’ comments about the leaders in a large multinational conglomorate’s organizational Electronic Social Networking (ESN) platform. The comments so collected were analyzed using Thematic Analysis (TA) to address the research objectives. The study results indicate that the leaders exhibited exploration, exploitation, and temporal flexibility styles signifying ambidextrous leadership. Ambidexterity is an aspect that is receiving increased research attention. Despite its widespread use in management science, ambidextrous leadership (AL), and individual level ambidexterity got initiated only in the current decade. The current study extends the literature about AL.