How does leadership develop contextual ambidexterity in project – basedorganizations?

Introduction: Statistics show that a large number of companies struggle for their survival.About 20 % of the EU companies in all the different industries that were born in 2015 couldnot survive till 2016. More specifically, only less than half of the companies that were born in2011 are still active in 2016 (Eurostat, 2018). Moreover, corporate bankruptcies in Swedenincreased by 20 % in the years 2017 to 2018 compared to 2016 (Tillvaxtanalys, 2019 ).Therefore, the main challenge for managers is to consolidate short-term and long-termthinking, encourage visions while remaining focused on execution within employees. Problem background: While the current literature acknowledges both the importance oforganizational ambidexterity for companies’ survival, and the role played by managers todevelop ambidexterity, research on how to achieve such ambidexterity is still narrow.Moreover, the influence of the different leadership styles on contextual ambidexterity and itseffects on individuals have hardly been attended in the literature. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to develop an understanding on how leaders, throughambidextrous leadership styles, create a context that enables individuals to achieve contextualambidexterity. More specifically, this master’s thesis aims to define a conceptual frameworkthat shows the influence of the leadership styles on contextual ambidexterity Methodology: In order to answer our research question, a qualitative research was conductedwith a deductive approach. Eight Interviews, four managers and four employees, wereconducted in four project-based organizations within the software industry in Sweden. Findings: The key findings are that transformational leadership style was found to foster “trustand support” in social support, and “stretch” in performance management, while thetransactional leadership style was only found in discipline in the organizational context. Conclusions: This study shows how developing adaptability in an organization requiresmanagers to apply transformational leadership style to the social support dimensions of theorganizational context. On the other hand, developing alignment in an organization requiresmanagers to apply both transformation and transactional styles rather than transactional. Mangers also need to balance the intensity of their leadership styles as both styles need to be emphasized equally well