1. Ambidextrous Leadership and Productive Outcomes in Emerging Economies: A Theoretical Review

Abstract

The attainment of the sustainable development goals, especially in times of global economic uncertainty and turbulence requires deliberate actions of leaders. Emerging economies, strive to harness their human resources to attain greater levels of production. Understanding the right leadership approach to attaining valuable productive outcomes is therefore of significant interest to nations of the world. This paper theoretically examined the emergence of ambidextrous leadership as a leadership approach that can help galvanize the human resources of emerging economies towards the attainment of greater productive outcomes. The review began by underlining social capital theory as the theoretical foundation for leadership ambidexterity, followed by both conceptual and empirical reviews to clarify the importance of ambidextrous leadership for productive outcomes in emerging economies. The review showed that ambidextrous leadership behaviour is important for facilitating transformative goals of nations. Specifically, the study identified leaders opening and closing behaviours, which are proxies of leaders’ ambidexterity as important enablers of productive outcomes. The study recommends that leaders, by their opening and closing behaviours, should encourage members’ both internal and external focus in order to accelerate production for the overall development of emerging economies.