Received: 14 April 2022 Revised: 20 March 2023 Accepted: 6 April 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13650

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The ambidextrous leadership-innovative work behavior

relationship in the public sector: The mediating role
of psychological ownership

Elisavet Kousina | Irini Voudouris

Department of Management Science and Abstract

Technology, Athens University of Economics
and Business, Athens, Greece
Correspondence
Elisavet Kousina, Department of Management
Science and Technology, Athens University of
Economics and Business, 12, Kodrigtonos str.,
Postal Code 112 57Athens, Greece.
Email: elkousina@aueb.gr
Ambidextrous leadership reflects a style that combines opening and closing behav-
iors, which can stimulate employees to engage in both exploration and exploitation.
Drawing from tenets of ambidextrous theorization of leadership for innovation, this
study examines whether the exhibition of ambidextrous leadership by public sector
managers fosters public servants’ innovative behavior and whether psychological
ownership feelings with the unit mediates such effect. Utilizing multisource and
multilevel data from 317 public servants across 109 working units, we find that
ambidextrous leadership, —that is, the interaction of opening and closing
behaviors—affects employees’ innovative performance such that innovative work
behavior is highest when both opening and closing behaviors are high. We also find
that promotive-oriented feelings of psychological ownership mediate such a rela-
tionship. In light of our findings, important implications for policy makers, public
managers, and public sector’s promotion procedures are discussed.

Evidence for practice

• Public managers can spark their subordinates’ innovative work behavior by
exercising an ambidextrous leadership style.
• Ambidextrous leadership, that is, the combination of high opening and high
closing behaviors, triggers employees’ feelings of promotion-oriented psycho-
logical ownership of the unit and leads to the highest level of employees’ inno-
vative behavior.
• The demonstration of ambidexterity qualities by leaders and the ability to pro-
mote employees’ innovative behavior could be viewed as prerequisites for pro-
motion processes in the administrative hierarchy, as one of their primary tasks in
a rapidly evolving world is to promote public sector innovation.
• Policy makers should formulate such policies that foster education, training, and
skills development with an emphasis on ambidexterity for the purpose of
strengthening those behaviors that support and promote innovation in all
aspects of administrative action.

INTRODUCTION et al., 2022). In that respect, employees’ innovative behav-

ior is important (Miao et al., 2018), given its potential to
Innovation in public sector organizations is a critical issue contribute to addressing changes and producing public
as they strive to cope with unprecedented challenges value for citizens (Moore, 2014). Studies in the public
due to fiscal, demographic, sanitary, and ecological administration literature that attempt to understand
pressures along with rising citizen expectations for a innovative work behavior in the public sector are therefore
more responsive and accountable government (Clausen rising in importance (Fernandez & Moldogaziev, 2013;
et al., 2020; De Vries et al., 2016; Lewis et al., 2018; Neo Suseno et al., 2020).
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
© 2023 The Authors. Public Administration Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Public Administration.

1478 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:1478–1495.


PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
Within this body of research, some studies have recently
suggested leadership as a major driver of innovative behav-
ior in public organizations and examined the role of mainly
change-oriented leadership behaviors (Yukl, 2012) for indi-
vidual innovation (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017; Hansen &
Pihl-Thingvad, 2019; Miao et al., 2018). Although valuable
these studies have adopted a unidimensional, ‘either/or’
approach (Backhaus et al., 2022) failing to account for the
dynamic new terrain of leadership for innovation (Rosing
et al., 2011), within which public sector leaders may find
themselves (Miao et al., 2018; Trong Tuan, 2017). To effec-
tively lead for innovation public managers may be required
to display complex and often contradictory behaviors
to help their employees accept and cope with various
conflicting demands (Backhaus et al., 2022; Backhaus &
Vogel, 2022).
Against this backdrop, this study adopts the lens of
the ambidextrous theorization of leadership (Rosing
et al., 2011) and examines the effect of ambidextrous
leadership on the innovative work behavior of public ser-
vants. Ambidextrous leadership reflects a style that
describes the flexible switching between opening and
closing behaviors depending on tasks and situational
requirements. Combining such behaviors with leaders’
ambidexterity (i.e., the interaction of opening and closing
behaviors) can foster both explorative and exploitative
behaviors in their employees (Backhaus et al., 2022;
Rosing et al., 2011) enabling them to generate and imple-
ment new ideas (Klonek et al., 2020; Oluwafemi
et al., 2020). Applying a ‘both/and’ approach ambidex-
trous leaders can support employees to deal with the
complex and ambiguous situations towards innovation
encountered in times of public administration transforma-
tion (Backhaus et al., 2022; Trong Tuan, 2017).
In addition to the direct effect of ambidextrous leader-
ship on innovative behavior, we pose that there are under-
lying mechanisms, rooted in individuals’ psychological
state, that can effectively explain this relationship. This view
is in line with prior theoretical allegations pointing to the
necessity of understanding intermediary psychological
mechanisms through which leadership yields its effects
and influences innovative behavior (Aryee et al., 2012;
Backhaus & Vogel, 2022; Yuan & Woodman, 2010). In this
vein, we argue that ambidextrous leadership affects also
public servants’ innovative behavior by enhancing their
psychological ownership. Psychological ownership is “the
state in which individuals feel as though the target of
ownership or a piece of that target is theirs” (Pierce
et al., 2003, p. 86) and can be exhibited in both promotive
and preventive-oriented feelings (Avey et al., 2009). It is
likely to evolve through employees’ involvement and the
establishment of feelings of control over their work
(Fernandez & Rainey, 2006), which can successfully drive
employees’ engagement in a range of proactive conducts,
such as innovative behavior (Parker et al., 2006).
Our theoretical propositions are tested on a sample of
317 public servants and their immediate department
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1479
heads, across 109 municipal authorities of the two
biggest cities in Greece. Our findings reveal that ambidex-
trous leadership exerts both a direct and indirect effect
on employees’ innovative behavior, with the latter being
enacted through the enhancement of their promotive
psychological ownership feelings. More precisely, we
show that the innovative behavior of public servants is
highest when both opening and closing behaviors
are high, with all other combinations providing inferior
outcomes. The combination of high opening and high
closing behaviors results also in higher levels of pro-
motive ownership, which in turn positively relates to
innovative work behavior.
Our study makes several important contributions. First,
by theorizing and empirically validating the role of leaders’
ambidexterity in public servants’ innovative behavior we
add to prior studies in the public management literature
that investigate the leadership–innovation relationship
(Bos-Nehles et al., 2017; Günzel-Jensen et al., 2017;
Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019; Miao et al., 2018). An
emerging research stream in the public leadership litera-
ture has emphasized the necessity to comprehend conflict-
ing yet complementary leadership behaviors to account
for the complex and controversial situations that public
organizations often confront (Backhaus et al., 2022;
Crosby & Bryson, 2018; Trong Tuan, 2017). Following this
line of reasoning, our study is, to the best of our knowl-
edge, the first to bring ambidextrous leadership into the
debate on public servants’ innovative behavior. Second,
we show the mediating role of promotive psychological
ownership on the ambidextrous leadership–innovative
behavior relationship. Thus, our findings shed light on the
psychological outcomes that ambidextrous leadership can
contribute to, broadening the scope of the ambidextrous
leadership theory through the incorporation of psychologi-
cal aspects. Moreover, they add to prior literature concern-
ing the role of psychological ownership in the public
sector (Hassan, 2015; Mahsud & Hao, 2017) revealing that
the promotional rather than the preventive aspects are the
ones that provide value to public organizations. Taken
together our findings bring new insights into employees’
innovative behavior in public sector organizations
highlighting the role of leaders’ ambidexterity for better
outcomes and expanding our understanding of how such
ambidexterity may further enhance public servants’ inno-
vative actions via psychological ownership. At a practical
level, they provide managers and practitioners with a more
realistic picture of how the innovation imperative can be
actualized and how public sector leadership could be
shaped to effectuate it.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows.
Section two presents the theoretical background, fol-
lowed by hypotheses development in section three. Sec-
tions four and five present the data, their analysis, and
the results. Section six discusses the findings and presents
conclusions, implications, and suggestions for future
research.

1480
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Innovative work behavior in the public
sector
Public sector organizations are increasingly required to
innovate because of frequent changes in public and
policy priorities (Damanpour & Schneider, 2009; Trong
Tuan, 2017). They, thus, become more and more concerned
about innovative work behavior, since the degree to which
an organization can engage in innovation endeavors over
time is associated with the innovative behavior displayed
by individual employees (Janssen, 2000).
Innovative work behavior is defined as ‘the intentional
generation, promotion, and realization of new ideas
within a work role, work group or organization, in order
to benefit the role performance, the group or the organi-
zation’ (Janssen, 2003, p. 348). As such, it predominantly
constitutes voluntary and extra-role behavior, which is
often not described in the formal job description require-
ments. It is unquestionably important since it enables the
creation of products and services, as well as more efficient
ways of doing things (Wu et al., 2014). Indeed, empirical
evidence exists to support that innovation in public orga-
nizations is mainly rooted in employees’ behaviors and
actions (Borins, 2001).
Research in the public management literature, however,
has mostly attempted to understand public sector innova-
tion at the organizational level (Borins, 2000; Demircioglu &
Van der Wal, 2022; Walker, 2006) failing to provide a thor-
ough explanation of how innovative work behavior can be
enacted (De Vries et al., 2016). The majority of previous
studies on the issue have mostly focused on differences
between public and private sector employees (Bysted &
Hansen, 2015) and have explored mainly individual factors,
such as employee proactivity and educational background
as antecedents of innovative behavior in public organiza-
tions (Lapuente & Suzuki, 2020; Suseno et al., 2020).
Some scholars have, only recently, highlighted the
critical role of leadership in innovative work behavior. For
instance, Miao et al. (2018) found that entrepreneurial
leadership may influence Chinese civil servants’ innova-
tion by reinforcing their feelings of meaning and impact.
Hansen and Pihl-Thingvad (2019) using data from schools
and childcare centres in a large Danish municipality
revealed the role of transformational leadership and ver-
bal rewards. In a similar vein, Bos-Nehles et al. (2017)
based on a case study in the Netherlands fire services
showed a positive effect of supportive leadership on idea
generation, yet they found no effect on idea realization.
This may be because, engaging in both idea realization
and implementation, within the boundaries of public
organizations, is a challenging process fraught with retro-
grade steps and controversies (Page, 2005), with individ-
uals having to balance multiple objectives to succeed
with outcomes which in themselves may seem to be in
contradicting each other (Franken et al., 2020). For people
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THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
to innovate in the public sector several challenges must
be overcome as they have to initiate change whereas
maintaining stability, come up with new or improved ser-
vices without increasing costs (Backhaus et al., 2022),
establish lateral relationships whereas maintaining cen-
tralized accountability and decision making (Witesman &
Wise, 2009), embrace private sector techniques while also
applying rules consistently (Bryson et al., 2014). Under
such conditions, complex behaviors by public leaders
seem necessary for employees to engage in innovative
behavior, which points to ambidextrous leadership as a
promising approach to leadership for innovation in the
public sector (Backhaus et al., 2022).
Ambidextrous leadership
The ambidextrous theorization of leadership for innova-
tion (Rosing et al., 2011) is grounded on the general the-
ory of organizational ambidexterity (Raisch et al., 2009)
and prior arguments asseverating that opposing yet com-
plementary activities are important in promoting innova-
tion (Gebert et al., 2010). The ambidextrous leadership
theory postulates that the flexible switching between
opening and closing behaviors of leaders depending on
the situation facilitates employees’ both exploration and
exploitation by increasing or decreasing variance in their
behaviors and actions. In that respect, opening behaviors
boost idea generation by promoting experimentation,
supporting unconventional thinking, inquiry, risk-taking,
and the encouragement of error-learning; whereas clos-
ing behaviors enable idea realization, which occurs inside
the restrictions that organizational features posit (Miron-
Spektor et al., 2011), by establishing rules and routines,
sticking to plans, monitoring goal attainment and taking
corrective action (Rosing et al., 2011). Contrary to prior
assertions that innovation-encouraging behaviors and
monitoring behaviors are distinct and aim at different
objectives (Yukl, 2012; Yukl et al., 2002), the key proposi-
tion of ambidextrous leadership theory is that in order to
foster innovative behavior in employees the leader needs
to display high levels of both closing and opening behav-
iors, with closing behavior facilitating a positive impact of
openness and vice versa. High closing behavior is more
likely to enable the process during which employees turn
their creative ideas into innovative products or services,
with such ideas, however, being unlikely generated
without high opening behavior (Zacher & Wilden, 2014).
Consequently, the influence on employees’ innovation
is lower if the leader displays high level of opening
but low level of closing behavior or high level of closing
but low levels of opening behavior or low levels of
both opening and closing behaviors. These premises are
in line with prior contentions pointing out that while uni-
dimensional leadership styles accurately forecast daily
work outcomes, leadership for innovation requires an
integrated version to effectively pull through situational

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
requirements (Gupta et al., 2006). Ambidextrous leaders
engage in paradoxical thinking, a complex cognitive
procedure, which enables them to embrace and integrate
contradictory requirements in order to capitalize on
paradox’s positive potential (Smith & Lewis, 2011) for
innovation.
While ambidextrous leadership has gained ground in
innovation literature, it is new in public administration liter-
ature and scant empirical evidence exists on its role in pub-
lic organizations. As an exception Franken et al. (2020) and
Backhaus et al. (2022) have recently initiated research
examining leaders’ ambidexterity, considering however
other than innovation behavioral outcomes. The value of
ambidexterity is further supported by Backhaus and Vogel
(2022), who concluded in their meta-analysis of public sec-
tor leadership that not only leaders who encourage change
but also those who engage in control can lead to beneficial
employees’ behaviors. Despite these theoretical advance-
ments the ambidextrous leadership–innovative work
behavior link in the public sector has not yet been
examined.
Psychological ownership
Psychological ownership reflects a cognitive and affective
state capable of developing feelings of possessiveness and
responsibility for the target of ownership (Avey et al., 2009;
Dawkins et al., 2017; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004). Individuals
with such feelings self-guard and stand up for their owner-
ship rights (Hall, 1966). Avey et al. (2009), drawing on Hig-
gins’ (1998) regulatory focus theory,1,2 further proposed that
there are two types of psychological ownership, promotive
and preventive. These are unrelated, in the sense that an
individual can employ both concurrently (Kammerlander
et al., 2015). A heightened level of promotion-oriented psy-
chological ownership drives people to develop a sense of
self-identity and belongingness with the target of ownership,
feeling accountable for it and efficacious about working with
it; while a high level of prevention-oriented psychological
ownership makes people feel threatened when the objects
of their ownership can be influenced by external entities,
thus adopting behaviors that signal the restriction of access
to their valued territory (Avey et al., 2009; Guo et al., 2022).
Within organizational contexts, employees with high levels
of psychological ownership experience work as a superior
existential condition (Wilpert, 1991) that sparks off their
active involvement (Dirks et al., 1996) and leads to various
positive outcomes. Yet negative consequences have been
also shown to emerge when feelings of territoriality prevail
(for a review see Dawkins et al., 2017).
Prior studies dealing with psychological ownership as a
learned behavior within public organizations have
highlighted leadership as one of its antecedents (e.g., Park
et al., 2013). Concerning its outcomes, several studies have
shown various positive work-related attitudes and extra-
role behaviors, whereas evidence exists also to support the
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1481
role of psychological ownership as a mediator (Adil &
Kamal, 2018; Park et al., 2013). For instance, Chai et al.
(2020) found a positive effect of psychological ownership
on openness to change, whereas Pittino et al. (2018)
highlighted the significance of psychological ownership as
a primary determinant of entrepreneurial orientation in
terms of proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking
though not in the same context. Moreover, in his inquiry
conducted in the public sector, Hassan (2015) found that
government employees’ constructive ideas were favorably
connected with their sense of increased personal control—
one of the routes of psychological ownership (Pierce
et al., 2001). In a similar vein, Park et al. (2013) surveying
214 Korean public sector employees, documented the
mediating role of psychological ownership in the relation-
ship between transformational leadership and organiza-
tional citizenship behavior. Despite such evidence, the role
of psychological ownership on employee’s innovative
behavior has not received sufficient attention in the public
administration literature, whereas very little is known con-
cerning the predictive power of promotive and preventive
psychological ownership.
CONCEPTUAL MODEL AND HYPOTHESES
DEVELOPMENT
In this study, we forge links between the ambidextrous
leadership theory and the psychological ownership
framework to hypothesize and empirically test the direct
effect of ambidextrous leadership on employees’ innova-
tive behavior as well as the mediating role of psychologi-
cal ownership feelings in this relationship in the context
of public sector work-units. Ambidextrous leadership
reflects the interaction of opening and closing behaviors,
whereas for psychological ownership we account for both
promotive and preventive feelings. The conceptual model
underlying this study is presented in Figure 1.
Ambidextrous leadership and innovative
work behavior in the public sector
Extending the key proposition of the ambidextrous leader-
ship theory in the public sector, we argue that high levels
of both opening and closing behaviors can facilitate
leaders to overcome a series of barriers, such as the
absence of “innovate or die” culture (De Vries et al., 2016),
skewed reward systems and lack of external incentives
(Damanpour & Schneider, 2009), goals ambiguity, risk-
aversity and lack of accountability among public servants,
fostering new ideas generation and realization.
High-opening behavior allows autonomy in thinking
and acting and variety in the way tasks are accomplished
(Rosing et al., 2011). This facilitates the decomposition of
common working patterns and triggers employees to
experiment with novel ways of doing things, which in

1482
FIGURE 1 Conceptual model.
turn enhances their creativity and enables them to come
up with ideas for improving processes or providing ser-
vices to citizens (Oluwafemi et al., 2020; Trong Tuan, 2017).
Leader openness supports employees to learn from errors
and gradually take riskier decisions allowing for some devi-
ance from rules. Rendering the inherent in public organiza-
tion ’s bureaucratic controls less important, employees can
come up with creative proposals without fear of failure
and disapproval (Edmondson, 1999). Moreover, opening
behavior fosters an innovative climate where employees
are encouraged to get involved with the unit processes
and people to co-create explorative approaches to prob-
lems (Elenkov et al., 2005). In such high-involvement con-
text, self-motivation rather than external incentives is likely
to incite public servants to go the extra mile and generate
innovative ideas for the unit’s goals to be attained.
Yet, ideas by themselves are not enough, and innova-
tive performance may be limited if employees are not
enabled to implement them (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017). In
that respect, high closing behavior is crucial to set rules
and processes that facilitate implementation through,
monitoring goal achievement and taking corrective
actions when. It provides employees with guidance and
clarity regarding their roles and responsibilities and facili-
tates them to focus on the most important parts of their
tasks, whereas also enabling them to identify potential
performance deficiencies based on feedback and make
the necessary adjustments. It may also reduce uncertainty
(Reason et al., 1998) when “wicked” and turbulent prob-
lems emerge (Ansell et al., 2021), acting as a protection
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THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
framework from concerns related to public sector emphasis
on legality, hierarchy, and transparency (Backhaus &
Vogel, 2022). In addition, high closing behavior may decrease
shirking and social loafing (Karau & Williams, 1995), both
critical inhibitors of public sector innovation realization,
enhancing employees’ accountability when following strict
schedules and pre-agreed terms during implementation.
In sum, the combination of high opening and high
closing behaviors is likely to promote high levels of inno-
vative behavior since it stimulates both creative ideas
generation and realization. By contrast, innovative behav-
ior is expected to be lower for combinations with only
high opening behavior, as the implementation of the
ideas generated would not be facilitated; or only high
closing behavior, as there would be no ideas in the first
place to implement. Therefore, we propose the following
hypothesis.
Hypothesis 1. Ambidextrous leadership affects
public servants’ innovative behavior; such that
innovative behavior is highest when both open-
ing and closing behaviors are high.
Ambidextrous leadership and public
servants’ psychological ownership
Following a similar argumentation, we postulate that
ambidextrous leadership can affect employees’ feelings
of psychological ownership such that they are likely to

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
experience more promotive and less preventive feelings
of psychological ownership.
Encouraging employees to actively engage in the unit
processes and come up with creative proposals, high
opening behavior enables employees to become involved
in processes of information and knowledge sharing with
colleagues, for example, exchanging novel ideas to tackle
a work problem. This is likely to strengthen employees’
position within the work unit and intensify their sense of
belonging and self-identity, thus, leading employees to
experience promotive feelings of psychological owner-
ship. Moreover, opening behavior increases employees’
self-confidence that they can meet what is expected from
them. Being strengthened to speak their mind and seek
novel solutions to problems and receiving immediate
attention to their input, employees feel that they may
have an immediate impact on unit’s outputs (Den
Hartog & Belschak, 2012), which enhances their self-effi-
cacy, thus their promotive feelings ownership. Increasing
perceptions of individual autonomy, however, may lead
employees to assume that they possess the rights and
opportunities to adjust their work environment in line
with their personalities and skills (Ma et al., 2019), which
in turn may also lead to territorial, thus preventative feel-
ings of ownership. People who believe they have rights
to something are more willing to preserve and improve
what they believe they own, even restricting access to
that possession (Brown & Zhu, 2016; Wilpert, 1991).
When high closing behavior is also in place, leaders can
still cede autonomy but may delimit this autonomy to a
specific extent through monitoring and guidance to attain
expected performance. This may cultivate perceptions of
safety in employees (Backhaus & Vogerl, 2022), which in
turn may facilitate the development of an environment of
trust where employees are less likely to believe that others
may trespass on their possessions, thus alleviating territorial
conduct as an option (Brown et al., 2014). In addition, moni-
toring performance can enable ‘employees to identify with
the goals of the organization and work hard to accomplish
those goals’ (Whitener, 2001, p. 517). Following this path-
goal incentive, public sector employees can further
strengthen their sense of self-identity and belongingness
with their work units and people, thus their promotive
feelings. This is especially pertinent in administrative
realities, where external incentives (e.g., performance-
based promotion) that could upgrade employees’ associ-
ation with the organization are absent (Spanou &
Sotiropoulos, 2011). Moreover, the professional develop-
ment of employees is built up through the accumulated
organizational knowledge of the procedures and actions
performed on a systematic basis. Over time, employees
consider themselves to be an integral part of a number
of day-to-day procedures necessary for the proper and
successful functioning of the work unit, which boosts
their self-efficacy and facilitates the development of
feelings of accountability for the unit’s outcomes, thus
further reinforcing their promotive ownership.
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1483
In sum, closing behavior is likely to strengthen the
positive effect of opening behavior on promotive psycho-
logical ownership whereas it may mitigate potential terri-
torial feelings and increase employees’ sense of sharing
responsibility. Therefore, we propose the following
hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2. Ambidextrous leadership is
related to employee’s psychological ownership
such that when both opening and closing
behaviors are high (a) promotive-oriented
psychological ownership is high, whereas
(b) preventive-oriented psychological ownership
is low.
Psychological ownership and innovative
work behavior
Different orientations of psychological ownership may
result in distinctive ways of perceiving work context and
regulating challenges and opportunities that ultimately
affect innovative behavior (Scholer & Tory Higgins, 2012).
Employees with heightened levels of promotive own-
ership are inclined towards accomplishments and
aspirations (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Being interested in
achieving positive outcomes they may develop positive
work-related attitudes, invest time and energy that goes
beyond fulfilling their contractual obligations and
engage in extra-role behaviors (Chai et al., 2020; Park
et al., 2013), such as innovative behavior. These individ-
uals perform also better on creative insight problems
(Scholer & Tory Higgins, 2012), have a wide repertoire of
alternatives when decisions need to be made, and con-
stantly seek opportunities in their internal and external
environment (Galinsky et al., 2005), qualities that may
contribute to innovative work behavior. In addition, peo-
ple displaying promotive psychological ownership are
likely more willing to share information and knowledge
with colleagues (e.g., potential solutions to work prob-
lems or ideas for improved or novel services to create
public value), as they perceive the upgrade of depart-
ment’s function as a self-improvement process. This may
facilitate collective learning, which in turn can enhance
both idea generation and implementation.
On the other hand, employees with heightened levels
of preventive ownership are interested in avoiding nega-
tive outcomes and tend to focus on duties and obliga-
tions (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). They are characterized by an
increased need to ensure safety and reduced receptivity
to change (Vaughn et al., 2008). These individuals’ acute
sensitivity to loss and subsequent adoption of vigilance
tactics discourages them from engaging in innovative
behaviors due to the potential exposure to loss (Idson &
Tory Higgins, 2000). Their attachment to the status quo
(Jain et al., 2007) combined with their reluctance to adopt
new processes and technologies (Herzenstein et al., 2007)

1484
leads them to seek safe options, thus distancing them
from generating innovations that disrupt the way things
are in the workplace. For these individuals engaging in
any kind of change-oriented behavior is endorsed only
when it may act as a means of returning to normality
(Scholer & Tory Higgins, 2012). Therefore, we advance the
following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3. Psychological ownership affects
innovative work behavior such that (a)
promotion-oriented psychological ownership is
positively related to public servants’ innovative
work behavior, whereas (b) prevention-oriented
psychological ownership is negatively related to
public servants’ innovative work behavior.
The mediating role of psychological
ownership
Since we hypothesized the relationships among ambidex-
trous leadership, (promotive and preventative) psycholog-
ical ownership, and innovative work behavior, we
implicitly suggest that ambidextrous leadership affects
also innovative work behavior through the enactment of
promotive and preventive ownership. Thus, we argue that
psychological ownership plays a mediating role and we
propose the following hypothesis.
Hypothesis 4. (a) Promotive and (b) preventive
psychological ownership mediate the relation-
ship between ambidextrous leadership and
public servants’ innovative work behavior.
METHODOLOGY
Empirical context and sample
We tested our hypotheses on a sample of 109 depart-
ments other than those handling traditional bureaucratic
services, in local government3 around the broader area of
the two biggest cities in Greece, taking number of inhabi-
tants as the index for municipality size. This milieu repre-
sents an interesting context for several reasons. Local
governments in Greece enjoy administrative and financial
autonomy since the oversight of the state consists only of
a review of their legality and does not impede their initia-
tive and freedom of action. Also, the Greek legal system
protects local government employees from discriminatory
treatment and provides assurances regarding the merit-
based, transparent, equal, and effective management of
human resources.4 These enhance the capability of local
government for decision-making (Gonzalez et al., 2013)
and render it suited to innovation (Lewis et al., 2017) and
an area of experimentation for the implementation of
broad government reforms (Ihrke et al., 2003). The two
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THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
largest municipalities were chosen because larger public
sector organizations have larger pools of human
resources that provide access to expertise, knowledge,
and opinions (Ewens & van der Voet, 2019) allowing for
cross-fertilization of ideas (Walker, 2006). Size has also
been positively associated with innovation in the context
of local government (Hansen, 2011). We excluded depart-
ments that handle traditional bureaucratic services, such
as payroll, waste collection, and registry, since those are
less likely to deal with innovation.
To create our sampling frame, we used the “Census”
platform of the Ministry of Interior, which allowed us to
identify 750 departments that operate at the executive
level (such as those related to planning and development,
IT and new technologies, entrepreneurship, and tourism),
as well as departments responsible for education and life-
long learning, environment, social policy, civil protection,
culture, and sport. We then extracted a representative
sample of 230 departments through simple random sam-
pling. For this decision, we took into consideration that a
sample of approximately 100 departments would be suffi-
cient to make inferences to the overall population
(Newbold, 1995), and that the average response rate in
similar previous studies in the context of local administra-
tions is around 50% (e.g., Barrutia & Echebarria, 2019).
This allowed us to carry out the costly and time-
consuming process of reaching our sample departments.
We contacted our sample via telephone calls to the heads
of the 230 departments to solicit participation, whereas,
in most of the cases follow-up telephone calls were also
placed a few days later and appointments were made.
Overall, 109 departments participated in the research
yielding a response rate of 47%.
Data were collected between 2020–2021 on the basis
of two distinct questionnaires (the first administered to
the head of the department and the second to
employees), during personal meetings with one of the
researchers. Before completion of the questionnaire, the
head of the department was asked to bring to mind three
of his/her subordinates5 and provide the researcher with
their names. This allowed the researcher to code the
employees’ questionnaires accordingly. The supervisor
then assessed the innovative behavior of each of these
three subordinates and provided information about
demographic and organizational data. After completion
of this process, the second questionnaire was distributed
by the researcher to each of the three employees whose
innovative work behavior had been assessed by the
department head (using the previously coded question-
naires). Employees provided information about their
demographics, their supervisors’ opening and closing
behaviors, and the level of psychological ownership expe-
rienced with their work unit. The researcher remained in
the workplace until all questionnaires were completed by
the respondents.
Receiving data from two sources minimizes issues of
common methods biases that are inextricably linked to

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
single-source data (Podsakoff et al., 2012). Prior to the
questionnaire launch, we carried out a pilot survey. Sub-
ordinates and departments’ heads from five departments
of local government participated in the pilot study, fol-
lowing the same process that was used in the main sur-
vey later. The objective of the pilot study was to assess
the intelligibility of the research and unravel the basic
shortcomings and conceptualizations’ misunderstandings
of the questionnaires before their full deployment and
disposal. As a result, modifications and changes in word-
ing were incorporated into the final forms of the two
questionnaires prior to their final release.
All employees were assured of the anonymity of their
responses and the voluntary nature of their participation.
Questionnaires were handed out in printed format and
were coded in order to assure the right match between sub-
ordinates’ and supervisors’ answers. In all, we gathered
questionnaires from 109 department heads and 327 subordi-
nates. After the deletion of cases with missing values, we
had complete data for 109 heads and 317 subordinates.6 By
drawing data from departments in different municipalities,
we sought to improve the external validity of the research.
The average department size was 9.01, ranging from three
to 38 members (SD 7.42). The majority of the employees
were university graduates (46.1%) while 30.9% had a mas-
ter’s degree. Of the 317 subordinates, 54.5% were female.
Managers were employed in their respective work units for
an average of 10.33 years (SD 7.41) while employees had
been in their units for an average of 9.57 years (SD 6.14).
Measures
All measures consisted of items with seven-point Likert
scales ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly
agree, unless otherwise indicated and were derived from
existing and validated scales.
Dependent variable
To measure innovative work behavior, the department
heads evaluated the behavior of their subordinates using
the nine-item scale developed by Janssen (2000) that has
been applied in recent public sector studies (Bysted &
Hansen, 2015; Suseno et al., 2020). The Cronbach’s alpha
for the scale was .96.
Independent variables
We measured employees’ feelings of psychological owner-
ship of their work-unit using the 16-item scale developed
by Avey et al. (2009, 2012). Exploratory and confirmatory
factor analyses performed using Stata 14 revealed two
factors of psychological ownership with eigenvalues
greater than one and all factor loadings exceeding 0.70.
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1485
These factors were (a) promotive ownership (measured
by 12 items capturing self-efficacy, accountability, belong-
ingness, and self-identity) and (b) preventive ownership
(measured by four items capturing territoriality), with
Cronbach’s alphas .97 and .93 respectively. For ambidex-
trous leadership employees assessed their supervisors’
opening and closing behaviors through the scales devel-
oped by Zacher and Rosing (2015). The Cronbach’s alphas
for the two scales were .94 and .90, respectively. We opera-
tionalized ambidextrous leadership as the interaction
between leader’s opening and closing behaviors, based on
theoretical foundation supporting that these two types of
behavior act in a complementary way (Rosing et al., 2011)
and prior empirical application (Oluwafemi et al., 2020;
Zacher & Rosing, 2015; Zacher & Wilden, 2014).
Control variables
We included several controls in our analyses. We controlled
for the employees’ level of education and tenure since prior lit-
erature systematically ties those individuals’ characteristics
with innovative work behaviors (e.g., Newman et al., 2018)
and feelings of psychological ownership (e.g., Jo et al., 2023).
Level of education was measured with a five-point scale (1 ele-
mentary-secondary school graduate; 2 high school graduate;
3 university graduate; master’s degree; and 5 PhD holder), and
tenure was measured by years working in the unit. Although
we did not anticipate a gender effect, we incorporated it as a
control variable to ensure it did not impact our findings. Fur-
thermore, we controlled for employee’s proactive personality, a
variable that has been shown to relate to employee innova-
tion in both public- (Suseno et al., 2020) and private-sector
(Parker & Collins, 2010) settings. Subordinates rated them-
selves using Seibert et al. (1999) 10-item scale. The Cronbach’s
alpha was 0.95.
Validation of constructs
The constructs employed demonstrated acceptable levels
of validity and reliability. More specifically, all measures
demonstrated a satisfactory level of internal consistency
reliability, as assessed through Cronbach’s alpha. To estab-
lish convergent and discriminant validity across all con-
structs, confirmatory factor analyses using Stata SEM were
performed. The hypothesized six-factor model (i.e., items
measuring opening behavior, closing behavior, promotive
ownership, preventive ownership, proactive personality,
and innovative behavior) yielded a better fit to the data
than alternative models. The fit indices demonstrated that
the six-factor model fits the data adequately and all item
loadings exceed the cut-off value of .60 (Hair et al., 2006)
on their latent constructs. These findings provide strong
support for the convergent and discriminant validity of our
proposed measurement-model (Bagozzi & Yi, 2012). The
results of the CFA are presented in Table 1.
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1486 THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP

TABLE 1 Results of CFA.

Factor
Construct Items loadings

Preventative-oriented psychological I feel I need to protect my ideas from being used by others in my organization .88
ownership I feel that people I work with in my organization should not invade my .92
workspace
I feel I need to protect my property from being used by others in this .88
organization
I feel I have to tell people in my organization to ‘back off’ from projects that are .87
mine
Promotive-oriented psychological I am confident in my ability to contribute to my organization’s success .88
ownership I am confident I can make a positive difference in this organization .87
I am confident setting high performance goals in my organization .91
I would challenge anyone in my organization if I thought something was done .85
wrong
I would not hesitate to tell my organization if I saw something that was done .88
wrong
I would challenge the direction of my organization to assure it’s correct .88
I feel I belong in this organization .88
This place is home for me .89
I am totally comfortable being in this organization .89
I feel this organization’s success is my success .89
I feel being a member in this organization helps define who I am .87
I feel the need to defend my organization when it is criticized .91
Opening behaviors Allowing different ways of accomplishing a task .84
Encouraging experimentation with different ideas .87
Motivating to take risks .81
Giving possibilities for independent thinking and acting .84
Giving room for the ideas of others .85
Allowing errors .81
Encouraging error learning .86
Closing behaviors Monitoring goals and controlling goal attainment .81
Establishing routines .74
Taking corrective action .79
Controlling adherence to rules .78
Paying attention to uniform task accomplishment .76
Sanctioning errors .61
Sticking to plans .71
Innovative work behavior Creating new ideas for difficult issues .87
Searching out new working methods, techniques, or instruments .87
Generating original solutions for problems .88
Mobilizing support for innovative ideas .84
Acquiring approval for innovative ideas .78
Making important organizational members enthusiastic for innovative ideas .84
Transforming innovative ideas into useful applications .85
Introducing innovative ideas into the work environment in a systematic way .83
Evaluating the utility of innovative ideas .85
Proactive personality I am constantly on the lookout for new ways to improve my life. .86
Wherever I have been, I have been a powerful force for constructive change .87
Nothing is more exciting than seeing my ideas turn into reality. .83
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW 1487

TABLE 1 (Continued)

Factor
Construct Items loadings

If I see something I do not like, I fix it. .85

No matter what the odds, if I believe in something, I will make it happen. .82
I love being a champion for my ideas, even against others’ opposition. .84
I excel at identifying opportunities .83
I am always looking for better ways to do things .87
If I believe in an idea, no obstacle will prevent me from making it happen .80
I can spot a good opportunity long before others can. .72
Cov (opening behaviors, closing behaviors) .16
Note: Summary Statistics: N = 317; X (1142) = 1773.96, p < .001; CFI = 0.958; SRMR = 0.04; RMSEA = 0.04; SRMR = 0.03.
2

TABLE 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations among variables.

Variable M SD Min Max 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1.Innovative work 4.63 1.31 1 7 1

behavior
2.Gender 0.56 0.49 0 1 0.00 1
3.Education 3.14 0.73 1 5
0.01 0.06 1
4.Tenure 9.57 6.14 3 37 0.03 0.15*
0.06 1
5.Proactive personality 4.65 1.21 1.6 6.8 0.64*
0.03
0.08 0.03 1
6.Preventative-oriented 2.86 1.46 1 6.5 0.08
0.02
0.02
0.06 0.05 1
PO
7.Promotive-oriented PO 4.97 1.22 1.41 6.83 0.74*
0.00
0.08 0.07 0.57*
0.01 1
8.Opening leadership 4.91 1.15 1.57 7 0.55* 0.01 0.01
0.04 0.37* 0.07 0.56* 1
behavior
9.Closing leadership 4.86 0.96 1.85 6.85 0.45*
0.03
0.06 0.14* 0.29* 0.00 0.42* 0.14** 1
behavior
10.Ambidextrous 24.03 7.68 7.63 39 0.67*
0.01
0.05 0.05 0.45* 0.06 0.66* 0.79* 0.70* 1
leadership
Abbreviation: N, 317 individuals in 109 work units; PO, psychological ownership.
*p < .001, two-tailed.
**p < .05.

Interrater agreement scores showed a high level of
agreement among the employees in each unit in terms of
their ambidextrous leadership perceptions (opening
behaviors: mean rwg(j) = .96; intraclass correlation coeffi-
cients: ICC1 = .72, ICC2 = .88; closing behaviors: mean
rwg( j) = .95; intraclass correlation coefficients: ICC1 = .60,
ICC2 = .82). Taken together, these results provide support
for the aggregation of ambidextrous leadership to the
unit level (Chen & Bliese, 2002).
Method of analysis
Since our data have a two-level structure, with employees
at Level 1 and work units at Level 2, a two-level model
was specified (Heck & Thomas, 2009). Employing ordinary
regression analysis may lead to inaccurate findings
since employees under the same unit are exposed to
the same influential factors (i.e., the leadership style of
their supervisor), thereby violating the presumption of
independent observations (cf. Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992).
Furthermore, ignoring the clustering nature of the data
usually contributes to erroneous estimated standard
errors and consequently inaccurate p-values, while
increasing the likelihood of type I errors occurring
(Heck & Thomas, 2009). For this reason, we used hierarchi-
cal linear modeling (HLM) with Stata 14 software to test
our hypotheses. One of the advantages of multilevel
modeling is that it allows researchers to decompose
processes occurring at various levels, both by adding
explanatory variables at distinct levels and by assigning
unexplained variability at these levels (Rabe-Hesketh &
Skrondal, 2012). The regression assumptions of normality
and linearity were not violated, as determined by bivari-
ate scatterplots, residual plots, and the assessment of
univariate skewness and kurtosis indexes.
 1488

TABLE 3 Results of hierarchical linear modeling analyses.

Promotive-
Preventative-oriented PO oriented PO Innovative work behavior
Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model Model
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Intercept 3.14*** 3.14*** 3.14*** 3.11*** 4.75*** 4.84*** 4.89*** 4.84*** 4.42*** 4.44*** 4.56*** 4.58*** 4.59*** 4.53***
Level 1
Gender
.10
.10
.10
.10
.10
.09
.09
.09
.09
.11
.06
.04
.03
.03
Education
.06
.06
.06
.05 .02
.01
.01
.01 .05 .04 .03 .01 .01 .02
Tenure
.00
.00
.00
.00 .02*** .02*** .01** .01** .01 .01 .00 .00
.00 .00
Proactive personality
.07
.07
.07
.07 .43*** .43*** .43*** .43*** .59*** .57*** .40*** .40*** .40*** .40***
Preventative PO
.14*
.06
.07
.06
.06
Promotive PO .42*** .42*** .43*** .43***
Level 2
Opening behavior .17 .16 .18 .65*** .60*** .64*** .65*** .58*** .62***
Closing behavior .03 .04 .43*** .45*** .57*** .59***
Ambidextrous leadership .12 0.22*** .23***
Variance (τ) Between- 1.49 1.46 1.46 1.45 .94 .47 .34 .31 .95 .96 .98 .52 .30 .27
group
Variance (σ2) Within- .68 .68 .68 .68 .46 .46 .46 .46 .61 .60 .52 .52 .52 .52
group
Level 1 R .01 .01 .01 .01 .22 .22 .22 .22 .27 .29 .38 .38 .38 .38
Level 2 R
.00 .01 .01 .02
.05 .46 .60 .64
.10
.10
.13 .39 .64 .68
Note: For Level 1, N = 317, for Level 2, N = 109, PO = Psychological Ownership.
*p < .05, two-tailed.
**p < .01, two-tailed.
***p < .001, two-tailed.
THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP

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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
RESULTS
Table 2 presents the individual- and unit-level means,
standard deviations, minimum-maximum values, and
correlations, among all the variables examined. After
checking for variance inflation factors no issues of multi-
collinearity were found.
The results from HLM analyses are reported in Table 3.
Level 1 and Level 2 predictors were group- and grand-
mean centered, respectively. These centering methods
are often recommended, as they enable the results from
hierarchical linear models to be more interpretable. We
first ran an unconditional model to ensure that there was
significance between-unit variability in employee innova-
tive work behavior. The findings reveal significance
between-unit variability (x = 74.31, p < .01, ICC[1]
= 0.5057), which justified HLM as an appropriate analytic
approach. Using Bryk and Raudenbush’s (1992) explained
variance measures we found that Level 1 explained vari-
ance is 38% whereas Level 2 explained variance is 68%7
(Model 14).
As can be seen in Table 3 (Models 13 and 7), the main
effects of opening and closing behaviors on innovative
work behavior and promotive ownership, respectively,
are positive and significant, whereas no significant main
effect of opening and closing behaviors on preventive
ownership is found in Model 3.
Hypothesis 1 proposed that ambidextrous leadership
affects employee innovative work behavior such that
innovative work behavior is highest when both opening
and closing behaviors are high. Our results support this
hypothesis. The interaction term of opening and closing
behavior is positive and significant (model 14, β = .23,
p < .001). To further facilitate the interpretation of the
interaction effect, we plotted the opening behavior–
innovative work behavior graph at +
2 SD of closing
behavior (Figure 2). Figure 2 and significance tests of the
F I G U R E 2 Opening and closing behaviors on employee’s
innovative work behavior.
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1489
slopes with Preacher’s et al. (2006) multilevel modeling
tools (accessible online, http://quantpsy.org/interact/
hlm2.htm) show that the effect of opening behavior is
significantly increasing at high levels of closing behaviors
(p = .000), with the interaction effect being highest when
both opening and closing behaviors are high.
Hypothesis 2 (a and b) proposed that ambidextrous
leadership is positively related to promotive- and nega-
tively related to preventive-psychological ownership. As
shown in Table 3 (model 8), the interaction between
opening and closing behaviors is positively related to pro-
motive ownership (β = .22, p < .001), whereas no statisti-
cally significant effect is found on preventive ownership.
Therefore, Hypothesis 2 is partially confirmed. To under-
stand the nature of this interaction we plotted the open-
ing behavior-promotive ownership graph at +
2 SD of
closing behavior (Figure 3). Figure 3 and significance tests
of the slopes (p = .00 and p = .05 for high and low
closing behavior respectively) indicate that the interaction
is highest when both opening and closing behaviors
are high.
Hypothesis 3 (a and b) posited that promotive- and
preventive-psychological ownership are positively and
negatively related to innovative work behavior respec-
tively. As reported in Model 11 of Table 3, promotive
ownership is significantly and positively related to innova-
tive work behavior (β = .42, p < .001), whereas the effect
of preventive ownership is insignificant. Therefore,
Hypothesis 3 is partially confirmed.
Given that the results of our hypotheses are pointing
to specific mediation effects, we further test these effects
with leadership behaviors (Level 2) hypothesized to affect
employee innovative work behavior (Level 1) indirectly
via promotive psychological ownership (Level 1). Follow-
ing recommendations by Zhang et al. (2009) we tested
our 2-1-1 multilevel mediation models, incorporating
both the within- and between-group effects, using the
F I G U R E 3 Opening and closing behaviors on employee’s
promotion-oriented psychological ownership.

1490
TABLE 4 Indirect effects of ambidextrous leadership on employee innovative work behavior.
Indirect effects
Opening behavior ! promotive-oriented PO ! Innovative
Work Behavior
Closing behavior ! promotive-oriented PO ! Innovative
Work Behavior
Ambidextrous leadership ! promotive-oriented
PO ! Innovative Work Behavior
Abbreviation: PO, Psychological Ownership.
so-called CWC analysis—that is to say, centered within
context with the reintroduction of the subtracted means
at Level-2 (Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998). CWC(M) analysis
holds an undisputable advantage over grand-mean cen-
tering since the first method produces unique estimates
for the within-and between-unit coefficients of the medi-
ator while grand-mean centering combines them into a
single estimate, constituting an undesirable limitation,
which can undoubtedly lead to confound estimations of
the mediator’s impact on the outcome variable (Zhang
et al., 2009).
In this study, Level 2 represents the unit level, and
Level 1 represents the individual level. Since our indepen-
dent variables solely at the Level 2 in our 2–1-1model,
they account only for between-unit variation in the medi-
ator and that is why our interest is focused on the
between-unit mediating effect (i.e., the extent to which
unit–level perceptions of ambidextrous leadership create
variation across units in the innovative work behavior of
individual employees, through their effect on promotive
psychological ownership).
We employed the Hayes’ (2008) PROCESS macro for
SPSS in order to execute a bootstrapping procedure to
perform these tests. The indirect effects of leadership
behaviors are positive and significant at p = .000,
suggesting the effects of opening behavior, closing
behavior and ambidextrous leadership to be partially
mediated by promotive ownership. Therefore, Hypoth-
esis 4 is partially confirmed, as only promotive
ownership plays a mediating role in the ambidextrous
leadership–innovative work behavior relationship.
Details of the multilevel mediation analyses are dis-
played in Table 4.
Concerning the control variables, in line with prior
research (Suseno et al., 2020) we found a positive and
significant effect of employee proactive personality on inno-
vative behavior (model 9, β = .59, p < .001) whereas the
effects of education, gender, and tenure are not significant.
DISCUSSION
In this study, we adopted the lens of the ambidextrous
theorization of leadership for innovation (Rosing
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THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
B SE P 95% CI Model-2LL
0.48 0.07 0.00 0.34–0.62 1660.63
0.43 0.09 0.00 0.26–0.61 1689.17
0.06 0.01 0.00 0.04–0.08 1613.02
et al., 2011) and examined the relationship between
ambidextrous leadership, that is, the interaction between
opening and closing behaviors, and innovative work
behavior in the public sector, whereas also investigating
the mediating role of psychological ownership on this
relationship. Our results show that ambidextrous leader-
ship has a positive effect on public servants’ innovative
behavior. In line with prior contentions, opening and clos-
ing behaviors have positive main effects as well, suggest-
ing that encouraging exploration and exploitation
independently may also improve innovative work behav-
ior (Backhaus & Vogel, 2022; Bos-Nehles et al., 2017;
Zacher & Wilden, 2014). Yet, as our interaction effect high-
lights, the highest level of employees’ innovation appears
when both opening and closing behaviors are high, with
all other combinations (low opening–high closing, high
opening–low closing, low opening–low closing) providing
inferior outcomes. In addition, ambidextrous leadership
relates positively to promotive psychological ownership,
which in turn relates positively to innovative work behav-
ior. These results support the mediating effect of promo-
tive ownership on the ambidextrous leadership–innovative
behavior relationship. In other words, they indicate
that leader ambidexterity can motivate employees to intro-
duce, promote and implement new and novel ideas in the
workplace both directly and via the enhancement of
employees’ promotive-oriented feelings of psychological
ownership with the unit.
Theoretical implications
Our study has important theoretical implications. First, by
theorizing and empirically validating the role of ambidex-
trous leadership on public servants’ innovative behavior
we add to the single-digit studies in the public manage-
ment literature that attempt to understand how leadership
affects innovative behavior examining mainly the role of
single leadership styles (e.g., Günzel-Jensen et al., 2017;
Hansen & Pihl-Thingvad, 2019; Miao et al., 2018). Yet, an
emerging research stream on public leadership calls for a
better understanding of leadership styles that combine
opposing but complementary behaviors to account for the
complex and controversial environment that characterizes

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
many public organizations (Backhaus et al., 2022; Crosby &
Bryson, 2018; Trong Tuan, 2017). Extending this line of rea-
soning, our study highlights for the first to our knowledge
time, the beneficial role of combined high opening and
high closing behaviors of public leaders in reinforcing their
subordinates’ innovative behavior. In doing so, it also con-
tributes to innovation research that emphasizes the role of
novel and unconventional leadership styles for innovation
(Rosing et al., 2011; Zacher & Wilden, 2014) helping to
expand it in the context of public sector organizations.
Second, a significant theoretical insight of this study is
the uncovering of the psychological pathway through
which ambidextrous leadership enhances public servants’
innovative behavior. Our finding concerning the mediat-
ing role of promotive psychological ownership extends
the content of other emerging studies that are starting to
investigate the mechanisms through which leadership is
associated with advantageous work behaviors in public
sector settings (Miao et al., 2018). As such, it adds to our
understanding of how leadership should be shaped in
order to elevate employees’ psychological ownership feel-
ings that would spark their innovative behavior.
Specifically, the positive relationship between ambi-
dextrous leadership and promotive ownership sheds light
on the psychological outcomes that ambidextrous leader-
ship in the public sector can contribute to, helping to
expand the allegations of the ambidextrous leadership
theory for innovation to incorporate psychological
aspects. It suggests that public leaders who can flexibly
switch between opening and closing behaviors may
enable employees to enhance their position within the
work unit, intensify their control and autonomy percep-
tions (Pierce et al., 2004), identify with the unit’s goals
and work towards their achievement (Whitener, 2001),
thus leading public servants to experience more owner-
ship since they feel that they have an immediate impact
on units’ outputs (Den Hartog & Belschak, 2012). In addi-
tion, the positive relationship between promotive owner-
ship and innovative behavior extends our understanding
of the influential power of psychological characteristics
on individual innovation in the public sector (Yuan &
Woodman, 2010). This is a new finding in the public man-
agement literature that helps us delve into the microcosm
of innovative behavior. It suggests that promotive owner-
ship may counterbalance the lack of external incentives
in the public sector (Damanpour & Schneider, 2009), pro-
viding employees with an internal incentive for innova-
tion so as to safeguard and promote the prosperity of
their target of ownership. Thus, our finding contributes to
prior arguments concerning the importance of psycho-
logical ownership in public sector organizations
(Hassan, 2015) revealing its crucial role in public sector
innovation. On a broader level, it adds also to preliminary
research suggesting that the promotional aspects of psy-
chological ownership may have more beneficial effects
than its preventive aspects (Dawkins et al., 2017) and
rather confirm the distinct nature of the latter (expressed
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1491
as territoriality), reinforcing the relevant scientific argu-
ments (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Brown et al., 2014; Dirks
et al., 1996; Pierce et al., 2001).
Taken together, our results contribute to the emerging
research stream in the public management literature that
examines civil servants’ innovative work behavior (Fernandez &
Moldogaziev, 2013; Günzel-Jensen et al., 2017; Hansen & Pihl-
Thingvad, 2019; Miao et al., 2018; Suseno et al., 2020). Although
some scholars argue that leadership and management prac-
tices that encourage innovative endeavors emerge regardless
of the context- and organizational size-effects (Bommer &
Jalajas, 2002), it is misleading to think of public sector organiza-
tions as equivalent to private ones (Damanpour, 1991). Our
study provides a composite framework for understanding
employees’ innovative behavior in public sector organizations,
highlighting the role of leaders’ ambidexterity for better out-
comes and expanding our understanding of how such ambi-
dexterity may further enhance public servants’ innovative
actions through psychological ownership. Such a framework is
particularly important for Greece, which is in the process of
undergoing a major digital transformation8 under the commit-
ments stemming from the signing of the Public Sector Innova-
tion Declaration in 2019, in the context of the OECD Council
meeting.
From a methodological point of view, this study adds
to the scant quantitative research around public sector
innovation, which has been monopolized by qualitative
approaches, mainly across Anglo-Saxon governance sys-
tems (De Vries et al., 2016), by drawing on multilevel data
from municipal authorities of the biggest cities of Greece.
Implications for practitioners and policy
makers
Our findings have also important practical implications.
First, the demonstration of ambidexterity qualities by
leaders and the ability to promote innovation could be
viewed as prerequisites for promotion processes in
the administrative hierarchy (Fernandez & Wise, 2010).
Traditionally, promotions in the public sector have
been inextricably linked to formal qualifications and
seniority. However, they often fail to recognize that one
of public managers’ additional duties is to promote their
employees’ innovative potential (Liu & Dong, 2012).
Supervisors ought to be “supporters”, “idea champions”
and “advocates” (Fernandez & Rainey, 2006; Osborne &
Brown, 2011) in order to address inner, outer, and political
challenges (Borins, 2000) and to propel innovation. In this
direction policy intervention may be necessary. An impor-
tant role for policy makers would be to formulate policies
that could facilitate public sector managers to lead inno-
vation. Such policies could foster education, training, and
skills development with an emphasis on ambidexterity for
the purpose of strengthening those behaviors that sup-
port and promote innovation in all aspects of administra-
tive action. Educational institutions have already begun

1492
to offer special training programs through which man-
agers could improve their leadership skills for innovation
(e.g., a Certificate in Innovative Leadership; David Eccles
School of Business, 2018).
Also, based on our results improving employees’ pro-
motive psychological ownership is crucial to enhance
their innovative behavior. Managers in public organiza-
tions should therefore employ relational approaches that
may lead to the development of promotive ownership
feelings with the workplace. Providing employees with
greater autonomy in thinking and acting and participa-
tion opportunities is important but is not enough. Leaders
should also provide guidance toward goal achievement
and facilitate employees to take corrective actions when
necessary. This may intensify employees’ perceived con-
trol and power over job procedures whereas also reduc-
ing uncertainty and enabling the alignment of their goals
with those of their work unit, thus enhancing their owner-
ship feelings with the workplace (Zhang et al., 2021),
which would spark individual innovation.
Limitations and directions for future research
Our study is not without limitations. First, its key limitation
arises from the supervisor-reported ratings of innovative
behavior instead of the use of more objective indicators. In
the future, we urge researchers to utilize objective data
(e.g., how many of the proposed innovative ideas of
employees are implemented and registered as new ser-
vices to citizens) in parallel with supervisor ratings to better
capture the effects of our proposed antecedents. Second,
the cross-sectional nature of our dataset does not permit
any inference of cause-and-effect relationships. Scholars
can thus adopt a longitudinal research design that will
allow them to study the employees’ innovative behavior
over time. Third, data collection was carried out in a single
country, and thus, support from other national contexts
will be needed in order to enhance the generalizability of
our findings. Finally, to maintain focus we looked at the
influence of specific psychological and contextual variables
on employees’ innovative behavior, drifting apart from any
established relationships in the literature. However, it may
be that other individual and organizational level factors
may have an effect, or a combinative approach may offer
beneficial insights. We urge future researchers to follow
this direction and imbue this conceptual/existing model
with other Level 1 and Level 2 variables.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge the valuable input pro-
vided by Prof. D. Bourantas in the early stages of the
research.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This research is co-financed by Greece and the European
Union (European Social Fund-ESF) through the Operational
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THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
Programme «Human Resource Development, Education
and Lifelong Learning» in the context of the project
“Strengthening Human Resources Research Potential via
Doctorate Research – 2nd Cycle” (MIS-50000432), imple-
mented by the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY).
ENDNOTES
1
Regulatory focus theory discerns between promotion and prevention
focus and argues that these two regulatory foci influence goals delivery
and human behavior. A promotion focus incites people to be interested
in achieving positive outcomes, enabling advancement and accomplish-
ment whereas a prevention focus directs people towards the absence of
negative outcomes and promotes safety (Higgins, 1998).
2
Such as the one of Greece.
3
Local Government in Greece has two levels. Municipalities constitute
self-governing autonomous geographical units that comprise the first
level of local government. For the administration of local affairs, local
authorities have a presumption of competence. Law specifies the
scope and categories of municipal issues, as well as their distribution
to each level. The law may also delegate to local authorities the exer-
cise of powers that are the responsibility of the state, with the transfer
of the corresponding resources.
4
Code of Status of Municipal and Community officials (Law 3584/2007)
as well the Single Mobility Scheme (Law 4440/2016).
5
Subordinates would have to meet the criterion of working under the
supervision of the head of department for at least three years and of
not having similar areas of responsibilities if possible.
6
This corresponds to approximately 32% of the total number of
employees in all units, ranging from 8% to 100% of employees per unit.
7
These measures give intuitively easy measures of explained variance
based on the logic of partitioning unexplained variance in two-level
models, which is a key benefit. They may, however, result in negative
values, which can be troublesome. This happens in our case in models
10 and 11. In other words, the addition of predictors raises the propor-
tion of unexplained variance due to the fact that the variance across
groups is a function of both Level 1 and Level 2 variances (LaHuis
et al., 2014).
8
The digital transformation is Greece is guided by the corresponding
Digital Transformation Bible. The Digital Transformation Bible 2020–
2025, a product of consultation between institutions and individuals
and the Ministry of Digital Government, is a summary-declaration of
the necessary interventions in the technological infrastructure of the
state, in the digital service of the citizen and the entrepreneur, in the
modernization of the public administration, in the education and train-
ing of the population in digital skills, and in the way, the country uti-
lizes digital technology in all sectors of the economy.
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AUT H OR BI OGR A PH IES
Elisavet Kousina is a PhD candidate at the Department
of Management Science and Technology of the Athens
University of Economics and Business. Her research
interests include innovation in the public sector, leader-
ship, and organizational behavior. As a practitioner, she
is employed at the General Secretariat for Human
Resources of Public Sector-Hellenic Ministry of Interior.
Email: elkousina@aueb.gr
Irini Voudouris is a Professor of Strategy and Entre-
preneurship at the Athens University of Economics
and Business. She holds a PhD from Université Paris
X. She has published research in leading academic
journals such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
Global Strategy Journal, Research Policy, Journal of
World Business, Journal of Business Ethics, British Jour-
nal of Management. She has contributed to several
national and European research programs, acting as a
director in many of them.
Email: ivoudour@aueb.gr
How to cite this article: Kousina, Elisavet, and
Irini Voudouris. 2023. “The Ambidextrous
Leadership-Innovative Work Behavior Relationship
in the Public Sector: The Mediating Role of
Psychological Ownership.” Public Administration
Review 83(6): 1478–95. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.
13650