Enhancing the effect of frontline public employees’ individual ambidexterity on customer value co-creation

Abstract

Purpose When public employees demonstrate ambidexterity in serving customers, through efficiently providing customers with current public services as well as exploring ways to create more, new public service solutions for customers, they may activate customers’ co-creating value with the public organization. The purpose of this research is to examine the role of public employees’ individual ambidexterity in promoting customer value co-creation. This research also seeks to investigate the levers behind individual ambidexterity, including ambidextrous leadership as an antecedent and public service motivation (PSM) as an enhancer for the leadership effect. Design/methodology/approach Public employees from public legal service agencies and customer companies they had served have been invited to participate and provide data for this research. The data collated have been analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling approach. Findings Ambidextrous leadership was positively associated with frontline public employees’ individual ambidexterity. This positive association was enhanced by PSM among frontline public employees. In turn, frontline public employees’ individual ambidexterity demonstrated a positive link with customer value co-creation through the mediation mechanisms of customer–employee identification and customer–organization identification. Originality/value This research extends and marks the convergence between ambidexterity and customer value co-creation research streams.

The microfoundations of organizational ambidexterity: A systematic review of individual ambidexterity through a multilevel framework

“…With regard to managers, some papers analyze top or senior managers (Li et al, 2015;, and other papers focus on middle managers (e.g., Bonesso et al, 2014;Burgess et al, 2015;Keller & Weibler, 2015;Taylor & Helfat, 2009). Regarding other workers, different types of employees have also been analyzed, for example, knowledge workers (Lee & Lee, 2016), university researchers (Y. C. Chang et al, 2016), surgeons (Schultz et al, 2013), medical staff (Salas Vallina et al, 2019), nurses (Yu et al, 2018), salespeople (Agnihotri et al, 2017;Van der Borgh et al, 2017), frontline employees (Faia & Vieira, 2017;Patterson et al, 2014), or legal service consultants (Luu et al, 2018), among others.…”

The Antecedents and Consequences of Value Co-Creation Behaviors in a Hotel Setting: A Two-Country Study

“…Customer-company identification (CCID) is "the primary psychological substrate for the kind of deep, committed, and meaningful relationships that marketers are increasingly seeking to build with their customers" (Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003, p. 76). Several theoretical considerations support the role of identity as a key motivation for customer participation in service interactions (Luu, Rowley, & Dinh, 2018). From a social identity perspective, when customers identify with a service provider, they are more likely to engage in in-role behaviors, such as increasing the repurchase intention, being willing to pay premium, and making positive service evaluations (Fisher et al, 2010).…”

Connecting big data management capabilities with employee ambidexterity in Chinese multinational enterprises through the mediation of big data value creation at the employee level

“…The knowledge-based view (KBV) highlights the role of the individual as the prime driver in the creation of organisational knowledge (Nonaka, Byosiere, Bourucki, & Konno, 1994) and conceptualises the existence of a firm as an institution that integrates knowledge that resides within and across individuals (Grant, 1996). Employee-level outcomes of big data value creation and big data capabilities are missing links in the existing literature (Trong, Chris, & Cong, 2018). Therefore, in this study, we specifically focus on individual employees dealing with user-generated big data in international firms.…”