When innovation meets leadership: Exploring the role of responsible leadership in enhancing the impact of technological innovation on service performance

Abstract

Little is known about the mediators, moderators, and consequences of technological innovation in the hospitality literature that would help the hotel to amplify its competitiveness. Therefore, using the resource-based view as the theoretical focus, our paper develops and tests a moderated mediation model that examines individual ambidexterity as a mediator between technological innovation (TIN) and service performance, responsible leadership (RL) as a moderator of the impact of TIN on individual ambidexterity, and RL as a moderator of the indirect impact of TIN on service performance via individual ambidexterity. Data gathered from hotel employees in China were used to assess said associations via the partial least squares structural equation modeling. As hypothesized, individual ambidexterity functions as the underlying mechanism relating TIN to service performance. RL moderates the positive impact of TIN on individual ambidexterity. More importantly, RL strengthens the indirect positive influence of TIN on service performance via individual ambidexterity.