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Top management teams are crucial in managing the ambidexterity paradox. This endeavour, however, generates cognitive conflicts. Surprisingly, this particular topic has received little attention within the ambidexterity literature. We aim to address this lacuna and, in doing so, extend the paradox literature and the emerging socio-cognitive perspective on ambidexterity. In our hypothesized mediation model, top management teams embrace the exploration-exploitation paradox through reflexivity, then overcome this paradox through paradoxical cognitive processing – the capacity to cognitively differentiate and integrate exploration and exploitation – which finally fosters ambidexterity. We test and find support for our hypotheses using a sample of 335 Dutch and German small and medium enterprises. We end with a discussion on how socio-cognitive factors influence the management of the ambidexterity paradox. In doing so, we refine scholarly understanding of motivating and enabling factors that allow top management teams to deal with the paradoxical tensions surrounding ambidexterity.

Although upper echelons scholars have drawn from the demographic faultlines concept to study top management team (TMT) subgroup dynamics, the effects of TMT faultlines on competitive behavior and performance outcomes have not been well documented. To gain greater insight, we develop a model that connects TMT faultlines, CEO-TMT power disparity, competitive behavior, and firm performance. We hypothesize that TMT faultlines and CEO-TMT power disparity jointly determine a firm's competitive aggressiveness and simplicity, and these two competitive behaviors influence firm performance. Using a sample of 295 U.S. firms in 146 industries from 2000 to 2013, our findings indicate that (a) TMTs with strong faultlines take fewer and simpler competitive actions, and CEO-TMT power disparity further worsens the negative effect on the volume of competitive actions, and (b) fewer and simpler competitive actions benefit short-term firm performance; however, they hurt the long-term firm performance trend. These findings contribute to the upper echelons and competitive dynamics research and suggest important managerial implications.

PurposeWhile top management teams (TMTs) play an important role in shaping firms' strategic choices and performance outcomes, studies on green innovation have rarely considered the influence of the TMT demographics of firms and their suppliers. Drawing upon upper echelon theory, this study investigates the impact of buyer–supplier TMT misalignment on green innovation performance, along with potential moderators of this effect.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical setting is Chinese-listed manufacturing firms that are present in both the Chinese Research Data Services Platform (CNRDS) database and the China Stock Market and Accounting Research (CSMAR) database. The study employs panel data regression methods on a dyadic dataset of 530 paired buyer–supplier firm-year observations over the period 2008–2019.FindingsBuyer–supplier TMT misalignment in terms of functional background and educational level is negatively associated with buyer green innovation performance. This negative effect can, however, be mitigated by TMT tenure and long-term incentives in buyer firms.Originality/valueBy introducing the notion of TMT background misalignment to the supply chain, this study advances the understanding of relational TMT demographics in predicting organizational performance and extends upper echelon theory.