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We develop a new look on leadership for innovation and propose that effective leaders alternate between a broad range of behaviors and tune their approach to the changing demands of innovation. This is referred to as ambidextrous leadership. As the importance of different leader behaviors varies not only across time but also across contexts, ambidextrous leadership takes different shapes depending on contextual conditions. We discuss culture as an important contextual condition that holds implications for effective ambidextrous leadership. Cultures have different strengths and weaknesses for innovation that can be leveraged or compensated. We use the cultural characteristics identified by the GLOBE project to discuss how leaders can take culture into account when leading for innovation.

Bryan Adkins is the president of Denison Consulting. His primary expertise is in the area of organizational culture and leadership. He is an experienced consultant and coach working with leaders and teams as they guide their organizations through transitions. Bryan has led a number of large-scale culture change projects and provides consulting services designed to leverage the data collected through the use of the Denison model and associated diagnostics. Bryan holds a master's degree in business from Penn State University and his doctorate in human and organizational studies from The George Washington University.

Adapting to, creating, and managing change has become an unavoidable and even central part in today's organizations (Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007). At the external level, organizations are constantly seeking opportunities to identify and anticipate clients' needs, switch or expand into new markets, and establish or rearrange strategic alliances. At the internal level, they struggle with recruiting, retaining, and developing a healthy base of best talent, and reorganizing the structure of labor forces to match the organization's growing needs. The internal and external dynamics frequently intertwine, complicating the situations and creating competing demands; therefore, leaders are forced to understand, manage, and react quickly, innovatively, and effectively. Importantly, in order to grow business organically and sustainably, leaders are pressed to constantly identify and develop new products, processes, structures, and solutions. As revealed by Gonin, Napiersky, and Thorsell in their chapter of this volume, innovation has turned out to be one of the biggest challenges in times of crisis. All these challenges become more complex when organizational changes and innovations are conducted across national cultures. This has been illuminated by the three chapters in this volume, respectively focusing on: discussing issues in managing cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), introducing useful tools to assist change initiatives, and tackling the innate paradoxes in engaging in innovative activities across cultures.

Entrepreneurship is shaped by a male norm, which has been widely demonstrated in qualitative studies. The authors strive to complement these methods by a quantitative approach. First, gender role stereotypes were measured in entrepreneurship. Second, the explicit notions of participants were captured when they described entrepreneurs. Therefore, this paper aims to revisit gender role stereotypes among young adults.

To measure stereotyping, participants were asked to describe entrepreneurs in general and either women or men in general. The Schein Descriptive Index (SDI) for characterization was used. Following the procedures of Schein (1975), intra-class-correlation was calculated as a measure of congruence. This approach was complemented by controlling explicit notions, i.e. the image that participants had when describing entrepreneurs.

The images of men and entrepreneurs show a high and significant congruence (r = 0.803), mostly in those adjectives that are untypical for men and entrepreneurs. The congruence of women and entrepreneurs was low (r = 0.152) and insignificant. Contrary to the participants’ beliefs, their explicit notions did not have any effect on measures of congruence. However, young adults who knew business owners in their surroundings rated the congruence of women and entrepreneurs significantly higher (r = 0.272) than average.

This study is unique in combining “implicit” stereotypes and explicit notions. It demonstrates that gender stereotypes in entrepreneurship are powerful. The image of the entrepreneur remains male, independent of explicit notions. As young adults who knew business owners in their surroundings rated the congruence of women and entrepreneurs higher, this could be a starting point for education programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between foreign ownership and perceived job insecurity. It takes into account that the link can depend on circumstances and type of firm.

The analysis is based on linked employer-employee data from Germany. The data enable us to account for both employee characteristics and firm characteristics. Most importantly, they allow a detailed analysis of moderating influences.

The estimates show that there tends to be a positive link between foreign owners and perceived job insecurity. The link is specifically strong for foreign-owned firms with high personnel turnover or poor employment growth. It is also stronger if the foreign-owned firm providing managerial profit sharing. However, the link tends to be negative for foreign-owned firms with product innovations.

Econometric examinations on the link between foreign ownership and perceived job insecurity are scarce. The study contributes to the literature by using linked employer-employee data and provides a detailed analysis of interaction effects.

Accumulating evidence suggests that individualism provides an atmosphere conducive to creative idea generation. However, research in both cross-cultural and social psychology suggests that individualism may reflect either independence or competition; a distinction that has been overlooked in research on group creativity. In this chapter, we highlight the distinction between these two constructs and develop a series of testable propositions that help distinguish their unique effects on the creative process. In doing so, we uncover several theoretical insights, including the possibility that independence and competition (a) are theoretically and empirically distinct, (b) have differential effects on idea generation, (c) have similar effects on idea selection but through different mechanisms, and (d) may interact to stimulate group creativity. We conclude by suggesting methodological approaches to disentangling these constructs in future research.