Leading Knowledge Exploration and Exploitation in Schools: The Moderating Role of Teachers’ Open Innovation Mindset

Aim: The purpose of this paper is to identify teacher-level latent profiles of open innovation mindset and explore how these profiles moderate the effects of leader-member exchange on their exploitation and exploration activities. We also aim to investigate the indirect effects of principal transformational leadership on exploration activities via leader-member exchange. Research Design: Using a sample of 3,075 teachers working in 261 schools from 12 provinces across Türkiye, this study, first, employed a moderation analysis with latent profiles variables and, second, conduct a two-level structural equation model. Findings: Latent profile analysis produced three types of teacher mindset profiles: growth, average, and fixed. Findings indicate the quality of the dyadic exchange with the school principal did not influence engagement in exploitation activities of teachers with a growth mindset, whereas it contributed to the exploration activities of those teachers. Our results showed that when teachers perceived that their principal exhibited a higher level of transformational leadership behavior, they were more likely to have a higher leader-member exchange, which in turn increased the teachers’ exploration behavior. Implications: This study highlights both exploitative and explorative activities are facilitated by high-quality work-related social processes within the school, and we need to recognize affective and relational contexts in the schools, as they are primarily social institutions.