How digital leadership drives ambidextrous innovation: evidence from Chinese digital startups

Purpose This study aims to examine the mechanisms by which digital leadership influences organizational ambidextrous innovation, specifically investigating the mediating role of knowledge hiding behaviors in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on social exchange theory, this research analyzes survey data from 277 Chinese digital startups to test the proposed relationships between digital leadership, knowledge hiding and ambidextrous innovation. Findings The findings reveal three key insights: digital leadership simultaneously enhances both exploitative and exploratory innovation, resolving previous contradictory findings; knowledge hiding serves as a critical mediating mechanism, with digital leadership reducing harmful concealment behaviors through social exchange processes; and most notably, the findings challenge conventional wisdom by demonstrating that rationalized hiding positively affects innovation, while deceptive hiding (evasive and playing dumb) harms it. Originality/value This study makes three pioneering contributions: empirical demonstration that digital leadership drives ambidextrous innovation in emerging markets; novel identification of knowledge hiding as a mediating mechanism, extending social exchange theory to digital contexts; and paradigm-shifting finding that not all knowledge hiding harms innovation – rationalized hiding can enhance it.