The study explores how top management teams’ shared leadership is related to organizational ambidexterity in public-sector organizations, theoretically and empirically considering how this relationship is contingent on the management control system. Using a sample of 85 Swedish municipal housing corporations, we find that shared leadership has a positive relationship with organizational ambidexterity in public-sector organizations. Moreover, increasing use of new public management control systems, based on combined reward and performance controls, positively moderates this relationship. The study also finds that traditional public management control systems, based on combined planning and administrative controls, do not moderate the relationship between top management teams’ shared leadership and organizational ambidexterity. Accordingly, this article contributes to the public and strategic management literature, as well as to managerial practice. Points for practitioners The article suggests that sharing leadership within top management teams can result in a balanced resource allocation in municipal corporations. To be more effective in achieving this balance, public sector managers might consider emphasizing new public management-inspired management control systems and de-emphasizing those of a more traditional type.
Centers of Gravity: The Effect of Stable Shared Leadership in Top Management Teams on Firm Growth and Industry Evolution