Empowered to Innovate: How Leadership and Customer Knowledge Shape Competitive Advantage in SMEs

Abstract

Purpose: The present study examines the potential connections between empowered leadership, customer knowledge management, ambidextrous innovation, and competitive advantage. Customer knowledge management and empowered leadership play important mediating roles in such associations in SMEs, where human, technological and financial resources are limited.

Design/methodology/approach: Using a convenient random sampling technique, a sample of 290 professionals in Pakistan's manufacturing sector was selected and data were collected via a structured questionnaire. The subsequent analysis employed structural equation modelling (SEM) with Analysis of Moment Structure (AMOS).

Findings: The study's findings enhance the existing body of knowledge with empirical evidence that customer knowledge management acts as a mediator in the connection between empowered leadership and ambidextrous innovation. Further, ambidextrous innovation mediates the relationship between customer knowledge management and competitive advantage.

Originality/value: This study fills existing gaps in present-day research by offering a nuanced perspective on how empowered leadership enrich the ambidextrous innovation via customer knowledge management. It also explore the ambidextrous innovation as a mediator between customer knowledge management and competitive advantage in Pakistan's manufacturing sector.

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