The Role of Creative Leadership to Improve Organizational Performance Through Organizational Ambidexterity in Creative-Based SMEs

In contrast to larger organizations, where they have structural separation, small organizations, such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), have no structural separation. Thus, they often face difficulties in deciding how to balance the organization's exploitative and explorative activities in maintaining their business in a contemporary fast-changing and uncertain business environment. This article investigates the role of creative leadership on organizational ambidexterity (OA) to improve SMEs’ performance. The article uses structural equation modeling using partial least square to investigate the relationship between variables with a quantitative explanatory research approach. The data were collected from 70 SMEs in Indonesia in 2022. The findings of this article show that in the context of SMEs, the variables of market and environmental uncertainty are not driving factors on the OA, on the contrary, the variable of technological uncertainty is significant. Moreover, it is also found that creative leadership supports the variables of environmental uncertainty, but weakens technology adoption in a significant way, while creative leadership supports the variables of market uncertainty significantly. The results show that creative leadership plays a significant role in OA. It also shows that creative leadership supports in a significant way between OA and organizational performance.