Ambidextrous Leadership and Innovation Capabilities Correlation: The Moderating Role of Financial Literacy in Malaysian Manufacturing SMEs

There is many significant empirical research which highlighted on the factors that might have impact on innovation capabilities. This conceptual paper aims to examine the relationship between ambidextrous leadership and innovation capabilities. The research also explored the moderation role of financial literacy between ambidextrous leadership and innovation capabilities. Present research provides a comprehensive discussion on how ambidextrous leadership impact innovation capabilities. This independent variable is important in influencing firm performance of Malaysian Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs). This research pointed out the key value of ambidextrous leadership on innovation capabilities for the consideration of the owner/managers. Furthermore, Ambidextrous Leadership theory was used in the present research to investigate the impact of ambidextrous leadership on innovation capabilities. While Resource-Based View (RBV) theory was used in this research to examine the moderation impact of financial literacy between ambidextrous leadership and innovation capabilities. There are many implications of the research conceptual framework for theory and practices are discussed.