Principals between exploitation and exploration: Results of a nationwide study on ambidexterity of school leaders

Abstract

Both organizational and management research suggest that schools and their leaders need to be ambidextrous to secure prosperity and long-term survival in dynamic environments characterized by competition and innovation. In this context, ambidexterity refers to the ability to simultaneously pursue exploitation and exploration and thus to deliver efficiency, control and incremental improvements while embracing flexibility, autonomy and discontinuous innovation. Using a unique, randomized and representative data set of N ¼ 405 principals, we present findings on principals' exploitation and exploration. The results indicate: (a) that principals engage far more often in exploitative than in explorative activities; (b) that exploitative activities in schools are executed at the expense of explorative activities; and (c) that explorative and ambidextrous activities of principals are positively associated with the (perceived) competition between schools. The study brings a novel perspective to educational research and demonstrates that applying the concept of ambidexterity has the potential to further our understanding of effective educational leadership and management.

Full text

Article
Principals between exploitation
and exploration: Results of a
nationwide study on
ambidexterity of school leaders
Marcus Pietsch , Pierre Tulowitzki
and Colin Cramer
Abstract
Both organizational and management research suggest that schools and their leaders need to be
ambidextrous to secure prosperity and long-term survival in dynamic environments characterized
by competition and innovation. In this context, ambidexterity refers to the ability to simultaneously
pursue exploitation and exploration and thus to deliver efficiency, control and incremental
improvements while embracing flexibility, autonomy and discontinuous innovation. Using a unique,
randomized and representative data set of N¼405 principals, we present findings on principals’
exploitation and exploration. The results indicate: (a) that principals engage far more often in
exploitative than in explorative activities; (b) that exploitative activities in schools are executed at
the expense of explorative activities; and (c) that explorative and ambidextrous activities of
principals are positively associated with the (perceived) competition between schools. The study
brings a novel perspective to educational research and demonstrates that applying the concept of
ambidexterity has the potential to further our understanding of effective educational leadership
and management.
Keywords
Ambidexterity, exploitation, exploration, principal, leadership, innovation, school competition,
change
Introduction
Schools are learning organizations that must respond quickly and flexibly to their dynamic envir-
onments, with external driving forces being mainly a competition between institutions in the
surrounding system and the regressive effects of large-scale, standardized reform strategies (Sahl-
berg, 2016). To cope with competition between schools and implementing educational reforms
without losing sight of everyday duties, schools need to handle the tension between exploring new
Corresponding author:
Marcus Pietsch, Leuphana University of Lu¨neburg, Universita
¨tsallee 1, 21335 Lu¨neburg, Germany.
Email: pietsch@leuphana.de
Educational Management
Administration & Leadership
ªThe Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1741143220945705
journals.sagepub.com/home/ema
2022, Vol. 50(4) 574–592

possibilities (learning and changing) and exploiting existing accomplishments (routine and repeti-
tion) (Jansen et al., 2005; Tushman and O’Reilly, 1996). March first described this tension, which
later came to be known as ambidexterity, noting that the ‘basic problem confronting an organi-
zation is to engage in sufficient exploitation to ensure its current viability and, at the same time,
devote enough energy to exploration to ensure its future viability’ (Levinthal and March, 1993:
105).
In this regard, a key challenge is the tendency to favor exploitation over exploration, as the
former offers predictability and success, at least over the short term (Levinthal and March, 1993).
Exploration, by contrast, is marked by short-term inefficiency (for example, due to trial and error),
uncertainty and occasional failures. However, organizations focusing solely on exploitation are
likely to fail in the long run because they are unable to cope with change (O’Reilly and Tushman,
2013). Thus, in order for organizations, including schools, to be successful in both the short and
long terms, it is necessary to apply both strategies simultaneously in a reasonable relationship
(Raisch and Birkinshaw, 2008).
This holds true not only for organizations but also for their managers and leaders, as organiza-
tional ambidexterity is rooted in the ambidextrous behaviors of employees, which are character-
ized by integrative and paradoxical thinking or quickly shifting between entrepreneurial and
administrative leadership roles (Birkinshaw and Gupta, 2013). Recent research provides strong
empirical indications that individuals are also able to act in an ambidextrous manner (Mom et al.,
2009), that their ambidextrous activities are affected by contextual factors and that those activities
are linked to the innovativeness and success of their organizations (Mu et al., 2020). Here, as
O’Reilly and Tushman (2011: 118) state, ‘ambidexterity as a dynamic capability rests on the
ability of leaders not only to articulate a strategic intent and vision that justifies exploration and
exploitation, but – more importantly –to manage the inherent tensions associated with incompa-
tible organizational architectures’, by which they mean structures, processes and cultures. This also
applies to schools, whose leaders are tasked to ensuring that the status quo is at least maintained
and ideally optimized while simultaneously developing visions, setting milestones and innovating
(Bush, 2010). Consequently, principals are constantly faced with the challenge of finding the
optimal balance between these conflicting expectations within the dynamics of the school envi-
ronment (Benoliel and Schechter, 2017).
While there have recently been several studies that examine the issue of ambidexterity in the
public sector (Cannaerts et al., 2019; Gieske et al., 2020; Kobarg et al., 2017), there is a lack of
research studying it with regard to schools and, especially, to principals. The few studies on the
subject are either theoretical or based on small convenience samples (Bouwmans et al., 2019;
Finnigan and Daly, 2012). Hence, the purpose of this study is to test whether the key assumptions
and empirical findings of general research on the ambidexterity of organizational leaders also
apply to schools. Using a unique principal (N¼405) data set that is representative of Germany, our
analyses examine the relationship between principals’ exploitative and explorative activities in the
context of (perceived) school competition.
Background and conceptual grounding
Conceptualizing ambidexterity in the context of education
Ambidexterity has been a subject of enduring interest in organizational and management research.
While the term ‘ambidexterity’ was first used by Duncan (1976), the concept is often attributed to
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Pietsch et al.: Principals between exploitation and exploration

March (1991), though the term does not appear in that work. The concept borrows from the
physiological meaning of ambidexterity, which is the ability to use one’s left and right hands
equally well, and refers to an organization’s or individual’s ability to manage current demands
while being adaptable to changes in a dynamic environment (Birkinshaw and Gupta, 2013).
While the concept of ambidexterity was originally framed at the organizational level, it was later
applied to managers and their approaches to leading an organization (Kobarg et al., 2017);
indeed,akeyassumptioninambidexterity research is that organizational ambidexterity is rooted
in the ambidextrous behaviors of employees (Birkinshaw and Gupta, 2013). Hence, ambidex-
terity could be defined as the ability of an organization or an individual to pursue both exploita-
tion and exploration at the same time (Mom et al., 2009; O’Reilly and Tushman, 2004). This
ability should help organizations to reconfigure existing capabilities and to sense and seize new
opportunities (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2008). Engaging simultaneously in both processes has
been reported to be crucial for the success and long-term survival of organizations (Gibson and
Birkinshaw, 2004), particularly in competitive, more dynamic and unpredictable contexts where
a disruptive change that renders current methods or products obsolete is more likely (Tushman
and O’Reilly, 1996).
In this regard, exploitation emphasizes the known context and competencies and seeks to make
central processes as reliable and efficient as possible (March, 1991). This is achieved by focusing
on aspects such as ‘refinement, choice, production, efficiency, selection, implementation, execu-
tion’ (March, 1991: 71). Changes that are exploitative in nature are therefore typically incremental
and focus on better serving needs or demands of customers or clients by building on pre-existing
knowledge (Benner and Tushman, 2003) and by operating within the pre-existing paradigm(s).
Exploration, meanwhile, describes the often risky process of experimenting with new alternatives
(March, 1991) and searching for innovations. The fruits of such efforts are ‘uncertain, distant, and
often negative’ (March, 1991: 85), but they can also lead to innovations that – while they may not
serve the existing needs or desires of customers – can respond to customers’ emerging or future
needs (Levinthal and March, 1993). As such, exploration can lead to the disruption of current
markets, the creation of new ones and paradigm shifts around central processes. Explorative
behavior on an individual level refers to the ability to distance oneself from the status quo, to
break with established routines and to think about things differently (Good and Michel, 2013).
Exploitation, on the other hand, emphasizes working within existing frames of knowledge, routines
and regulations and using one’s familiarity and experience with them to optimize the status quo.
Beingabletodobothallowsanindividualto become aware of changes in the ‘market’ or
environment of one’s organization, to see opportunities for that organization in such a changing
environment and to adapt accordingly (Good and Michel, 2013).
Ambidexterity is viewed as key for organizational success because it mitigates risk. An orga-
nization that is too focused on exploitative activities might achieve short-term success by execut-
ing its core processes with maximal efficiency. However, any significant change in the market (like
a technological advance or a shift in consumer preferences) will pose a significant challenge, as
organizations that are heavily or solely exploitative in outlook lack the capability to adapt (Benner
and Tushman, 2003). By contrast, an overemphasis on exploration can leave an organization at risk
because of inefficient processes and the limited number of failures in experimentation it can absorb
while remaining viable (Levinthal and March, 1993). However, the exact nature of the relationship
between exploration and exploitation is a matter of contention. On the one hand, exploration and
exploitation are usually understood as occupying opposite ends of a continuum (March, 1991).
Hence, March (1991) notes that trade-offs between exploration and exploitation are unavoidable,
576 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

as they inherently place conflicting resource and managerial demands on an organization. Thus,
ambidexterity largely involves managing trade-offs to find an appropriate balance between them.
On the other hand, exploration and exploitation canalsobeviewedascomplementaryprocesses,
with exploration often requiring a different skill set and different resources from exploitation,
and with exploitation often resulting in improving existing processes, which in turn can lead to
more effective exploration (Gupta et al., 2006). In this view, ambidexterity has been emphasized
as pertaining to the capacity of an organization to pursue high levels of exploration and exploita-
tion concurrently rather than managing trade-offs to find the most appropriate balance between
the two.
The applicability of the concept of ambidexterity to schools and school leaders remains largely
untested, but we argue that ambidexterity is well suited to adaptation for the school context,
especially on the individual level, because the duality of optimizing within the current framework
(exploitation) and innovating (exploration) is a common dynamic in schools. For example, in
Germany, schools have gained more autonomy over time but are also facing increased demands
for accountability (Tulowitzki, 2019). Furthermore, the concept has similarities with the notion of
educational leadership versus management. School leaders are tasked with ensuring that the status
quo is at a minimum maintained and ideally optimized (management) and with developing visions,
setting milestones and innovating in schools (leadership; Bush, 2010; see Tulowitzki, 2015 for the
German context). Innovation is key for today’s schools and ‘essential to bring about qualitative
changes in education’ (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD],
2016a: 9). Real or merely perceived competition between schools is understood as a pathway to
more dynamic and effective activities of principals, as they strive to continuously redesign their
organizations in response to rapidly changing demands (Leithwood, 2001) and have greater control
and more options for designing and managing the school thanks to the increased autonomy
afforded to individual schools (Cravens et al., 2012). It is thus reasonable to hold that competition
between schools should be accompanied by a stronger focus of principals on the improvement and
innovation of learning and teaching rather than on daily operational or managerial tasks (Austin,
2019). Given the current evidence, it is plausible to suggest that school leaders respond to com-
petitive pressure to attract and retain students mainly by focusing on educational quality and
matching current and future students’ educational needs as a way to improve their schools (Jabbar,
2015). This becomes more crucial as the environment in which a given school operates becomes
more dynamic, because school choice and competition between schools are designed to stimulate
precisely such dynamic environments in the hopes of increasing school quality and fostering
innovation in education (Waslander et al., 2010).
Consequently, the argument can be made that being successful in school competition should be
positively associated with principals’ ambidextrous practices, as ambidexterity requires them to
accomplish two different tasks (O’Reilly and Tushman, 2008). First, they must be able to ensure
the safe, reliable and efficient functioning of their schools. Second, they must be able to accurately
sense changes in their competitive environment, including potential changes in neighboring
schools’ profiles, clients (both students and parents) and regulatory bodies (supervisory and leg-
islative authorities). Additionally, they must be able to act on these opportunities and threats by
reconfiguring both tangible and intangible assets to meet new challenges. More than the actual
number of competitors or general market density, the perceived state of competition appears to be
key in predicting the strategies (or lack thereof) adopted by school principals (Jabbar, 2015;
Levaˇcic´, 2004).
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Pietsch et al.: Principals between exploitation and exploration

Antecedents and effects of ambidexterity
Empirical research has demonstrated that organizational and individual ambidexterity are linked to
performance measures. Thus, in a meta-analysis on organizational ambidexterity, Junni et al.
(2013) found that ambidexterity and exploitation and exploration were positively associated with
the performance of organizations, organizational sub-units and individuals within organizations.
Their study demonstrated that additive measures of ambidexterity that conceptualize it as com-
plementary rather than contradictory are more strongly related to performance (rbetween 0.38 and
0.48) than difference measures that conceptualize it as striking a balance between the two ends of
the continuum (r¼0.17). In another meta-analysis, Shi et al. (2020) found that exploration and
exploitation on the organizational level are positively correlated with each other and that explo-
ration and exploitation are positively influenced by organizational capabilities, organization size
and market orientation. On the other hand, the authors showed that exploration is positively
associated and exploitation is negatively associated with competitive intensity and that resources
and capabilities influenced organizational performance only through explorative processes and
activities. Further, in a systematic review on individual ambidexterity, Mu et al. (2020) found that
the organizational context is a relevant antecedent of individual ambidexterity and that the extent
to which employees are ambidextrous varies within and across contexts. Their study shows that
many types of interactions between exploration and exploitation are observable and that ‘the
relationship between exploration and exploitation (complementary, conflicting, or interrelated)
results from different perceptions of different individuals, who can then make their own judgments
as to how to best spend their time and implement specific management approaches’ (Mu et al.,
2020: 14). In a recent multi-level study, Mom et al. (2019) demonstrated that organizational and
individual (within-organization) ambidexterity are strongly coupled, in that the organizational
climate shapes the ambidextrous practices of managers and leaders, which in turn influence the
ambidexterity and success of the organizations.
The current study
Purpose
Against this background, our study focuses on the following main questions. How does ambidex-
terity manifest itself at the level of individual principals? How do exploitative and explorative
practices of school leaders relate to each other? Are the exploitation, exploration and ambidexterity
of principals associated with the dynamic environment of a school as measured by the level of
(perceived) competition between schools for students? With these aims in mind, the following
hypotheses are tested:
H1: Exploration and exploitation are (positively or negatively) related to each other.
H2a: Exploration is positively associated with the degree of competition between schools.
H2b: Exploitation is negatively associated with the degree of competition between schools.
H3: Ambidexterity is positively associated with the degree of competition between schools.
Context and sample
To test our hypotheses, we rely on a randomized and nationally representative sample of German
principals (N¼405). Under Germany’s federal constitution, education is the responsibility of the
578 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

16 states (La¨nder) and thus differs between states. However, all German states provide education
for students from ages 6 to 10 in comprehensive primary schools (Grundschulen). At about 11
years old, students enroll in 5th grade in secondary schools. At this transition point, students of
varying abilities are tracked into different types of schools, which usually differ in both duration
and curriculum. While German states traditionally have three different secondary school types –
lower secondary (Hauptschule), middle (Realschule) and upper secondary (Gymnasium) schools –
most have introduced one or more types of comprehensive secondary schools in the course of
various educational reforms.
Since the beginning of this century, nearly all German states have introduced market-like
mechanisms into their education systems. There have been several reforms that are relevant to
the level of school competition across German states: abolishing catchment areas (Thiel et al.,
2014), strengthening private schools (Unger, 2015) and, in some states, merging different forms of
secondary education (Baumert et al., 2017). With regard to school choice policies, parents in most
states are bound to school districts and assigned public schools at the primary level (Riedel et al.,
2010). For primary education, then, students’ families regularly must choose a certain school from
a limited set of schools, often within a pre-defined catchment area. For secondary education, by
contrast, most states permit students’ families to freely choose a secondary school. In most states,
these choice policies are accompanied by typical market incentives and mechanisms, like legally
mandated image management and marketing of schools that entails the development and publi-
cation of school profiles and school programs and, in some states, the publication of school
inspection reports. League tables of examination results and student achievement measures, how-
ever, are generally not publicly reported.
German principals were long viewed as primarily administrators before their role shifted over
the past two decades to include more management and leadership domains (Huber, 2016; Tulo-
witzki, 2015). Principals are recruited from the teaching corps, and the appraisal of their instruc-
tional abilities as teachers often still plays a major part in determining their aptitude for a principal
role (Brauckmann et al., 2016). The level of mandatory pre-service training for principals varies
from state to state but a maximum of 37 days is common (Tulowitzki et al., 2019). From an
international perspective, Germany’s principals have rather limited little autonomy over teacher
recruitment, appointment, salaries and promotion, as principals control less than 20%of the
resources; the OECD average is 39%(OECD, 2016b: 115). In recent years, school principals in
German-speaking countries have paid increased attention to their schools’ competitive capacity
(Kanape-Willingshofer et al., 2016; Pietsch and Leist, 2019). In many cases, the salary of princi-
pals, their relief from non-administrative (i.e. teaching) duties and the resources available to them
are influenced by the number of students at their school.
Sample
The underlying population for the data consists of all principals in Germany working at public
schools of all types. The data was gathered between August and November 2019 by forsa GmbH, a
leading German survey firm, using a piloted and standardized online questionnaire. To achieve a
certain degree of comparability with international research in the field, internationally established
items and scales were employed. To minimize common method biases, the procedural remedies
suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2012) were implemented. For example, items or item blocks were
presented in random order to the principals to reduce the likelihood of obtaining uniform answers,
eliminate local dependencies and avoid primacy-recency effects.
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Measures
The ambidexterity of principals and the underlying dimensions of exploitation and exploration
were surveyed by items and scales developed by Mom et al. (2009). These scales are based on the
features by which March (1991) characterized exploration and exploitation in the context of
organizational learning. The exploration scale determines the extent to which a principal engaged
in exploration activities during the previous year, while the exploitation scale determines the extent
to which the principal engaged in exploitation activities during the previous year (base question:
‘To what extent did you, during the last 12 months, engage in work-related activities that can be
characterized as follows?’). Six items from the original scales were used, three per dimension.
Thus, the principals answered three items measuring exploitation (!¼0.64), behaviors or activ-
ities characterized by focusing attention on what is already known rather than scanning for new
information (e.g. ‘I engaged in activities of which it is clear to you how to conduct them’). They
then answered three items indicating exploration (!¼0.69), behaviors or activities focusing on
searching for novelty in the school context (e.g. ‘I engaged in activities of which the associated
yields or costs are currently unclear’). All items were measured on a 4-point Likert scale ranging
from ‘a very small extent’ to ‘a very large extent’ of engagement in explorative or exploitative
activities.
In accordance with other studies on ambidexterity (Cao et al., 2009; Gibson and Birkinshaw,
2004; Rosing and Zacher, 2017), we calculated three new measures indicating the individual
ambidexterity of principals based on the two underlying dimensions. First, we conceptualized
ambidexterity as the sum of exploitation and exploration. This approach implies a compensatory
understanding of exploration and exploitation; while elevated levels of both exploration and
exploitation are needed for being highly ambidextrous, each can compensate for a lower level
of the other (Rosing and Zacher, 2017). Second, we conceptualized ambidexterity as the product of
exploitation and exploration. This approach assumes that exploration and exploitation are inde-
pendent dimensions and that the effects of exploration and exploitation depend on one another.
Seen from this angle, principals can be considered highly ambidextrous when they engage in
elevated levels of both activities, as compared to low levels of one or both of them (Gibson and
Birkinshaw, 2004; Mom et al., 2019). Third, we conceptualized ambidexterity as the difference
score of exploitation and exploration and thus as (im)balance. This approach implies that ambi-
dexterity is most advanced when exploration and exploitation are at approximately the same level
relative to each other; their absolute levels are not relevant in this case (Cao et al., 2009). The
difference score only captures the degree but not the level of (im)balance. This means that a
principal with low levels of both exploration and exploitation could be considered just as ambi-
dextrous as one with high levels of both dimensions (Rosing and Zacher, 2017).
Competition between schools, as reported by their principals, was measured with two items. As
some studies demonstrated that objective measures of competition such as local school market size
and school leaders’ perceptions of competition may differ in their influence on schools’ responses
(Jabbar, 2015; Levaˇcic´, 2004), we surveyed both local school market size and perceived degree of
competition for students between schools in that market. Thus, we first adapted an item from the
Program for International Student Assessment 2012 study (PISA 2012) school questionnaire:
‘How many schools in your region compete for students with your school? (OECD, 2013)’ This
item reflects the number of perceived competitors within the local schooling market. Second,
principals who stated that their school competes with at least one other school were asked to
specify the perceived overall degree of competition (‘How do you perceive this competition for
580 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

students?’). This item indicates the intensity of the competitive pressure that principals felt;
responses were measured on a 4-point Likert scale that ranged from ‘weak’ to ‘strong’.
Because several contextual factors could influence the ambidexterity of principals, we use the
information below to control for possible confounding effects.
School type applies the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED; UNESCO
Institute for Statistics, 2012). ISCED classifies education systems according to uniform criteria:
ISCED 1 refers to ‘primary education’ and covers the 1st to 4th school years in Germany, ISCED 2
refers to ‘lower secondary education’ and covers the 5th to 10th school years, and ISCED 3 refers
to ‘higher secondary education’ and covers the 11th to 13th school years.
Thus, within our analyses we differentiate between primary schools, secondary schools, special
needs schools and other schools, which are mainly schools that have both primary and secondary
branches. We constructed four dummy-coded variables (coded 0 and 1) and defined primary
schools as the reference group. Within our sample, 51.9%are primary, 38.1%secondary, 6.5%
special needs and 3.5%other schools.
School size is measured by the total number of students enrolled in a school. This variable was
added to our analyses partly because school size is strongly coupled with success in the local
school market, as good (effective) schools are expected to grow in size and flourish over time. In
addition, many students may choose a school because of its size. Just as large schools may be right
for many students, especially those who seek a rich variety of both curricular and extracurricular
offerings (Stiefel et al., 2000), small schools may be better for other students. Furthermore, school
size may affect interpersonal distance and organizational structures (Bush, 2010), which may be
relevant to a principal’s choice of management and leadership practices. Within our sample, school
sizes ranged from 25 to 2000 students enrolled, with a mean of 363.27 (SD ¼305.60).
School in challenging circumstances refers to schools in social hotspots, areas with high
unemployment rates and low socioeconomic infrastructure. We included this variable in our
analyses because other authors have shown that there ‘is almost nothing left for marketisation
to explain’ (Fitz et al., 2003: 186) when variables such as the diversity of the local population,
local levels of residential segregation and school organization factors like the nature and the
number of local schools are considered as potential confounders in multivariate analyses.
Further, in areas with a lower mean socioeconomic status, higher-income families are likely
to choose a school in a different area and thus exit the local school market no later than the
transition from primary to secondary school (Lauder and Hughes, 1999; Leist and Pietsch,
2017). On this topic, the surveyed principals were asked: ‘Is your school in a social hotspot?’;
their answers were binary coded (0 ¼no, 1 ¼yes). Within our sample, 59 (14.6%)schools
were in social hotspots.
School location refers to the urban–rural character of the area in which a school is situated. The
rationale for including this variable in our analyses is that competition among (rural) schools
depends on catchment areas and the ease with which parents from outside the catchment area can
engage in the daily commute to a school other than their local option (Walker, 2010). For example,
small rural districts or villages, unlike their urban counterparts, often have only a primary school or
perhaps a single school at each level of education. If parents choose a school other than the local
option, students must travel long distances every day. Thus, school choice in rural areas is often not
really an option, and competition for students between schools may not occur (Morgan and Black-
more, 2013; Walker, 2010). To survey the urban–rural profile, we applied an item from PISA 2012:
(OECD, 2013). Within our sample, 77 schools (19%) are in a village, hamlet or rural area (fewer
than 3000 people), 135 (33.3%) in a small town (3000 to about 15,000 people), 121 (29.9%)ina
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Pietsch et al.: Principals between exploitation and exploration

town (15,000 to about 100,000 people), 53 (13.1%) in a city (100,000 to about 1,000,000 people)
and 13 (4.4%) in a large metropolitan city (over 1,000,000 people).
Analytical strategy
To answer our research questions and test our hypotheses, we conducted latent correlation and
multivariate regression analyses using MPlus 8.0 (Muth´en and Muth´en, 2017). Multivariate regres-
sion analysis is used in our study because it allows the dependent variables – ambidexterity,
exploitation and exploration – to be jointly regressed on several predictor variables. More pre-
cisely, we used a sequential regression approach to test whether the competition measures explain
a statistically significant amount of variance in the dependent variables after accounting for
successively added control variables. As the amount of missing data in our data set was low (<
5%), we handled missing data by applying full information maximum likelihood (FIML) estima-
tion in MPlus 8.0. As the data stems from a single data source, we also tested for common method
variance by applying Harman’s (1960) single factor test, which indicates problematic common
method variance if an exploratory factor analysis loads all items onto a single factor, suggesting
that, due to the method chosen, the factor accounts for a large amount of shared variance among the
variables. If the shared variance lies between 10%and 50%, the common method usually does not
lead to material biases in statistical analyses and can be ignored (Fuller et al., 2016; Lance et al.,
2010).
Results
Principals’ ambidexterity
As far as we aware, no study has surveyed the ambidexterity of principals in Germany or inter-
nationally on a large scale. Because we were able to use a randomized and nationally represen-
tative sample of German principals for our analyses, we first wanted to obtain an impression of the
overall ambidexterity of German principals and their exploitation and exploration activities. For
this reason, we began by computing scores for all scales from single items before calculating
means and standard deviations for the scales in a second step and estimating the correlations
between those scales in a final step. Table 1 shows the means and standard deviations of the scales
and the correlations between the constructs.
The results show that principals in German schools carry out exploitation activities far more
often (mean ¼3.34) than exploration activities (mean ¼2.59), which indicates that they focus
Table 1. Means, standard deviations and latent correlations of ambidexterity measures.
Mean SD Correlations
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
1. Exploitation 3.34 0.50 1
2. Exploration 2.59 0.59 -0.149 1
3. Ambidexterity (as sum) 5.94 0.72 0.578 0.721 1
4. Ambidexterity (as product) 8.64 2.22 0.458 0.796 0.978 1
5. Ambidexterity (as balance) 0.93 0.63 0.496 -0.657 -0.194 -0.356 1
Note. All correlations are statistically significant at p< 0.001.
582 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

more on refining existing competencies, processes and results than on experimentation, flexibility,
discovery and innovation. Both dimensions of principal ambidexterity are negatively correlated (r
¼-0.149, p< 0.001); a higher degree of exploitation activities goes along with a lower degree of
exploration activities and vice versa, so there is a trade-off between exploration and exploitation.
Consequently, the exploration dimension is also negatively correlated with ambidexterity, defined
as the (im)balance between exploitation and exploration activities of principals, and H1 is
confirmed.
School markets and competition as perceived by principals
Not much is known about school markets in Germany on a national level, and nothing is known
about the perceptions of German principals regarding school competition. The research that is
available, however, demonstrates that about 80%of all secondary schools in Germany compete for
students with at least one other secondary school in their vicinity (Musset, 2012) and that school
competition in some states (e.g. Hamburg; see Pietsch and Leist, 2019) appears to be exceptionally
pronounced, even when compared to other countries.
According to our representative data, about 75%of all (primary and secondary) school princi-
pals in Germany stated that their school is exposed to a competitive situation, with an average of
3.3 competing schools. Consequently, with regard to the distribution of competing schools, the
results show that only 17%(N¼69) of German principals reported that their school has no
competitors; 60.2%(N¼244) of them reported between 1 and 5 competitors, 12.3%(N¼50)
between 6 and 10, and 2.7%(N¼11) more than 10. A small portion of respondents (7.7%;N¼31)
did not answer this question.
When asked about the intensity of the perceived competition between schools for students,
47.5%of principals reported it was strong (N¼41) or rather strong (N¼103), 28.7%(N¼87)
rather weak and 23.8%weak (N¼72). A series of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) showed that
perceived competition is significantly associated with school type (F(2,300) ¼24.794, p< 0.001),
school size (F(5,297) ¼5.354, p< 0.001) and urban characteristics (F(4,298) ¼4.538,p< 0.05)
but not with challenging social circumstances for teaching and learning (F(2,300) ¼0.591, p>
0.10). Primary schools reported fairly weak competition (mean ¼1.96, SD ¼0.92), whereas
secondary schools (mean ¼2.71, SD ¼0.91) and schools providing both primary and secondary
education (mean ¼2.58, SD ¼1.00) reported rather strong competition.
Associations of competition and ambidexterity
To test H2 and H3, we estimated sequential regressions in MPlus 8.0. As the data stems from a
single instrument, we first tested for a potential common method bias by applying Harman (1960)
single factor test by conducting an exploratory factor analysis that included all items from the
intended full regression model in the analysis. The results showed no common factor loading on all
measures, as the factor solution resulted in four factors and the first factor accounted for 18.56%of
variance, indicating that this factor accounted neither for the majority nor even a high percentage
of the model variance. Therefore, in accordance with recent recommendations (Fuller et al., 2016;
Lance et al., 2010), we elected not to correct post hoc for potential common method bias within our
regression analyses, particularly since no serious further distortion was expected in the context of
regression analyses, even if such a bias might exist (Siemsen et al., 2009).
583
Pietsch et al.: Principals between exploitation and exploration

Effects of competition on exploration and exploitation
Table 2 shows the results of the sequential regressions for principals’ exploitation and exploration
activities. Here, the baseline models (Model 1) examine the associations of the number of reported
competitors and the principals’ exploitation and exploration activities, respectively. In Model 2,
we added the perceived intensity of competition, while we further added structural control vari-
ables in Model 3.
The results, reported as standardized regression coefficients, reveal that the number of com-
petitors within the local school market and the perceived competition with these schools are not
associated with German principals’ exploitative activities. Thus, rivalry between schools is not
associated with a school leader’s exploitative behavior. This is, however, not so for principals’
explorative activities, for which regression analyses demonstrate that, even when controlling for
structural context factors, the perceived competition for students significantly (p< 0.05) predicts
principals’ explorative activities (b
Perceived competition, model3
¼0.188). It is also notable that neither
the number of potential rivals in the local schooling market nor other contextual factors are
significantly associated with explorative behavior by German school principals. In this respect,
H2a was confirmedand H2b refuted.
Effects of competition on ambidexterity
Table 3 presents the findings from the regressions for various ambidexterity measures. In accor-
dance with the literature on individual ambidexterity, we constructed three ambidexterity measures
as dependent variables: ambidexterity as the sum of exploitation and exploration, as the product of
exploitation and exploration and as the (im)balance between exploitation and exploration. For all
measures, we estimated full regression models by simultaneously including the number of reported
competitors, the perceived intensity of competition and the structural control variables as regres-
sors in the multivariate models.
The regression results indicate that the level of principal ambidexterity is significantly associ-
ated with the perceived intensity of competition for students between schools. This is true for both
the sum (b
Perceived competition
¼0.183, p< 0.05) and the product (b
Perceived competition
¼0.187, p<
0.05) of exploitation and exploration. This implies that principals who perceive stronger compe-
tition between schools tend to engage more often in exploitative and/or explorative activities. For
all other contextual variables, however, the coefficients are not statistically significant, suggesting
that none of a school’s social context, its urban–rural profile or organizational factors like school
type and size and school size plays an important and verifiable role with regard to a principal’s
engagement in these ambidextrous activities.
As to ambidexterity defined as the (im)balance between exploitation and exploration, the
analysis revealed no statistically significant associations with the perceived competition for stu-
dents between schools (p> 0.10). As in the previous analyses, there were also no statistically
significant associations with most of the control variables. Only one coefficient becomes statisti-
cally significant when a one-sided p-value is considered, suggesting that principals working at
schools that serve both primary and secondary school students are likelier to engage in a more
balanced ambidexterity than principals working at schools serving only students at ISCED level 1.
Thus, H3 is supported with regard to the concept of ambidexterity as both a sum and product of
exploitation and exploration, but it is not supported for the concept of ambidexterity as an (im)bal-
ance between those both dimensions.
584 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

Table 2. Regression models: Associations of context and principals’ exploitation and exploration.
Exploitation Exploration
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
bpbpbpbpbpbp
Number of competitors 0.008 0.713 -0.012 0.842 -0.004 0.822 -0.004 0.884 -0.039 0.222 -0.036 0.545
Perceived competition 0.040 0.507 0.036 0.603 0.284 0.009 0.188 0.004
School type
þ
ISCED 2 and 3 -0.117 0.494 -0.111 0.180
ISCED 1, 2 and 3 -0.624 0.050 -0.005 0.931
Special needs school 0.115 0.729 -0.048 0.409
School size 0.001 0.641 -0.132 0.106
Challenging circumstances* -0.010 0.954 -0.065 0.296
Rural–urban split 0.031 0.644 0.074 0.285
R
2
0.001 0.001 0.015 0.000 0.017 0.068
ISCED: International Standard Classification of Education.
þReference group ¼ISCED 1 schools.
* Reference group ¼no challenging circumstances
585

Limitations
Our research provides initial insights into the ambidextrous practices of principals in the dynamic
environment of a competitive school market. Despite the study’s strengths, which arise from a
randomized, representative sample of German principals, it does have certain limitations. First, all
data stems from a single instrument, the survey of principals, which means the possibility of
common method bias cannot be completely ruled out. Second, it is a correlational study; on the
one hand, causality can thus be inferred but cannot be demonstrated and, on the other, the potential
dynamics of both principals’ ambidexterity and school markets could not be taken into account in
our analyses. Third, our study lacks outcome measures, making it impossible to test whether the
ambidexterity of school leaders is associated with schools’ process variables, such as instructional
practices of teachers, provable innovations and student achievement. Fourth, principals are treated
generically in our study, as we have not controlled for personal characteristics like motivation,
career stage or role identity. Hence, future research should try to apply longitudinal designs, gather
data from different sources and incorporate background, mediating and outcome variables into
study design and analysis.
Discussion of results
The goal of this article is to report the first findings on the concept of school leaders’ ambidexterity
on a large scale. We applied an instrument measuring the individual ambidexterity of managers
using data from a randomized, representative sample of principals in Germany. Our goal was to
analyze how the two underlying dimensions of exploitation and exploration are related to each
other and if the basic assumption that the ambidextrous behavior of employees is associated with
the competitive context of an organization also holds true in an educational context. Our key
Table 3. Regression models: Associations of context and principals’ ambidexterity, modelled as sum, product
and (im)balance.
Ambidexterity as
Sum Product (Im)balance
bpbpbp
Number of competitors -0.043 0.489 -0.053 0.395 0.058 0.363
Perceived competition 0.183 0.005 0.187 0.004 -0.106 0.112
School type
þ
ISCED 2 and 3 -0.128 0.124 -0.157 0.057 0.110 0.195
ISCED 1, 2 and 3 -0.086 0.147 -0.093 0.115 -0.007 0.091
Special needs school -0.025 0.671 -0.040 0.489 0.032 0.586
School size -0.082 0.320 -0.077 0.349 -0.037 0.661
Challenging circumstances* -0.058 0.355 -0.080 0.200 0.103 0.107
Rural–urban split 0.085 0.224 0.092 0.185 0.023 0.743
R
2
0.060 0.075 0.029
ISCED: International Standard Classification of Education.
þReference group ¼ISCED 1 schools (primary education).
* Reference group ¼no challenging circumstances
586 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)

findings are: (a) that principals focus more often on exploitative than on explorative activities in
school; (b) that exploitation is conducted at the expense of exploration; and (c) that explorative and
ambidextrous activities of principals are positively related to (perceived) competition between
schools.
The results show that the concept of ambidexterity is applicable in educational research, as our
results were in line with both the general theoretical assumptions and the empirical research on the
exploration and exploitation of organizations and the individuals within them. Thus, in accordance
with findings from Jansen et al. (2005), we found that a competitive environment encourages the
pursuit of ambidexterity by leaders. It is particularly striking that principals respond to a school’s
competitive context by exhibiting a more powerful focus on explorative activities that are theore-
tically relevant antecedents to the long-term survival and flourishing of their organizations in terms
of successfully navigating innovation and change (Mu et al., 2020). In addition, our results lend
themselves to an interpretation of principals’ exploitation and exploration as two ends of a con-
tinuum in that exploration and exploitation are conflicting activities requiring different resources
that can counteract each other (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004).
The findings also provide ample connections with the discourse in research around educational
leadership and management (Bush, 2010) and broaden our understanding of effective school
leadership (Danie¨ls et al., 2019) to take into account the temporality and modes of leadership
actions as geared toward maintenance (exploitation) or innovation (exploration). In this context,
our findings are even more relevant, as empirical evidence has demonstrated that exploration is a
distinct characteristic of leaders, so ambidexterity in the context of organizational learning stimu-
lates innovation and change above and beyond more conventional classical approaches like trans-
formational leadership (Keller and Weibler, 2014).
From a practitioner’s viewpoint, our results echo Cuban’s (1988: xxi) longstanding argument
that schools and education systems are more geared toward maintaining what already exists rather
‘than moving toward what can be’. The notion of school principals as leaders who act as change
agents (Fullan, 1993) is not apparent in our findings. Even in an era of increased autonomy and
accountability (Easley and Tulowitzki, 2016), the predominant mode of operation is geared toward
maintaining the status quo. One possible explanation could be that the daily working life of
principals places so many demands on them (Pont et al., 2008) that there is scant time for
exploration. If so, steps to improve the ambidexterity of principals could include not only shifting
responsibilities to free up time, but also changing principal preparation programs to focus more on
strategic management and reconfiguring accountability systems in education to place a higher
value on principals’ strategic management skills.
As schools are complex organizations (Byrne, 1998), we are far from declaring school com-
petition as the primary reason for the behavior of German principals we report here. Indeed, while
competition between schools can be beneficial by encouraging explorative activities and can
coexist with cooperation, it can also have unwelcome effects, such as a reluctance to share best
practice with potentially competing schools, and thus inhibits cooperation in professional learning
communities and the overall development of schools (Muijs and Rumyantseva, 2014). Obviously,
schools are not organizations that follow economic rationalities exclusively or even predomi-
nantly. Rather, they are educational institutions that partially evade control by individual players
and follow their own dynamics, which are peculiar to the field of education. In addition, compe-
tition can lead not only to winners but also to losers, with the result that students in already
structurally disadvantaged schools may suffer even more from competition. Thus, the concept
587
Pietsch et al.: Principals between exploitation and exploration

of ambidexterity adds value to the discussion but does not claim to explain all mechanisms of
school development.
As our study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to research ambidexterity in the field of
educational research on a larger scale, the possibilities for further research are vast. First, future
studies could replicate our approach using different samples in other contexts to secure further
generalizability. Second, it is essential to analyze the potential effects of ambidexterity in schools,
particularly at the organizational level, as a large number of studies demonstrate that the short- and
long-term success of organizations both depend on the exploitation and exploration of organiza-
tions and their leaders (Junni et al., 2013; Mu et al., 2020). Third, it would be worthwhile to
incorporate individual characteristics into further analyses, as it has been shown that factors like
motivation, prior experience and personal skills might influence the ambidexterity of individuals
within organizations (Mu et al., 2020).
As the pressure on schools and school principals to innovate and adapt continues to rise, this
study provides new insights into current leadership practices and modes of organizational learning.
It also brings a novel perspective to educational research that has the potential to further our
understanding of effective educational leadership. By reporting the first reliable results on the
ambidexterity of school leaders, we hope to inspire and stimulate further research and vigorous
debate about the pivotal role of principals in the processes of school improvement, change and
innovation. This could in turn benefit the practice of educational leadership and management in
increasingly dynamic contexts.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article: The study has been supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education
and Research (BMBF).
ORCID iDs
Marcus Pietsch https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9836-6793
Pierre Tulowitzki https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8809-2541
Colin Cramer https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3720-9708
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
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Author biographies
Marcus Pietsch, PhD, is a visiting professor for empirical research in primary education at the
Leuphana University of Lu
¨neburg, Germany. His research focuses on using quantitative methods
in the field of school effectiveness, improvement and change, with an emphasis on the interrela-
tions of educational administration, teaching and student learning in the context of educational
accountability.
Pierre Tulowitzki, PhD, is a professor of educational management and school improvement at the
FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland. His research interests revolve
around educational leadership, educational change and school improvement.
Colin Cramer, PhD, is a full professor for research on teachers and teacher education at the
University of Tu
¨bingen, Germany. His research aims to understand who teachers are, under what
circumstances they work and how they can be prepared for their tasks appropriately using different
theoretical approaches and appropriate methodology.
592 Educational Management Administration & Leadership 50(4)