Based on the paradox perspective and social information processing theory, we examined when and how employees’ emotional ambivalence promotes their resilience via a three-way mediated moderation model, considering paradoxical leadership and employee individual differences as boundary conditions. We conducted two field surveys using time-lagged data: Study 1 involved 200 successfully matched supervisor-subordinate dyads from MBA students, while Study 2 included 247 matched pairs across different regions, industries, and professional backgrounds. The results showed that (1) there is a an interaction between emotional ambivalence, paradoxical leadership and integrative complexity that affects employee resilience, such that emotional ambivalence has the strongest positive relationship with employee resilience when leaders exhibit high level of paradoxical leadership and employees have high levels of integrative complexity; and (2) cognitive flexibility mediates the effect of this three-way interaction on employee resilience. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.
