The Mediating Role of Strategic Management and Transformational Leadership in the Impact of Digital Transformation on Organizational Innovation

Abstract

Digital transformation, strategic management, transformational leadership, and organizational innovation are critical elements for the success of organizations in the complex and rapidly changing business environment of the 21st century. Understanding the relationships between these concepts offers some opportunities for organizations to maintain their competitiveness and be pioneers in their markets. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of digital transformation on organizational innovation and to examine how this impact is realized through strategic management and transformative leadership. In this direction, data were obtained through surveys and managers of companies operating in Istanbul and analyzes were carried out with the structural equation model. Within the scope of the study, a positive and significant relationship is observed between digital transformation and strategic management, transformational leadership and organizational innovation. In addition, a positive and significant relationship was determined between strategic management and transformational leadership and organizational innovation scale. On the other hand, a similarly positive and significant relationship was found between transformational leadership scale and organizational innovation. In the study, it was determined that strategic management plays a mediating role between digital transformation and organizational innovation, and transformational leadership has a mediating effect between digital transformation and organizational innovation. However, the results obtained reveal that the impact of digital transformation on organizational innovation is partly mediated by transformational leadership. These results show that there are important and meaningful relationships between digital transformation, strategic management, transformational leadership and organizational innovation.