The Role of Leadership in a Digitalized World: A Review

Abstract

Digital technology has changed organizations in an irreversible way. Like the movable type printing accelerated the evolution of our history, digitalization is shaping organizations, work environment and processes, creating new challenges leaders have to face. Social science scholars have been trying to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, however, findings have accumulated in a fragmented and dispersed fashion across different disciplines, and do not seem to converge within a clear picture. To overcome this shortcoming in the literature and foster clarity and alignment in the academic debate, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the contribution of studies on leadership and digitalization, identifying patterns of thought and findings across various social science disciplines, such as management and psychology. It clarifies key definitions and ideas, highlighting the main theories and findings drawn by scholars. Further, it identifies categories that group papers according to the macro level of analysis (e-leadership and organization, digital tools, ethical issues, and social movements), and micro level of analysis (the role of C-level managers, leader's skills in the digital age, practices for leading virtual teams). Main findings show leaders are key actors in the development of a digital culture: they need to create relationships with multiple and scattered stakeholders, and focus on enabling collaborative processes in complex settings, while attending to pressing ethical concerns. With this research, we contribute to advance theoretically the debate about digital transformation and leadership, offering an extensive and systematic review, and identifying key future research opportunities to advance knowledge in this field.

Top managers in the digital age: Exploring the role and practices of top managers in firms' digital transformation

“…By investigating the micro‐level practices of top managers, this study not only responds to consistent calls for further research on digitalization aspects (e.g., Verhoef et al, 2019) but also offers detailed insights about the internal procedures in large German firms. Additionally, it extends prior research that acknowledges the significant role of top managers in firms' digital transformation processes (e.g., Cortellazzo et al, 2019; Matt et al, 2015) and re‐emphasizes top managers' relevance and wide‐reaching organizational impact therein. Our empirically grounded framework reflects this notion and provides a systematic overview of specific roles, decisions, and actions pursued by top managers to facilitate firms' digitalization efforts.…”

“…An aspect that has been widely neglected throughout the academic discourse is the role and actions of top managers in response to the digital transformation. Prior studies claim that top management support is vital for the digital transformation to unfold, as it is the executive team that shapes the necessary context and provides resources (Cortellazzo, Bruni, & Zampieri, 2019; de la Boutetière, Montagner, & Reich, 2018; Matt, Hess, & Benlian, 2015). Although various studies across different academic disciplines and specifically within the practitioners' literature underline the relevance of top managers in firms' digital transformation processes, a comprehensive understanding is still absent.…”

“…An overview of relevant studies is provided in Table 1. Existing empirical studies directly associating top managers with digitalization aspects investigated, for instance, dedicated digitalization‐specific roles within the executive team (Horlacher & Hess, 2016; Medcof, 2008; Singh & Hess, 2017) or the nature of leadership (Cortellazzo et al, 2019; Schwarzmüller et al, 2018). In general, these studies jointly highlight the vast and multifaceted impact that the digital transformation has on firms as well as its top managers.…”

Working in Virtual Teams: A Systematic Literature Review and a Bibliometric Analysis

“…An efficient leader can implement different technological tools effectively so that they are accepted by the whole team. Another essential responsibility of the leader is to monitor projects without having a negative effect on the team [63].…”

Getting traditionally rooted Indian leadership to embrace digital leadership: challenges and way forward with reference to LMX

“…Digital technology demands digital thinking and therefore digital leadership is of prime importance. To benefit from the digitization process, leaders must develop primarily in two areas-one is digital and the second one is humanitarian (Cortellazzo et al 2019). Digital adaptation has been successful for some kind of organizations (Berghaus and Back 2016;Westerman et al 2014), the types of organizations which have been successful in adapting to new digital tools and technologies belong to industry sectors of retail, banking and other high-tech sectors Westerman et al (2014).…”