The impact of digital leadership on digital transformation in university organizations: an analysis of students' views

Abstract

Introduction. Digital leadership must have the ability to adapt to changes in the technological environment. The rapid development of technology demands adjustments to changes that run quickly so that organizational goals can still be achieved. Digital leadership must be formed with the mindset and ability to solve problems and the ability to maintain relationships between members and between teams. This study aims to determine how digital leadership improves digital transformation in university organizational by analyzing student opinions. Study participants and methods. The present quantitative descriptive study samples were students from five faculty in Universitas Terbuka using purposive sampling. The data were gathered from a structured questionnaire survey of 403 respondents. The factor analysis was applied to bring out the Digital Leadership and Digital Transformation variables representing the attributes, and later, the causality between these variables was established using structural equation modelling (SEM). Results. The confirmatory factor analysis has shown that digital leadership was constructed by eight factors, namely digital literacy (0.740), digital vision (0.801), defence (0.820), presence (0.836), communication (0.849), adaptability (0.801), self-awareness (0.783), and cultural awareness (0.760). Digital transformation comprises five factors: strategy and governance (0.343), curriculum and method (0.447), assessment (0.478), self support and development (0.427), infrastructure and resources (0.461). Empirically, digital leadership significantly influences the digital transformation in university organizational with a coefficient value of 0.507 and an R square value of 0.325. Leaders with digital leadership are able to adapt to the rapid development of technology and changes in organizational behaviour. Digital leadership enables leaders to direct, lead and evaluate an organization's digital transformation process. Practical significance. This study examined the influence of Digital Leadership on Digital Transformation. Digital leadership is innovative leadership that supports the implementation of digital transformation in organizational culture to increase the university's competitive advantage. University leaders must have digital leadership skills, including digital literacy, digital vision, defence, presence, communication, adaptability, self-awareness, and cultural awareness. This capability is used by university leaders to execute all problems encountered in the digital transformation process. Finally, the next research recommendation is to provide a digital leadership module for university leaders. Future digital leadership research should also be linked to emotions, followers, gender, and organizational culture.