DIGITAL LEADERSHIP AS A STRATEGIC RESPONSE: HOW INNOVATION CAPABILITIES MEDIATE GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS IN A CONSTRAINED EMERGING ECONOMY

This research focuses on studying the role of digital leadership in global competitiveness by shaping innovation capabilities in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) organizations in a constrained emerging economy. Grounded in the Resource-Based View (RBV) and the Dynamic Capabilities (DC) perspective, it explores five dimensions of digital leadership: inspirational, innovative, uncertainty management, adaptive, and visionary and how these influence competitive advantage. A quantitative and cross-sectional survey among 204 C-level executives working in ICT firms was analyzed with the help of PLS-SEM. The results show that all leadership dimensions have a significant impact on enhancing the innovation capabilities while the innovative and uncertainty management roles have a direct impact as well on the competitive advantage. Critically, innovation capabilities show a strong positive relationship with competitive advantage and fully mediate the effect of leadership dimensions in confirming their role as the central mechanism through that digital leadership translates into sustained global positioning in the markets. The findings provide theoretical understanding of leadership as a higher-order dynamic capability and practical advice for firms managing digital transformation in institutionally complex settings.