Digital Transformational Leadership and Lecturer Performance: The Serial Mediating Roles of Academic Service Quality and Job Satisfaction in Indonesian Private Universities

Digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped higher education institutions, placing unprecedented demands on leadership effectiveness and lecturers' digital capabilities. However, empirical evidence linking digital transformational leadership and digital competence to performance outcomes remains fragmented, particularly within the specific context of private higher education. This study examines the effects of digital transformational leadership and lecturers' digital competence on lecturer performance, utilizing academic service quality and job satisfaction as key serial mediating variables. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) collected from 300 permanent lecturers employed at superior-accredited private Christian universities located in Java, Indonesia. The results demonstrate that lecturers' digital competence significantly enhances academic service quality and performance, exerting its strongest impact through a significant sequential mediation pathway involving service quality and job satisfaction. In contrast, while digital transformational leadership positively influences service quality and satisfaction, it lacks a significant direct effect on lecturer performance. This finding suggests that leadership effectiveness in digitally transforming universities is indirect and contingent upon the presence of institutional support systems. The model collectively explains 69.6% of the variance in lecturer performance. Theoretically, this study integrates digital leadership and competence into an internal service framework using a serial mediation approach. Practically, the findings emphasize aligning capacity-building initiatives with robust support mechanisms to sustain lecturer performance amid ongoing digital transformation.