Linking Digital Leadership, Digital Organizational Culture, Business Model Innovation, and Performance in Vietnam

The study recontextualizes the relationships among digital leadership, digital organizational culture, and business model innovation through theoretical lens of dynamic capability theory within Vietnam’s emerging economy. The main contribution is to advance theory by conceptualizing digital leadership and digital organizational culture as micro-foundations that actually enable firms to sense, seize, and reconfigure resources, thereby fostering business model innovation and improving overall organizational performance. Using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) on survey data from 365 Vietnamese managers, the results reveal that digital leadership significantly shapes culture, drives innovation, and enhances firm outcome. Digital organizational culture similarly promotes both innovation and performance, while business model innovation acting as crucial mechanism that converts internal digital competencies into performance. The findings not only offer theoretical contributions to the dynamic capabilities theory but also provide practical implications for managers and policymakers seeking to strengthen digital transformation in similar emerging economies.