DOI: 10.11648/j.ijmfs.20261201.12 ISSN: 2575-4947

Bridging the Industry 4.0 Skills-Maturity Gap through Digital Leadership: Evidence from a Systematic Review of TVET Institutions

Ahmed Yimam
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The "skills-maturity gap" a situation in which institutional outputs fall short of industrial demands, leading to structural unemployment and the "vocational paradox" persists despite initiatives like Digital Ethiopia 2030. This study examines how digital leadership improves labor market alignment using the "Vocational Intelligence" Sextuple-A framework. Based on Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the research explores how leaders’ sense, seize, and transform institutional culture. The central question is on how digital leadership may help close the skills-maturity divide. This study evaluated the effects of leadership on institutional agility by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) of 42 high-impact publications using the PRISMA 2020 technique and theme synthesis. The results show that while institutional agility serves as a crucial bridge between digital leadership and market responsiveness, traditional transactional management impedes advancement. The study comes to the conclusion that rather than a lack of resources, the vocational conundrum is a mismatch between leadership and maturity. Adopting the Sextuple-A Framework for institutional audits, making Digital Leadership Certification essential for TVET deans, and giving "Training Factories" top priority to guarantee real-time synchronization with industry requirements are some of the recommendations. TVET institutions may become engines of national economic production by shifting from reactive to proactive, data-driven leadership, which will boost graduate employability and promote good social change.

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