Data-Driven Decision Making and Sustainable Innovation Performance: The Roles of Organizational Learning Capability and Sustainability-Oriented Leadership

Despite growing recognition of the strategic value of data-driven decision making (DDM) in contemporary organizations, the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which DDM is associated with sustainable innovation performance (SIP) remain theoretically underexplored. Drawing on Dynamic Capabilities Theory, Organizational Learning Theory, and the Sustainability Leadership Perspective, this study develops and tests a moderated mediation model in which organizational learning capability (OLC) mediates the DDM–SIP relationship and sustainability-oriented leadership (SOL) moderates both the DDM–OLC relationship and the indirect DDM–OLC–SIP path. Survey data were collected from 384 employees of 29 oil and gas companies in Libya and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4. The results show that data-driven decision making is positively associated with both sustainable innovation performance and organizational learning capability, and that organizational learning capability is strongly associated with sustainable innovation performance. Organizational learning capability partially mediates the relationship between data-driven decision making and sustainable innovation performance, transmitting about half of the total effect. Furthermore, sustainability-oriented leadership positively moderates the relationship between data-driven decision making and organizational learning capability, and the indirect association between data-driven decision making and sustainable innovation performance through organizational learning capability is more than twice as strong when sustainability-oriented leadership is high as when it is low. These findings advance understanding of how data-driven practices are linked to sustainable innovation through organizational learning processes, and of the leadership conditions under which this pathway is stronger, with practical implications for strategic leadership, organizational transformation, and sustainable innovation management in complex and institutionally challenging emerging economy contexts.