Digital Leadership and Sustainable Competitive Advantage: The Mediating Role of HR Agility

This study examines the relationships among digital leadership, HR agility, and sustainable competitive advantage, with HR agility proposed as a mediator of the relationship between digital leadership and sustainable competitive advantage. Drawing on the Resource-Based View and Dynamic Capabilities Theory, the study considers digital leadership and HR agility as organizational capabilities relevant to competitiveness in increasingly digital and dynamic environments. A quantitative, cross-sectional design was employed, with data collected from employees working in public and private sector organizations in Saudi Arabia. The hypothesized relationships were examined using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The findings revealed significant positive associations between digital leadership and sustainable competitive advantage (β = 0.377, p < 0.001), digital leadership and HR agility (β = 0.778, p < 0.001), and HR agility and sustainable competitive advantage (β = 0.438, p < 0.001). The indirect association between digital leadership and sustainable competitive advantage through HR agility was also positive and statistically significant (β = 0.338, p = 0.001), supporting the proposed mediating relationship. The study contributes to the digital leadership literature by highlighting HR agility as an important human-capability factor associated with the relationship between digital leadership and sustainable competitive advantage. The findings also offer practical insights for organizations seeking to strengthen workforce agility and competitiveness in increasingly digital and dynamic environments. Given the cross-sectional design, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than evidence of causal or temporal relationships.