Abstract

As many organizations are now encountering the changes and transformations related to industrial revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0), they need to have a better view about their vision, and they do not need to limit this transformation to only technological changes such as application of artificial intelligence, big data, business intelligence, analytics tools, internet of things and so on (Vardarlier and Ozsahin, 2021). There are some other aspects of the organizations that are transforming as well and in many cases their impact is even more critical on them. Digital leadership is one of these emerging organizational concepts (Jagadisen et al., 2022).

After a decade of rapid technological growth, it has lately been discovered that many of these technologies have failed to take the human spirit into account to the extent that it deserves. As a result, a new movement has emerged to emphasize the role and significance of humans, as well as their sentiments and emotions. As a result, numerous practitioners and academics have launched new projects and efforts in this area, and the human-centric digital transformation is becoming more daring by the day (Khaw et al., 2022). We've recently heard a lot about the intersection between IR 4.0 and society 5.0, which is another new trend that emphasizes the influence of digital transformation on societies and people (Salamzadeh, 2022).

While studying, analyzing and designing policies for digital leadership, one of the initial steps is to know more about the digital competencies needed by the managers and their employees (Maruthuvellu et al., 2022). These digital leadership competencies facilitate the process of leadership from different stakeholders' perspective while organizations either use digital technologies or working in a digital business ecosystem. Having the wide range of skills and competencies under the big umbrella of digital leadership competencies, is a survival factor for businesses in IR 4.0 era (Cheng Soon and Salamzadeh, 2020).

In some cases, the business models and the processes used for daily management of the organizations need a revision. In today's businesses, it is clear that traditional approaches for managing business processes are no longer adequate. Only with the use of technology have intricate business procedures in organizations become manageable (Karaboga and Vardarlier, 2020). Rapid developments in technology have also broadened our understanding and use of human resource management. In a digital world, organizational data and resource management is more systematic and easily accessible (Vardarlier, 2020). These changes in business models and business practices, result in huge changes in not only the organizational life of the employees and managers but also their social life. This is another consideration point about the importance of the digital transformation in business models and functional processes of the businesses (Zafer and Vardarlier, 2021).

In line with what shared above, the main goal of this Research Topic is to shed some light to different aspects of digital leadership as one of the main challenges about this concept is the high diversity in the perspectives related to digital leadership. Only by putting all different components of digital leadership such as digital transformation and digital platforms and business models together, we can reach to a better understanding about the digital journey of organizations, and we can use this knowledge to design new jobs, new systems, and new organizations for the emerging digital world/s. Same as other types of changes, if we do not ride the wave of digital transformation correctly, we will find ourselves beneath it and knowing how to manage this change, is not an option anymore. The main question is how fast and with which quality we plan to be there.