Abstract:

The question of how Chinese enterprises can break free from the “not digitalizing means waiting for death, digitalizing means seeking death” dilemma to achieve healthy development in the digital economy has become a focal point for entrepreneurs and scholars. A significant concern is that during the process of digitalization, issues such as employees resisting due to digital virtual entities “taking their jobs,” new digital technologies not aligning with organizational culture, and employees feeling monitored due to digital tools have become increasingly prominent. The underlying reason for these issues is primarily the leaders within organizations lacking basic understanding and insight into digitalization, along with insufficient ability to anticipate digital development trends. Therefore, we believe that leaders in the digital era must possess “digital mindset.”

This study, based on current research and relevant theories, comprehensively explores the key research theme of leader digital mindset. Specifically, first, the study clarifies the definition of leader digital mindset and distinguishes its dimensions. Second, the study, using trait activation theory, explores the interaction between external situational factors and internal factors of leaders on leader digital mindset. Third, combined with the social information processing theory, this study examines the mechanism of how leader digital mindset affects team digital resilience.

Our study has the following several theoretical contributions. First, it reveals the importance, connotations, and characteristics of leader digital mindset, laying a solid foundation for subsequent research and enhancing understanding and comprehension of leader digital mindset. Currently, the definition of digital mindset is inconsistent, with scholars mainly defining it from perspectives of ability, attitude, or behavior, and the concept and connotations of leader digital mindset are still in the exploratory stage. Therefore, this study attempts to clarify the importance of leader digital mindset and define its concept and key connotation dimensions. Specifically, by reviewing the differences between digital mindset and other types of mindset in digital contexts, it reveals that leader digital mindset encompasses both self-directed and context-directed aspects, corresponding to dimensions of digital understanding capabilities, continual improvement belief, agile responsiveness, and cooperation and sharing view, totaling four dimensions. These findings not only promote the development of the emerging research theme of leader digital mindset but also contribute to further integrating digitalization into leadership theory research literature, providing a sufficient theoretical foundation and empirical evidence for leader digital mindset, and advancing the development and application of this concept in the digital era. Additionally, this work lays the groundwork for scholars to further investigate the influencing factors and effects of leader digital mindset.

Second, the study identifies internal and external factors influencing leader digital mindset, helping to expand antecedent research on leader digital mindset. Cultivating and stimulating leader digital mindset is gradually becoming a focus for organizations and leaders themselves. However, most enterprises are still exploring effective measures and approaches to cultivate leader digital mindset, and research on the antecedents of leader digital mindset is still in its infancy. Although scholars have explored the impact of situational factors and individual internal factors on other leader mindsets (such as leader flow thought, leader growth mindset), research on how digital situational factors and leaders' self-factors affect their digital mindset remains to be explored and validated. This study, combining real-world contexts and trait activation theory, examines the interaction between situational factors and leaders' internal factors affecting leader digital mindset. This not only provides solid theoretical guidance for leaders to consciously train their digital mindset but also offers effective guiding action plans for organizations to cultivate leader digital mindset. Furthermore, the study calls for scholars to delve deeper into the antecedents of leader digital mindset.

Third, the study opens the “black box” of the effect of leader digital mindset on team digital resilience, expanding research on the outcome effects and mechanisms of leader digital mindset. Currently, theoretical analysis and empirical testing of the effectiveness of leader digital mindset are quite lacking. Also, no scholars have specifically discussed or verified how leader digital mindset positively affects team digital resilience and which situational factors influence the relationship between the two. This study, based upon the social information processing theory, opens the black box of the mechanism by which leader digital mindset affects team digital resilience. It first discusses the positive impact of leader digital mindset on team digital resilience. Then, it analyzes how leader digital mindset affects team psychological processes (team cognition, team emotion), thereby positively influencing team digital resilience. Finally, it explores the moderating roles of digital task characteristics and social exchange relationships in the relationship between leader digital mindset and team digital resilience. The research conclusions not only deepen the understanding of the effectiveness of leader digital mindset theoretically by examining the mechanism of its effect on team digital resilience but also aim to inspire scholars, encouraging them to further explore the effects of leader digital mindset from other theoretical perspectives.

Key words: leader digital mindset, internal and external factors, team digital resilience, team psychological states