Cortellazzo Laura, Bruni Elena, Zampieri Rita
Department of Management, Ca' Foscari University, Venice, Italy.
Department of Business and Management, LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2019 Aug 27;10:1938. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01938. eCollection 2019.
Digital technology has changed organizations in an irreversible way. Like the movable type printing accelerated the evolution of our history, digitalization is shaping organizations, work environment and processes, creating new challenges leaders have to face. Social science scholars have been trying to understand this multifaceted phenomenon, however, findings have accumulated in a fragmented and dispersed fashion across different disciplines, and do not seem to converge within a clear picture. To overcome this shortcoming in the literature and foster clarity and alignment in the academic debate, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the contribution of studies on leadership and digitalization, identifying patterns of thought and findings across various social science disciplines, such as management and psychology. It clarifies key definitions and ideas, highlighting the main theories and findings drawn by scholars. Further, it identifies categories that group papers according to the macro level of analysis (e-leadership and organization, digital tools, ethical issues, and social movements), and micro level of analysis (the role of C-level managers, leader's skills in the digital age, practices for leading virtual teams). Main findings show leaders are key actors in the development of a digital culture: they need to create relationships with multiple and scattered stakeholders, and focus on enabling collaborative processes in complex settings, while attending to pressing ethical concerns. With this research, we contribute to advance theoretically the debate about digital transformation and leadership, offering an extensive and systematic review, and identifying key future research opportunities to advance knowledge in this field.
数字技术已经以一种不可逆转的方式改变了组织。就像活字印刷加速了我们历史的演进一样，数字化正在塑造组织、工作环境和流程，带来领导者必须面对的新挑战。社会科学学者一直在努力理解这一复杂多面的现象，然而，研究结果却以零散的方式在不同学科中积累，似乎并未汇聚成一个清晰的图景。为了克服文献中的这一缺陷，促进学术辩论的清晰性和一致性，本文对领导力与数字化研究的贡献进行了全面分析，识别了管理和心理学等不同社会科学学科中的思维模式和研究结果。它阐明了关键定义和观点，突出了学者们得出的主要理论和研究结果。此外，它还确定了根据宏观分析层面（电子领导力与组织、数字工具、伦理问题和社会运动）和微观分析层面（高层管理人员的角色、数字时代领导者的技能、领导虚拟团队的实践）对论文进行分组的类别。主要研究结果表明，领导者是数字文化发展的关键角色：他们需要与众多分散的利益相关者建立关系，专注于在复杂环境中推动协作流程，同时关注紧迫的伦理问题。通过这项研究，我们在理论上推动了关于数字转型与领导力的辩论，提供了广泛而系统的综述，并确定了未来推进该领域知识的关键研究机会。
