Digital Leadership and Sustainability Outcomes

While the manufacturing industry may use information technology to reduce adverse environmental impact, it needs related managerial staff who possess specialized knowledge to optimize sustainability performance and high-resilience organizations that have flexible hierarchies for changes. Yet, few studies have studied this knowledge and the impact of organizational resilience on firms' sustainability in a holistic way. To fill this academic research gap, this study surveyed 307 managers, IT executives, and sustainability manufacturing industry officers from five major industrial provinces in China. The partial least squares structural equation model results indicated that digital leadership's direct impact on the sustainability performance of manufacturing firms was mediated through digital knowledge management. At the same time, low-resilience organizations rely more on digital knowledge management to enhance sustainability outcomes, but highly resilient organizations may already possess systems that support sustainability.