IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_8180.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying Leadership Skills Required in the Digital Age

Author

Listed:
  • Milan Frederik Klus
  • Julia Müller

Abstract

How should executives lead organisations and their employees in an increasingly digitalized business environment and what skills are needed to succeed? Although the evolution of digital technologies considerably changes working environments in organisations and creates new challenges for executives, only little research has been conducted on how these challenges and technology-driven changes are associated with requirements for the skill set needed by executives. In this paper, we bridge that gap by applying a three-stage research design. First, we develop a conceptual framework in which we categorise leadership skills included in the existing literature and associate them with tasks, management level, and leadership experience. To identify skills that are particularly relevant in the context of digitalisation, we conduct semi-structured interviews with executives and systematically investigate job advertisements for management positions. By triangulating the findings, we contribute new insights to the leadership literature and derive practical implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Milan Frederik Klus & Julia Müller, 2020. "Identifying Leadership Skills Required in the Digital Age," CESifo Working Paper Series 8180, CESifo.
  • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8180
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8180.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lex Borghans & Bas Ter Weel & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2014. "People Skills and the Labor-Market Outcomes of Underrepresented Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 287-334, April.
    2. Joan Marques, 2013. "Understanding the Strength of Gentleness: Soft-Skilled Leadership on the Rise," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(1), pages 163-171, August.
    3. Gartzia, Leire & Baniandrés, Josune, 2016. "Are people-oriented leaders perceived as less effective in task performance? Surprising results from two experimental studies," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 508-516.
    4. Bill Wooldridge & Steven W. Floyd, 1990. "The strategy process, middle management involvement, and organizational performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(3), pages 231-241, March.
    5. Colin Hales, 2005. "Rooted in Supervision, Branching into Management: Continuity and Change in the Role of First‐Line Manager," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 471-506, May.
    6. Alvesson, Mats & Sveningsson, Stefan, 2003. "Managers Doing Leadership: The extra-ordinarization of the mundane," Working Paper Series 2003/5, Lund University, Institute of Economic Research.
    7. Donald C. Hambrick, 1981. "Strategic awareness within top management teams," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(3), pages 263-279, July.
    8. Stephen R. Barley & Debra E. Meyerson & Stine Grodal, 2011. "E-mail as a Source and Symbol of Stress," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(4), pages 887-906, August.
    9. Hambley, Laura A. & O'Neill, Thomas A. & Kline, Theresa J.B., 2007. "Virtual team leadership: The effects of leadership style and communication medium on team interaction styles and outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 1-20, May.
    10. Benjamin M. Artz & Amanda H. Goodall & Andrew J. Oswald, 2017. "Boss Competence and Worker Well-Being," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 70(2), pages 419-450, March.
    11. Bondarouk, Tanya V. & Ruël, Huub J.M., 2008. "HRM systems for successful information technology implementation: evidence from three case studies," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 153-165, June.
    12. Francis Green, 2012. "Employee Involvement, Technology and Evolution in Job Skills: A Task-Based Analysis," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(1), pages 36-67, January.
    13. Max Bankewitz & Carl Aberg & Christine Teuchert, 2016. "Digitalization and Boards of Directors: A New Era of Corporate Governance?," Business and Management Research, Business and Management Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 5(2), pages 58-69, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohammad Alam Tareque & Nazrul Islam, 2021. "Digital Leadership: The Perspectives of the Apparel Manufacturing," International Business Research, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(2), pages 124-124, February.
    2. Elena-Mădălina Vătămănescu & Elena Dinu & Mădălina-Elena Stratone & Roxana-Maria Stăneiu & Florina Vintilă, 2022. "Adding Knowledge to Virtual Teams in the New Normal: From Leader-Team Communication towards the Satisfaction with Teamwork," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Milan Frederik Klus & Julia Müller, 2021. "The digital leader: what one needs to master today’s organisational challenges," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(8), pages 1189-1223, October.
    4. Yinan Wang & Yingchong Wang, 2022. "Developing Creative Leadership in the Use of Digital Communication Tools: A Psychological Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-20, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational tasks and wage inequality in West Germany: A decomposition analysis," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    2. Elisabeth Bublitz, 2018. "Matching skills of individuals and firms along the career path," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 509-537.
    3. Judge, William Q. & Stahl, Michael J., 1995. "Middle-manager effort in strategy implementation: A multinational perspective," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 4(1), pages 91-111, March.
    4. Covin, Jeffrey G. & Slevin, Dennis P. & Schultz, Randall L., 1997. "Top Management Decision Sharing and Adherence to Plans," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 21-36, September.
    5. Hornsby, Jeffrey S. & Kuratko, Donald F. & Shepherd, Dean A. & Bott, Jennifer P., 2009. "Managers' corporate entrepreneurial actions: Examining perception and position," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 236-247, May.
    6. Koomen, Miriam & Backes-Gellner, Uschi, 2022. "Occupational Tasks and Wage Inequality in Germany: A Decomposition Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 15702, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Milan Frederik Klus & Julia Müller, 2021. "The digital leader: what one needs to master today’s organisational challenges," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 91(8), pages 1189-1223, October.
    8. Thomas L. P. R. Peeters & Steven Salaga & Matthew Juravich, 2020. "Matching and Winning? The Impact of Upper and Middle Managers on Firm Performance in Major League Baseball," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(6), pages 2735-2751, June.
    9. Joanna Radomska & Cyprian Kozyra, 2020. "Awareness of strategy execution barriers in decision-making process: moderated mediation analysis," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 47(1), pages 61-78, March.
    10. Carlos Martin-Rios, 2016. "Innovative management control systems in knowledge work: a middle manager perspective," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 181-204, May.
    11. Nathalie Greenan & Pierre-Jean Messe, 2018. "Transmission of vocational skills in the second part of careers: the effect of ICT and management changes," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 52(1), pages 1-16, December.
    12. Katie Meara & Francesco Pastore & Allan Webster, 2020. "The gender pay gap in the USA: a matching study," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(1), pages 271-305, January.
    13. Heracleous, Loizos & Klaering, Laura Alexa, 2017. "The circle of life: Rhetoric of identification in Steve Jobs' Stanford speech," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 31-40.
    14. Olson, Bradley J. & Bao, Yongjian & Parayitam, Satyanarayana, 2007. "Strategic decision making within Chinese firms: The effects of cognitive diversity and trust on decision outcomes," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 35-46, March.
    15. Myriam Karoui & Ali Gürkan & Aurélie Dudézert, 2010. "Virtual Team Collaboration: a review of literature and perspectives," Post-Print hal-00509753, HAL.
    16. David Deming & Lisa B. Kahn, 2018. "Skill Requirements across Firms and Labor Markets: Evidence from Job Postings for Professionals," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(S1), pages 337-369.
    17. Sofie Cabus & Joanna Napierala & Stephanie Carretero, 2021. "The Returns to Non-Cognitive Skills: A Meta-Analysis," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021-06, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    18. Fang,Sheng & Goh,Chorching & Roberts,Mark & Xu,L. Colin & Zeufack,Albert G., 2020. "Female Business Leaders, Business and Cultural Environment, and Productivity around the World," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9275, The World Bank.
    19. L. Rachel Ngai & Barbara Petrongolo, 2017. "Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 1-44, October.
    20. Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2009. "Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organizational Interpretation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 909-924, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    conceptual framework; digitalization; explorative study; leadership skills;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation
    • M15 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - IT Management
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
    • M54 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Management
    • O32 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8180. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.