School Digital Transformation and Educational Innovation: The Role of Digital Leadership and Organizational Readiness

Abstract

In 21st century, digital transformation is an essential part of school improvement that demands effective leadership, organizational capacity and innovative education practices. This research explored the link between digital leadership, organizational readiness and educational innovation, as well as the mediating effect of organizational readiness on the link between digital leadership and educational innovation in school digital transformation. A quantitative cross-sectional correlational research design was used and the number of respondents was 300 public and private school teachers purposively selected in stratified random sampling. A structured questionnaire was used to gather data, which were then analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, regression analysis and bootstrapping mediation analysis. A strong positive relationship was found between digital leadership and organizational readiness (r = .68, p < .001). Organizational readiness was a significant predictor of educational innovation and accounted for 50.4% of the variance (R² = .504) as per regression analysis. Moreover, educational innovation was strongly predicted by digital leadership (β = .65, p < .001, R² = .423). The results of mediation analysis indicated that organizational readiness partially mediated between digital leadership and educational innovation, and had a significant indirect effect (B = .35, 95% CI [0.28, 0.44]). The study ends the conclusion that digital transformation in schools is a sustainable process, which needs strong digital leadership, organizational readiness, teachers' capacity development and supportive institutional conditions.