English abstract
The study aimed to find the degree to which digital leadership contributed to attaining competitive advantage in private Omani universities from the perspective of academics in view of several variables namely: gender, academic rank, and years of experience. To achieve the objectives of the study, a descriptive research method was used, and a questionnaire consisting of 35 items was constructed. The questionnaire was comprised of two topics: digital leadership with 20 items and competitive advantage with 15 items. After verifying the validity and reliability of the instrument, it was applied to a sample of 234 faculty members from some private Omani universities namely: Nizwa University, Al-Sharqiyah University, Al-Buraimi University.
The study has shown that, from the perspective of academics, the level of digital leadership in private Omani universities was generally high across all dimensions. The dimensions were ranked as follows: organizational environment dimension, research and innovation dimension, the education and learning dimension and finally management and operations dimension. The results of the study also revealed that there are no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in the responses of the study sample of academics to the level of digital leadership in private Omani universities due to the variables of gender and academic rank in all of its dimensions. There were also no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) attributed to the years of experience variable in the dimensions of organizational environment, education and learning. However, there were statistically significant differences in the dimensions of management, operations, research and innovation for those with less experience.
Furthermore, the study showed that the level of competitive advantage in private Omani universities, from the perspective of academics, was generally high in every dimension. The dimensions were ranked as follows: management and operations dimension, the organizational environment dimension, and then the research and innovation dimension. The findings of the study revealed no statistically significant differences at the significance level (α≤0.05) in the responses of the academic sample regarding the level of competitive advantage in private Omani universities attributed to the variables of gender, academic rank, and years of experience in all dimensions.
The study concluded that there was a positive, strong and statistically significant correlation between all the dimensions of digital leadership and the dimensions of competitive advantage. The results of the linear regression analysis also demonstrated that the degree of digital leadership’s contribution could predict 79.5% of the level of competitive advantage in private Omani universities.
In light of the aforementioned results, the following recommendations were made: private Omani universities need to adopt the latest communication technologies as a requirement for digital leadership and continuous development of academic programs to keep pace with the requirements of the job market.
