Driving Strategic Success in Private Universities: The Mediating Role of Innovation Adoption in the Context of Innovative Leadership “A Field study in Private Universitiesin the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

This study aimed to investigate the role of strategic success in private universities: the mediating role of innovation adoption in the context of innovative leadership, and analysing the relationship and impact of these variables and providing recommendations for the studied universities that would help them improve the quality of their educational performance. The primary tool for data collection was a questionnaire consisting of 44 items. The study focused on three main variables: innovative leadership and strategic success in addition to innovation adoption as a mediator variable. The selected sample for the practical part of the study included a group of private universities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. A total of 163 questionnaires were distributed to a sample of managers and department heads in 14 private universities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Of these, 152 questionnaires were retrieved, and 148 were found to be valid for analysis. The study reached a set of conclusions that highlighted the main findings and insights that shaped the interactions between innovative leadership and strategic success in a group of private universities in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The study found that the effects of innovative leadership had an impact on the strategic success through the innovation adoption in the studied universities. The study also provided a set of recommendations, the most important of which is that these universities should direct resources towards supporting innovation, both in management and operations, as it is a critical factor in transforming all the resources into tangible and strategic success.