Getting the Mix Right: How Digital Transformation Shapes Top Management Teams in Creative Industries

Background: Digital transformation is accelerating across sectors, prompting organizations to reconfigure theirleadership structures. In creative industries, this transformation is particularly complex as it involves balancing strategic, creative, and digital priorities. Purpose: This study investigates how digital transformation driven by adaptation pressures shapes the configuration and dynamics of top management teams in creative industries. It investigates which leadership role contexts are involved in decision-making and how dynamics unfold amid competing logics and structural asymmetries. Method: A Constructivist Grounded Theory approach was followed to inductively investigate the study’s purpose. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews and triangulated with a wide range of archival sources. Interview coding combined open and focused coding with memo writing to conduct an inductive grounded analysis. Conclusion: The study concludes that digital transformation driven by adaptation pressures shapes top management teams in creative industries by unfolding fluid and asymmetrical leadership configuration. Transformation is coordinated through the orchestration of the three dominant business logics of strategic profitability, creative vision, and digital optimization, requiring relational alignment across functions. Leadership effectiveness arises from cross-collaboration, enabling cohesive decision-making under digital adaptation pressure.