Managing Digital Demands and Human Values: Leadership and Process Adaptation in Rural Banking Teams

ABSTRACT Digital transformation is reshaping bank management through standardization, metric visibility, and technological dependence. In rural banking, these pressures coexist with community embeddedness, local service knowledge, and relationship‐based service, making team adaptation especially challenging. This study examines how leadership‐related resources are associated with team adaptability and perceived relational well‐being in rural bank branches operating under digitally standardized work processes. Drawing on the job demands–resources (JD‐R) framework, we test a model linking fair leadership, perceived organizational support, the social purpose of work, community moral responsibility, subjective well‐being, team dynamic adaptability, and team relational well‐being. Survey data from 400 employees of rural bank branches in Extremadura, Spain, were analyzed using PLS–SEM and multigroup analysis. The results show that fair leadership is associated with team‐referenced outcomes primarily indirectly, through greater perceived organizational support. In turn, this support is related to higher subjective well‐being and greater team dynamic adaptability. The social purpose of work is positively associated with both subjective well‐being and team relational well‐being, whereas community moral responsibility shows no significant direct relationships in the structural model. The multigroup analysis indicates that these dynamics differ between managers and nonmanagers. This study contributes to process management and organizational learning by identifying how leadership‐related resources are associated with routine adaptation, relational coordination, and service quality during digital transformation.