Rethinking the drivers of digital open innovation performance: a contingent perspective on agility, inbound open innovation, and digital transformational leadership

Purpose The high failure rate – above 80% – in digital transformation projects raises concerns about relying solely on internal digital resources to generate competitive advantage. In this context, digital transformational leadership becomes critical for enabling organizations to respond to rapid technological change. While prior research has largely emphasized intraorganizational outcomes, this study aims to examine the mediating role of inbound open innovation between organizational agility and digital open innovation performance, particularly under conditions of digital transformational leadership. Design/methodology/approach The moderated mediation was tested with survey data from a sample of companies operating in the medium and high digital intensity service and manufacturing sectors. Findings Organizational agility has a strong positive effect on digital open innovation performance. Inbound open innovation plays a statistically significant but limited mediating role, indicating that most of the effect of agility remains direct. However, digital transformational leadership strengthens the relationship between inbound open innovation and digital open innovation performance, reinforcing the indirect pathway and enabling firms to translate collaboration with external partners into improved digital innovation outcomes Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on digital open innovation in three ways. First, it reconceptualizes digital transformational leadership as a boundary-spanning capability orchestrating agility and external knowledge flows. Second, it establishes the theoretical primacy of organizational agility in digital open innovation performance, while theorizing inbound open innovation as a complementary, leadership-contingent mechanism. Third, it conceptualizes digital transformational leadership as a boundary condition for the effectiveness of inbound open innovation, advancing the view that external knowledge flows yield conditional rather than intrinsic value.