Emotional intelligence and employee sustainable performance: the moderating role of digital organizational culture among women leaders

Purpose Grounded in the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to investigate the direct, moderating and mediating relationships between emotional intelligence, digital organizational culture and employee sustainable performance among women leaders in the Malaysian manufacturing industry. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative, cross-sectional research design was used. Survey data were collected from 168 women leaders holding managerial positions within the Malaysian manufacturing sector, who provided proxy assessments of their team’s sustainable performance. The conceptual model was empirically evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) through SmartPLS 4. Findings The empirical results establish that emotional intelligence exerts a significant positive direct effect on employee sustainable performance. Crucially, digital organizational culture significantly moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and sustainable performance. However, emotional intelligence does not significantly influence the formation of a digital organizational culture, rendering the hypothesized mediating pathway statistically insignificant. Furthermore, digital organizational culture was found to have a significant negative direct relationship with sustainable performance, contradicting initial assumptions. Practical implications The findings offer actionable insights for human resource practitioners and policymakers. To sustain employee performance amidst rapid digital transformation, organizations must actively nurture emotional intelligence skills among emerging women leaders while concurrently engineering a supportive digital workplace culture, treating both as critical organizational resources that mitigate burnout. Originality/value This study advances organizational behavior literature by uniquely positioning digital organizational culture as a moderating boundary condition, a “resource caravan”, rather than a mediator. It offers a novel theoretical perspective on how the psychological resources of female leaders interact with digital environments to drive sustainable subordinate outcomes in a traditionally male-dominated sector.