Preface

The advanced and rapid progression of digital technologies has contributed massive structural changes to the world economy. Over the last few decades, digital technologies have fundamentally changed organizations, business strategies, processes, products, and services by deconstructing traditional ways of doing business.

The number of leaders adapting to and engaging with digital technology in organizations is rapidly growing, and these developments provide great incentives to explore the conditions facilitating digital transformation. Digital technology can provide many advantages to organizations, such as faster communication unrestrained from time and space, effectively making access to other knowledge networks and global markets convenient.

As digital organizations are becoming more common, there is a need to recognize and understand the challenges, processes, and opportunities distinctive to digital leaders. It may be said that digital leaders' ability to detect technological opportunities is attributed to different scientific skill sets and expertise. The quality of leaders' research and previous experience of discovering technological opportunities would more likely foster the detection of new technological opportunities.

In this context, digital leadership, as a new style of leadership, has gained increasing attention. The technological changes of the last few decades have shaped new concepts of leadership, such as digital leadership. Digital leadership is here defined as the human quality of leadership exercised with digital tools in the virtual world. We are in a period in which information communication technology is seen as an important resource; therefore, the call for digital leadership is more and more urgent. The importance of digital leadership has been widely recognized in the literature, evidenced by the notable increase in relevant publications in the past few years. Thus, in general, this book will be devoted to the study of the benefits of digital leadership (digital technologies), as well as the risks of this type of leadership. New perspectives on digital leadership will be also presented in different contexts.

This is the purpose for which this book has been written and it is structured in three sections.

In the first section, we collected papers showing leadership from different perspectives and its challenges in the twenty-first century. In the **first chapter**, the authors attempt to clarify the main challenges of leadership in the digital realm. This chapter examines how digital leaders cultivate opportunities and address risks in a fast-moving, digital market environment.

The **second chapter** is titled "Leadership for Digital Working: Towards a Contextual Ambidextrous Approach." Here the authors show how the leadership area can be approached from this theory. Some examples are presented and some arguments are also discussed.

**II**

**Chapter 7 129**

**Chapter 8 145**

Islamic Leadership: Comparisons and Qualities

Digitalizing South African Universities: Exploring Benefits,

*by Ahmad Rafiki*

Barriers and Risks

*by Bethuel Sibongiseni Ngcamu*

The **third chapter** shows how good leadership can be seen as a competitive advantage for organizations in the twenty-first century. The authors look at the main advantages that an organization can achieve with digital entrepreneurial leaders.

In the second section, theoretical and practical applications about digital leadership are presented. Therefore, the **fourth chapter** offers a new leader–followership paradigm for virtual leading–following relationships and organizations in the digital age from a North American perspective. On the other hand, the **fifth chapter** presents complex adaptive team systems, i.e., the scaling of a team leadership development model.

In last section—Digital Leadership in Different Countries—three studies realized in different contexts are presented. The first study shows digitalization in the Spanish publishing industry (**sixth chapter**) and the second work describes the concept and principles of Islamic leadership (**seventh chapter**). In the last chapter (**eighth**), the authors identify the risks and benefits of applying a digital leadership style in South African universities.

> **Mário Franco** University of Beira Interior, CEFAGE-UBI Research Center, Portugal

> > **1**

Section 1

Leadership in Digital Era:

Main Challenges

## Section 1
