The Effect of Digital Leadership and Workplace Agility on Technology-Based MSME Employee Performance: Organizational Culture as Moderator

Abstract

The expansion of the digital economy compels technology-based Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)—encompassing local digital startups, digital creative agencies, and software boutiques—to embrace digital leadership that steers technological turbulence while cultivating workplace agility. Amid hybrid and asynchronous collaborative environments, individual employee performance hinges upon leadership vision and supportive organizational culture. This study examines the impact of digital leadership and workplace agility on technology-based MSME employee performance, while assessing the moderating role of collaborative culture. An explanatory quantitative survey was administered to 165 operational staff and project leads across tech-driven MSMEs in North Sulawesi. The data were evaluated via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4.0. The empirical results demonstrate that digital leadership significantly elevates workplace agility (β = 0.582, p < 0.001) and employee performance directly (β = 0.265, p < 0.001). In turn, workplace agility substantially fosters employee performance (β = 0.448, p < 0.001) and functions as a significant partial mediator (β = 0.261, p < 0.001). Furthermore, collaborative organizational culture significantly and positively moderates the relationship between workplace agility and employee performance (β = 0.172, p = 0.004). The structural model explains 53.9% of the variance in workplace agility (R² = 0.539) and 64.8% in employee performance (R² = 0.648). These findings establish that digital-literate leadership paired with a collaborative ethos forms the cornerstone of creative talent productivity.