In this chapter, the EIL (Effective Innovation Leadership) framework is tested empirically. First, peer-reviewed journals in the innovation management, leadership, and transformation discipline are analyzed. Second, a pre-test with 58 executives takes place. The response behavior of the participants varies depending on the company's degree of digital maturity. Third, 20 innovation leaders employed in mature digital companies answer the survey. The participants perceive their company as innovative and state that up to 89% of created innovations are digital. Values relevant to digital innovation leaders are innovation, responsibility, positivity, and transparency. Relevant strengths are creativity and learning. Both strongly correlate with a few efficacy items. Decisiveness correlates with innovation strategy. Entrepreneurship, self-regulation, and culture correlate with each other. Creativity connects the value of innovation and the practice of communication. The insights from this chapter contribute to building a reliable and valid factor-based effective digital innovation leadership questionnaire in the future.
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It follows an examination of the dynamics of the digital revolution at the macro level. The Digital Revolution originated in 1947 and is ongoing ever since. The invention of the Internet, the rise of home computers, and the invention of the World Wide Web and Smartphones and Social Media are core drivers of global digitalization. Today 62% of the world population are cell phone subscribers, and 59% are internet users (Statista, 2020a; Statista, 2020b). Through the Internet and the movements documented in it, companies and consumers generate a wide variety of data that reflect user behavior information.
According to Moore's Law, computing power has doubled every 18 months for more than half a century. Moreover, there is no end in sight. This development has led to the fact that we now have computers capable of performing highly complex tasks. Artificial intelligence's beginnings can already be marveled at here and there, even if the decisive breakthrough in this sector is not expected until around 2045 (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2014).
We are on the cusp of an age of networked intelligence - an age that will produce a new economy, a new politics, and a new society. (Tapscott, 2013)
According to Tapscott (2013), humanity is currently operating in a knowledge economy less based on physical strength and more on people's mental strength. Information connects people across the globe. The combination of electronic data processing, communication, and content creates new branches of industry that make new companies necessary. In the digital economy, competition comes from all industries, national markets, and company sizes. When information is digital and networked, nobody can hide anymore. Digital pioneering companies such as Google, Apple, or PayPal disrupt already the banking and automotive industry. Competitors of tomorrow can come from anywhere.
Waller and Beswick (2020) encourage established companies to mobilize new digital tools so that managers and technologists alike can make fundamentally better business decisions. Research and managerial interest in digital transformation are burgeoning. Following the research of Hanelt et al. (2020: 20), “Digital Transformation can be best understood as continuous change that can be triggered and shaped by episodic bursts, while the latter are inducing further continuous change.” The scientists studied 297 articles to create this definition.