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Abstract

This thesis explores the changing nature of leadership in higher education during an era of accelerated digital and AI-enabled transformation. While existing research has focused on systems, processes, and outcomes of online education and higher education digital transformation, there is scarcity in research on how leaders deliver such transformations and the dynamics associated with such technology related changes in universities. Through three interconnected essays, this research project examines how higher education leaders perceive, understand, and enact leadership in increasingly technology-mediated university environments. The thesis is positioned at the intersection of information systems and leadership studies in a higher education setting and adopts a qualitative and interpretive orientation to explore how online education, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence are redefining leadership roles and practices. The thesis addresses a central concern: how do university leaders perceive and respond to digital disruption in higher education?

The first essay is a scoping review focusing on leadership in online education. At the time of conducting this review, there was an increased focus on online education research due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the crisis led to online education platforms becoming a necessity for educationists and students. This article reviews online education in the context of leadership. The review analyses 63 articles and synthesises research published between 2002 and 2022 and identifies dominant themes, concepts and frameworks, and key stakeholders in past literature. The review highlights the fragmented nature of past scholarship; a lack of sustained focus on the key leaders in the existing literature is made apparent, and further empirical research is recommended. Building on this foundation, the second essay empirically explores the role of leadership in AI-enabled digital transformation in the context of higher education. Gioia methodology was adopted to analyse data and present results from a series of interviews with 39 senior digital and academic leaders that aimed to shed light on how university leaders perceive their emerging role. The study identifies university leaders as change agents in enabling value creation through AI, balancing AI integration with ethical values (ethical stewardship), and leading a cultural shift towards human-AI collaboration. This inquiry is extended through the final essay which examines how business school deans make sense of AI in management education as they navigate paradoxical tension between technological exploration and maintaining criticality. Through data collected via interviews with 19 business schools’ deans, and employing Alvesson’s and Sandberg’s (2023) phenomenon construction approach, this research paper engages with sensemaking theory to study how deans make sense of AI in management education by using narrative construction, identity anchoring, and iterative framing. The findings of this study suggest that via sensemaking, business school leaders hold competing logics of exploration through AI and criticality about AI’s use and its implications in management education. This study describes how leaders experience sensemaking as a dynamic process to support both exploration and criticality simultaneously, instead of choosing one over the other.

Collectively, the three papers contribute to emerging debates on digital and AI-era leadership by presenting theoretically informed and empirically grounded insights into how higher education leaders are impacted by digital disruptions in an era increasingly shaped by technological advancements and AI. The findings of the thesis identify a lack of focus in past research on key leaders involved in enabling online education and AI led digital transformation in higher education. To address this gap, the findings conceptualise university leaders as change agents as they enable value creation through AI, balancing AI integration with ethical values, and leading a cultural shift towards human-AI collaboration. Finally, the thesis findings describe how university leaders experience sensemaking as a dynamic process to support exploration and criticality simultaneously when facing digital disruption brought about by new, emerging technology in the field of higher education. The collective findings of the thesis advance a coherent and evolving understanding of leadership in higher education as it transitions from online delivery contexts to more complex AI-enabled digital transformation of universities. This research project moves from consolidating and synthesizing existing knowledge in the topic domain, to empirically exploring emerging leadership roles, and finally, to understanding deeper cognitive processes and paradoxes that underpin leadership practices in conditions of digital disruptions and uncertainty. Theoretically, this dissertation takes stock of past research on leadership in the online education context and extends digital leadership and AI-era leadership in the higher education context. In addition to this, it advances existing research on sensemaking and paradox theory through presenting empirically grounded findings in the domain of higher education. Practically, this research project provides insights into digital and AI-era leadership to university leaders and policymakers, emphasizing the importance of integrating technological competence with long-term strategic vision and the capacity to navigate cognitive, ethical, and social complexities.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Bayes Business School Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

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