The Effect of Digitalization and Virtual Leadership on Organizational Innovation During the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis: A Case Study in Indonesia

In the last decade, the effect of digitalization was the most cited issue in economic discourse, especially since technological advances, automation, and artificial intelligence are the key to the future discussions. Unemployment is one of the most important and continuous debates, especially in times of crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the influence of leadership style in innovation organizations to deal with the crisis. In this study, a non-probability purposive sampling method was used. A total of 377 respondents were from LinkedIn social media in Indonesia, with the criteria of employees who have worked for at least 6 years. The structural equation model was analyzed with Amos 25.0. The results show that virtual, servant, and transformational leadership influence employee creativity. Moreover, employee creativity strongly influences organizational innovation; therefore, a new model was found to meet the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, which is leadership. Therefore, these results are useful for managers to overcome challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis to manage employee creativity for a better innovative organization and make science a reference for finding solutions to the global wave of unemployment in the revolution 5.0 era.