The mediating role of AI adoption: transforming organizational readiness, leadership support, and ethical governance into sustainable marketing performance

Artificial intelligence is transforming marketing, yet many organizations struggle to translate its potential into sustainable performance gains. This study examines how organizational readiness, leadership support, and ethical governance jointly influence AI adoption and sustainable marketing performance in the GCC. The Technology Acceptance Model, Diffusion of Innovation Theory, Normalization Process Theory, and Disruptive Innovation Theory were integrated into a unified conceptual framework to explain the socio-technical mechanisms underlying AI adoption. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was adopted. Data was collected between November 2024 and January 2025 from 550 marketing professionals across the GCC, followed by 20 semi-structured interviews. Structural equation modelling and thematic analysis were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data, respectively. Findings reveal that organizational readiness, leadership support, and ethical governance significantly predict AI adoption. Bootstrapped indirect-effect analysis further shows that AI adoption fully mediates the effects of organizational readiness and ethical governance on marketing performance, while partially mediating the effect of leadership support. Moreover, AI adoption emerges as a key mediator, driving improvements in targeting and operational efficiency. By resolving the compliance-performance paradox, the study advances theory by demonstrating that ethical governance and leadership constitute trust infrastructures that transform organizational readiness into sustainable, AI-enabled marketing capabilities.