From digital leadership to digital resilience in AI-enabled hospitality: a sequential mediation of digital culture and digital service innovation

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced digital technologies has profoundly transformed the operational and strategic dynamics of the hospitality and tourism industry, creating an urgent need for innovative approaches to organizational adaptability. This study examines the association between digital leadership (DL) and digital resilience (DR) in AI-enabled hospitality organizations, emphasizing the sequential mediating roles of digital culture (DC) and digital service innovation (DSI). Grounded in Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT), DL is conceptualized as a higher-order capability associated with organizations’ ability to sense and seize technological opportunities, while DC and service innovation serve as mechanisms for reconfiguring resources and processes associated with resilience. A cross-sectional survey of 306 front-line employees from five-star hotels in Greater Cairo, Egypt, was analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings indicate that DL is positively associated with DR, culture and service innovation, with culture and innovation partially and sequentially mediating the association between leadership and resilience. The study advances theory by integrating leadership, culture and innovation within DCT and offers practical guidance for cultivating digitally resilient hospitality organizations through leadership development, cultural alignment and continuous innovation. Given the cross-sectional nature of the data, the findings should be interpreted as evidence of associations rather than definitive causal relationships.