The impact of learning organizations on sustainable performance

Sustainable performance has become a priority for organizations as they navigate an uncertain, highly competitive environment. Although prior research suggests that organizations that adopt a learning orientation can enhance sustainable performance, the mechanisms through which this relationship operates remain underexplored. To address this, this study examines how learning organizations enhance sustainable performance through a serial mediation pathway. Specifically, drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives, this study proposes and examines that learning organizations create conditions that enable the emergence of authentic leadership, which catalyzes workforce agility and ultimately drives sustainable performance. Using a quantitative research design with survey data collected from 228 employees across public-sector organizations in the United Arab Emirates, the analysis revealed that authentic leaders, emerge from learning organizations, develop workforce agility, and that agile workforces translate organizational learning into sustainable performance. The serial mediation model reconceptualizes authentic leadership as organizationally emergent rather than individually independent, identifies workforce agility as the critical mechanism translating intention into performance, and integrates sustainability into organizational effectiveness research. The findings of this study provide important implications for theory and practice.