Strategic Leadership in a Multipolar and AI-driven World: Integrating Indigenous and Global Contexts ​

Introduction

​​The global leadership landscape has shifted dramatically, with power increasingly dispersed across multiple hubs, including emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, and Indonesia. This multipolar and dynamic environment, coupled with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and rapid technological advancements, demands a rethinking and a deeper inquiry into strategic leadership. Navigating complex geopolitical tensions, socio-economic diversity, and technological disruptions, all requiring an inclusive and indigenous approach, could be what leaders need to focus on in the face of this complexity (Bruton et al., 2022; Chen, 2025) to understand leadership practices. Amid this multipolar leadership expansion, strategic leaders of businesses need a deeper understanding of their external environments to address multiple markets’ diverse political, economic and socio-cultural expectations (Adobor et al., 2021; Kriger and Zhovtobryukh, 2013). An organization's strategy success can vary greatly from market to market. For instance, global issues such as climate change, pandemics, geopolitical crises, ethical and sustainable business practices, and cyberthreats demand global cooperation and consensus, requiring organizational leaders to possess the knowledge and skills to compete and develop solutions. Additionally, addressing supply chain and operational risks necessitates strategic leadership for establishing organizational resilience (Adobor et al., 2021) and resource diversification to avert economic and business disruptions.

Existing literature offers extensive evidence of strategic leadership as a crucial construct and a changing phenomenon in organizations, with several definitions tied to different contextual environments (e.g., Child, 1972; Hambrick and Mason, 1984; Boal and Hooijiberg, 2001; Carpenter et al., 2004; Boal and Schultz, 2007; Finkelstein et al., 2009; Narayanan and Zane, 2009; Boyd et al., 2011; Bromiley and Rau, 2016; Wowak et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2018; Korzynski et al., 2021; Samimi et al., 2022). But a recent study, Singh et al. (2023) suggests that “strategic leadership can be comprehensively described as leadership that is focused on strategic consequences (e.g., economic, environmental, social) for organizations (e.g., multinationals, small and medium enterprises), which can be driven by tasks that include but transcend beyond strategic visioning, encapsulating a wide range of high-level administrative (governance), engagement, innovation (improvement), operational, and supervisory tasks for an organization without being confined to any leadership style (e.g., authentic, autocratic, bureaucratic, democratic, transactional, transformational, servant) or value (e.g., self-regarding, other-regarding).” (p. 1-2). Given the current unpredictable and indeterminate global environment, strategic leaders need to have distinct leadership qualities, conduct, and competencies (Adobor et al., 2021; Dhlamini, 2025) to effectively lead their organizations.

While classical theories of management and leadership have predominantly emerged from western contexts, there is a growing recognition that indigenous perspectives (Li et al., 2016; Bruton et al., 2022; Galperin et al., 2022), deeply rooted in local cultural, historical, and organizational contexts, offer valuable insights that can enrich global leadership paradigms. For example, recent scholarship highlights how phenomenon-based indigenous research can provide new theoretical frameworks by drawing on unique local dynamics and addressing novel organizational phenomena (Chen, 2025). Grounded in indigenous contexts, such as the rapid digital transformation in China, these theories have the potential to evolve into universal frameworks that transcend geographical and cultural boundaries (Holtbrügge, 2013; Li et al., 2016; Liu and Ding, 2024; Chen, 2025).

Traditional skills of leaders remain key, but they must be combined with new leadership skills. In a world characterized by volatility and change, it is essential for strategic leaders to have a deep understanding of how they scan and interpret the shifting external macro environment (Samimi et al., 2022; Singh et al., 2023), and how they strategically respond to emerging business trends and potential technological disruptions to ensure organizational success. This may involve, for the purpose of quickly adapting to evolving and emergent market knowledge and insights, transitioning from rigid structures to a more lithe, flexible and adaptive organizational design. Besides, strategic leaders are tasked with establishing a focused and innovative environment of experimentation, strategic risk-taking (Kish-Gephart and Campbell, 2015; Lim, 2015), and even encouraging failure; in order to develop and nurture a work culture that encourages employees (Connelly et al; 2013; Chadwick et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2005) to feel safe challenging the prevailing logic, fostering the creation of innovative knowledge, enabling cross-functional collaboration, organizational knowledge transfer, and promoting continuous research and development for competitive advantage (Marcel et al., 2010).

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), organizations are witnessing a paradigm shift in technology. Consequently, the way strategic leadership decisions are made (Dhlamini, 2025) and organizational work is done to create value is changing in many industries and markets. Thus, leaders face challenges in tech literacy, ethics, societal impact, talent development and retention. Strategic decisions require leaders to know AI’s boundaries and capabilities. A critical question is whether strategic leaders have the know-how and ability (Ireland and Hitt, 1999; Hambrick, 2007) to ask about and determine the detrimental implications and advantages of AI for their businesses. Can leaders also thoroughly grasp sustainability, digital transformation, and AI-oriented ethical issues (Adobor et al., 2021; Dhlamini, 2025) such as job displacement, algorithmic bias, data privacy, and possible AI misuse in business processes and practices. Existing research offers little insight into how leaders can encourage ethical and transparent practices related to AI in organizations. Apart from these challenges, strategic leaders need to effectively manage the people side of disruptive technological change and develop strategies for workforce upskilling in their organizations. Another vital theme in this changing context is the integration of indigenous perspectives (Holtbrügge, 2013; Li et al., 2016; Bruton et al., 2022; Galperin et al., 2022; Liu and Ding, 2024; Chen, 2025) with global strategic leadership practices not only broadens theoretical understanding and depth, but can provide actionable insights for practitioners navigating dynamic and unpredictable environments. As Chen (2025) argues, phenomenon-driven research allows for the development of robust, contextually grounded theories that can evolve into universal frameworks, thereby contributing to global management and leadership knowledge.

Ultimately, strategic leaders must develop an understanding of how their leadership can affect diverse stakeholders (Coombs and Gilley, 2005; Cao et al., 2006; Westphal et al., 2012; Park and Tzabbar, 2016; Zheng et al., 2017; Singh et al., 2023) in an interdependent world, and be actively engaged in varied cultural backgrounds, as well as ethics-based decision-making (Chin et al., 2013; Krasikova et al., 2013; Petrenko et al., 2016) beyond their organizational boundaries. Therefore, to comprehend the evolving leadership landscape in a multipolar and AI-driven world, this special issue welcomes manuscripts about strategic leadership on the given themes and perspectives in the contemporary environment. This special issue seeks to further explore the intersection of indigenous perspectives and strategic leadership in a multilateral world. We encourage submissions that examine how indigenous approaches to leadership, particularly in emerging markets, can address contemporary challenges such as sustainability, digital transformation, and geopolitical volatility. Empirical research capturing the unique contexts and dynamics of strategic leadership within and between organizations in these markets is especially welcome. The following areas/topics are indicative, not the only possibilities.

List of Topic Areas

• How do strategic leaders impact businesses in an increasingly AI-dependent work environment
• Challenges, relationships and influences of strategic leaders of firms on different stakeholder groups such as employees, suppliers, customers, strategic partners, local communities, regulators, governments etc. in multipolar market environments.
• How do the changing and unpredictable geo-political environments shape strategic leadership behaviour of global organizations?
• How do countries’ strategic interests and dynamic macro environment influence the styles and skills of strategic leaders?
• What are the core leadership competencies and know-how needed of strategic leaders to navigate the increasing dependence of AI's role in businesses?
• Strategic perspectives on the relationships between businesses and motivations of national self-interests on strategic leadership environment.
• Literature reviews, conceptual development and case studies on leadership styles, skills of CEOs and top-management teams of small, medium and large organizations that have a multinational stakeholder interest in a world of multipolarity and AI dependence.
• How do strategic leaders strategically learn and know from effective organizational leadership exemplars operational in different countries/regions of the world?
• Empirical studies showcasing indigenous approaches to strategic leadership and their application to navigating AI-driven transformations.
• How indigenous values and cultural dynamics influence strategic leadership practices in multipolar and AI-enabled environments.
• The role of strategic leadership in fostering resilience and adaptability within organizations operating in volatile geopolitical landscapes.
• How do indigenous knowledge systems and cultural traditions inform ethical decision-making in strategic leadership?
• The interplay between indigenous strategic leadership practices and AI-based organizational transformation, including issues of empowerment, delegation, and high-power distance cultures.
• How phenomenon-driven research in emerging markets can contribute to the development of universal strategic leadership theories.
• Critical reviews, comparative studies, and theory development on strategic leadership traits, behaviours, and competencies observed in indigenous and western contexts and their global applicability.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here. 

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal. 

Key Deadlines

This Special Issue is now open for submissions

Closing date for manuscripts submission: ​30/06/2026​

Guest Editors

​​Professor Krishna Venkitachalam, Professor of Strategic Management, College of Business Administration, Ajman University, Ajman, UAE, [email protected]

Professor José C. Alves, Dean and Professor of Management, Faculty of Business, City University of Macau, E-mail: [email protected]​

Professor Thierry Burger-Helmchen, Professor of Innovation Management, Faculty of Economics and Management, BETA-CNRS, University of Strasbourg, France, E-mail: [email protected]​ 

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