A Study on the Impact of Sustainable Leadership and Core Competencies on Sustainable Competitive Advantage in the Information Technology (IT) Sector

Abstract

The study is focused on assessing the impact of sustainable leadership and core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage in the information technology sector. The data are sourced from primary and secondary data. The primary data are sourced from IT sector employees. The secondary information is sourced from earlier publications related to sustainable leadership, sustainable competitive advantage, and core competencies. The primary data were collected through the field survey method, although some were collected via an online mode. The sample size was 297. The study used a simple stratified random sampling technique. The study results described a significant effect of sustainable leadership on sustainable competitive advantage. Sustainable leadership improves the prospects of associations in terms of their creation, constant advancement, sustained competitive edge, and long-term success. Sustainable leadership is a wellspring of gaining the upper hand for associations. Sustainable leadership benefits associations, development, consistent improvement, a supported upper hand, and long haul achievement. The study also found that the core competencies significantly influence the competitive advantage. The discoveries of the current study have significant ramifications for customers, top administration, and policymakers. The practitioners of IT companies are urged to cultivate an inventive and open correspondence climate in their associations dependent on existing logical discoveries. Likewise, they could utilize the current outcomes as a benchmark for gradually expanding their qualities and limits, which may prompt better natural productivity.

1. Introduction

The IT sector is an area that is undergoing rapid development and is changing the face of business standards in India. This area comprises software development, consultancies, online services software management, and business progression outsourcing. It is an industry that flourishes globally, and India’s IT exports are currently around $70 billion, with 2.8 million employees working in this sector. India has set up a good foundation for itself as the major off-shoring objective for worldwide IT organizations. Be that as it may, the worldview has changed drastically. The Indian IT industry faces firm contests from re-appropriating organizations situated in various areas of the planet. There are colossal accentuations of efficiency, esteem augmentations, quality, client experience, successful correspondences, meeting deadlines, space information, and readiness. The competition among IT companies ensures the stability of the organization. In order to survive, companies need to create their image in a well-developed manner. Sustainability is an idea whereby companies assume the liability of giving something great back to the general public in any form of development, which brings the culture of creating “power to be good”. It involves the impact of their activities to better the clients, local area, and climate in all parts of their activities. It is an inescapable idea of the contemporary association and is an essential obligation. This concept is considered a global trend in today’s business world and is an idea that its pioneers center around benefit augmentation and dealing with HR regarding the climate, society, and long haul reasonable improvement objectives as essential goals [1]. The perception of efficient leadership builds interest in maintainable practices that require new mentalities, development, and making an incentive for the partners [2]. Diminishing natural resources and increasing environmental pollution and societal inequality are the major concerns of most countries and indicate that business activities should be more effective in terms of meeting social expectations. Organizations focus on maintaining the ecological balance in the globalized business arena, ensuring sustainability by paying greater attention to maintaining an eco-friendly culture outside their premises [2]. The concept of sustainable leadership differs from and surpasses the boundaries of traditional leadership. It motivates and leads people to achieve profit maximization, wield power, and engage themselves in cultivating and embedding sustainable values among employees to acknowledge and value the environmental and cultural diversity of natural resources. To accomplish this, organizations are focusing on inducting capable leaders to create systems in their organizations which enhance efficiency, productivity, and growth [3]. It focuses on making the resources valuable, rare, and immobile across firms. The concept of sustainability creates value within the organization by attracting, retaining, and motivating employees and encouraging greater employee productivity. Organizations today are struggling to create sustainable cultures by focusing on three aspects: understanding what sustainability is, how it can be incorporated within the organization by creating efficient and effective leaders, and most importantly, executing it appropriately through measuring, tracking, and reporting sustainability efforts. It centers on addressing the requirements of the present without compromising the requirements of individuals in the future. In scientific literature, this idea can be deciphered in various ways. At its center, it is a methodology that adjusts the unique and contending needs against attention to the financial, ecological, and social constraints confronting society. Living within one’s environmental limit is the central principle of this concept. However, practically, it is a much broader concept that includes climate, society, meeting the assorted requirements of individuals in existing and prospect networks, individual opulence, social accessory, and setting out equivalent freedom. Sustainable improvement has arisen as a field of applied exploration across multiple disciplines. Sustainable leadership is another space of viable authority which has been set up as of late to adapt to issues identified with the economic turn of events [4,5]. Sustainable leaders utilize the assets of their associations to tackle ecological and social difficulties while creating an incentive for the investors [6]. The thought of sustainable leadership is becoming better known within associations [7,8]. Sustainable leadership has become a successful authority style to adapt to economic difficulties [9,10]. Sustainable management exercises center around ensuring efficiency and motivation for associations. Its scholars encourage considering and transmitting suitable administration interventions. Sustainable leadership (SL) can be the origin of strategic advantage for organizations. SL provides associations with possibilities for the creation and steady progression of supported strategic advantage and long-term achievement. Additionally, SL initiates sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) in the IT sector. SCA describes a set of resources, qualities, or capacities that permit an association to meet its client needs better than its opposition. Manageable upper hands are challenging to copy or imitate. SCA is the way to achieve. The power of SCA lies in its enabling a business to have more prominent concentration, more deals, better net revenues, and higher client and staff maintenance than its competitors. Knowledge management is an indispensable hierarchical asset in the quest to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. It is used by super-advanced assistance associations to expand their business territories and to hold onto activities and offers information expertly. While much work has aimed to improve our knowledge of good practices, there is a deficiency of observational proof identifying with hierarchical level empowering agents for information sharing. The authors advocate that ensuring conditions that are helpful for information sharing impacts the authoritative capacity to support a drawn-out upper hand. Accordingly, this current review broadens the literature on information by investigating whether and what key hierarchical variables impact information sharing, zeroing in on the job of trust, correspondence, reward frameworks, and leadership. To do this, the authors investigated earlier work and produced theories identifying with important enablers. The promotion of the concept of sustainability requires the emergence of new leadership, which can foster change within the organization by emphasizing the importance of maintaining ecological balance and social responsibility. The present paper focuses on assessing the impact of sustainable leadership and core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage in information technology companies. Furthermore, the present study concentrates on evaluating the impact of sustainable leadership on sustainable competitive advantage and the impact of core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage. The study’s outcome is helpful to the management of IT companies in order to implement sustainable leadership and competitive advantages.

2. Literature Survey

2.1. Conceptual Framework of Sustainable Leadership

Sustainable leadership (SL) has been conceptualized, but continues to develop. SL was earlier termed ‘Rhineland management [11,12,13,14]. SL proposes an all-encompassing way to deal with driving an association to adjust individuals, benefits, and the planet, and advance the life span of the firm through evidence-based administration practices. Twenty-three SL practices shown to drive organizational longevity and execution have been distinguished, and can be contrasted with traditional “business-as-usual” convictions about leading businesses [15,16]. Formerly based on Rhineland capitalism [17], SL develops [12] 19 innovative practices received from a study of 28 comprehensive organizations. The primary 19 standard practices are CEO and the top-group initiative, consensual and decayed navigation, morals, monetary freedom, solid fundamental advancement, information sharing, and long-haul viewpoint. Practices additionally include: advancement from the inside, solid authoritative culture, resilient individuals, superior grade, high staff maintenance, profoundly talented labor force, solid social obligation, solid natural obligation, wide partner center, self-administering groups, and thought about vulnerability and change as cycle, as well as agreeable association board relations [15,16]. These, alongside four extra practices, form a group of 23 so-called “honeybee” reasonable practices in the SL system. The four extra techniques (faith, modernization, staff engagement, and self-management) were added to the most recent SL model. Many scholars [18] advocate individual honeybee practices as the essential starting point for practical endeavors. More current literature [19,20] likewise infers that SL practices drive business execution, especially in the area of data innovation. In a nutshell, honeybee practices move associations towards a scope of unrivaled business results, including monetary execution, thereby contributing to the sustainability of organizations.

SL has been endorsed as an incredibly fruitful tool in to overcoming regular hardships [21]. Strong shared vision, support of present issues, data sharing, getting through associations, and ethically and socially trustworthy approaches to acting are all focuses of sustainable leaders [4,22]. Sustainable leaders move and animate delegates to share novel contemplations and begin creative activities which achieve determined development at the hierarchical level. Such practices likewise guarantee laborers’ positive approaches to enacting improvement drives. SL pioneers help workers think outside the box by propelling data sharing inside affiliations. Sustainable leaders additionally advance improvement by giving sureness and sponsorship to delegates to create novel thinking [23].

A union of these calculated meanings of manageable administration uncovers a few standard highlights that recognize this form of leadership:

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Vision of the long term;

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Emphasis on leadership rather than a unitary leader;

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Broader goals that link organizations to society;

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Ethical behavior;

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Social responsibilities of leaders and organizations;

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Innovation capacity;

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Systemic change;

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Stakeholder engagement;

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Capacity building of stakeholders.

Figure 1 presents a calculated model that identifies sustainable leadership within an open organizational and social system [13,20,24,25,26]. In this model, sustainable leadership is sanctioned in a specific social and institutional setting and is individually and authoritatively grounded [13,15,27]. Examples of values that have been proposed to encourage manageability include control, judiciousness, common regard, the worth of people, greatness, development, quality, and moral ways of behaving [14,16,28,29]. These qualities underlie both the vision that pioneers and partners endeavor to accomplish and the idea of pioneer–devotee cooperation [14,28,29,30].

SL is sanctioned through combined or conveyed endeavors directed at forming the organizational culture, leading people for both performance and job satisfaction, and redesigning working systems in a cutting edge way [11,13,16,31,32]. SL tries to connect with an expansive arrangement of partners, both inside and outside of the association (e.g., staff community, customers, suppliers, and government) [11,33,34,35]. Besides, as proposed above, manageable authority develops the prior meanings of effective leadership. Sustainable leadership reorients the mission of associations towards different marks of achievement that surpass the conventional understandings of staff fulfillment, responsibility, and undertaking execution [11,13,36]. These ordinarily incorporate the triple-primary concern of financial, social, and ecological results [11,14,16].

Finally, the sustainable leadership model causes us to notice the way that the variables of the triple-primary concern are not self-contained; instead, they contribute to creating associations, networks, and social orders with the flexibility to endure shocks and unexpected occasions [16,37,38,39]. This component of the applied model furthermore features the drawn-out point of view addressed by the SL literature [11,16,18,29,39].

2.2. Sustainable Leadership on Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Sustainable leadership (SL) is a conception of competitive edge for businesses. SL brings prospects to associations in terms of creating, constant advancement, sustained competitive edge, and long-term success. This segment reviews the literature on sustainable leadership and sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). This literature originated the beneficial outcomes for authoritative learning, thereby impacting sustainable performance [40]. Furthermore, its authors argued that the management advice proposed for organizations overlooked sustainable evolution challenges [6,41]. There is a hugely positive relationship between reasonable administration and firms’ financial, social, and natural conduct [10]. This study revealed that a significant level of mental strengthening would enable SL to exert a greater impact on performance via learning. In addition, the authors point out that the significant changes in innovation, rivalry, and execution have upset the corporate action affecting the HRM function in modern organizations. Furthermore, expanding tensions of the upper hand have altogether impacted the HRM systems and practices, thereby complicating the interactions of individual board members. Ensuring organizations’ sustainability through HRM practices is fundamental in this unique circumstance [1]. Amoako [42] suggests that corporate natural exercises can give firms an upper hand, and that leadership factors can affect accomplishment and competitive advantage [43]. Their study showed the comparative stability of the effects of each component of SL across various parts of effectiveness [44]. Strategic leadership methods exist that can manage the challenges related to global market climate drivers, namely technology and globalization industrialized. Furthermore, the strategic leadership techniques offer a sustainable competitive advantage from a knowledge integration perspective. The general outcomes demonstrated that the feasible authority scores of the supervisors remained below the moderate level [45]. It showed that sustainable leadership skills were far behind expectations despite the considerable leadership skills of the managers [46] suggested concentrating on the centrality of the ability to arrange human and social capital as assets. Furthermore, the review revealed the significant effect of strategic leadership capabilities on SCA. In this segment, the various types of literature are reviewed in relation to sustainable leadership and sustainable competitive advantage. Based on the literature survey, the following hypothesis was framed:

H₁. 

There is a significant impact of sustainable leadership on sustainable competitive advantage.

2.3. Core Competencies on Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Capacities are the building blocks of core competencies [47,48,49,50,51,52]. The assortment of skills, resources, and procedures is important to the organization and the adaptability which is vital to ensuring the success and viability of a business [53]. The formulations of core competencies are hard to replicate [54,55,56,57,58]. Therefore, core skills can be knowledge-based and subject to constant development [59,60]. Ref. [61] viewed the core competencies as a ‘dynamic learned resource’ subject to constant transformation in light of varying external and internal environments [62] concluded that a profound proficiency in competencies is required for the established companies to achieve company expansion, ensure low costs, and gain market share. In contrast, they improved their administration conveyance level and capability of sustaining gatherings or groups through preparing, training, and imparting expert information [63]. This study suggests creating methodologies and communicating important models across ventures to improve inadequate leadership and other useful outcomes [64]. Organizations have to emphasize core competencies to stay competitive in the market. Center capability is very comparable for all assembling associations. Core competency helps the organization to improve its performance [64]. The literature reveals that organizations should develop their center capacity to obtain a competitive edge. CC can be technological or management-related. It leads to an improved product. Companies are interested in a regular rotation of change to invigorate abilities and attain a competitive benefit in a hyper-competitive setting [64] and show that the secondary impacts of skills through authoritative development abilities are more foundational for providing an upper hand than are their instant consequences. Organizational innovation abilities are needed in the management of a company’s predominant position, given the connection between innovative skills and the upper hand. Abilities are the forerunner of center skills [64]. It is these abilities that meet specific rules, as expressed in the literature, that will shape center skills. Information technology firms needing to move from comparative to competitive advantage will be helped in their global competitiveness by a set of skills [3]. Based on the earlier research related to core competencies and SCA, the following hypothesis is framed:

H₂. 

There is a significant impact of Core Competencies on sustainable competitive advantage.

3. Methodology

The study focused on assessing the impact of sustainable leadership and core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage in the IT sector in Chennai city. The present study incorporated the convenience sample technique. The study used primary and secondary data. The questionnaire variables were extracted from the review literature, with the constructs variable being shown in

Table 1. Framework of constructs.

Sustainable leadership	[10]
Core competencies	[10]
Sustainable competitive Advantage	[64]

. After first developing the questionnaire, the researchers consulted with industry persons and academic persons and then reviewed the questionnaire, incorporating their feedback. The questionnaire was developed with the help of Google Forms, and the link was generated and circulated for the collection of the data. The primary data were obtained from employees working in the IT sector within the circle of Chennai city. The process of data collection was completed the time between October 2021 and January 2022. The researchers received 507 filled questionnaires and scrutinized the 297 responses that were completely filled. In other words, the study sample size was 297. The questionnaire had two significant sections. The first section was constructed to gather demographic information such as gender, age group, educational qualification, marital status, and annual income of the respondents. The second segment tried to measure the influence of three constructs, i.e., sustainable leadership, core competencies, and sustainable core advantage. The study used simple frequency distribution, descriptive statistics, Karl Pearson correlation, and Structural Equation Modeling. The secondary data were gathered through the research papers. The study involves three significant constructs of the proposed model, i.e., sustainable leadership, sustainable competitive advantage, and core competencies.

4. Results

Table 2. Demographic Profile.

Demographic Profile	Frequency	Percent
Gender
Male	168	56.6
Female	129	43.4
Age (In years)
Up to 30	119	40.1
31–40	86	29.0
41–50	63	21.2
Above 50	29	9.8
Marital Status
Unmarried	114	38.4
Married	183	61.6
Educational Qualification
UG	106	35.7
PG	90	30.3
Professional	101	34.0
Income-Annual
Up to Rs.3.0 lakhs	119	40.1
Rs.3.1–5.0 Lakhs	136	45.8
Rs.5.1–7.5 lakhs	22	7.4
Above Rs.7.5 Lakhs	20	6.7
Experience of the current organization (In years)
Up to 3	83	27.9
3.1–5.0	110	37.0
5.1–7.0	70	23.6
Above 7	34	11.4

(n = 297).

reveals the results of the personal characteristics of employees working in IT companies in Chennai city. In connection with the gender classification, 56.6% of the employees are male, and 43.4% are female. Regarding the age classification, the majority, 40.1% of the employees, are up to 30 Years. It is followed (31–40 years) 29%, 41–50 years (21.2%), and >50 years (9.8%). Regarding marital status concerns, 61.6% of the employees have the married category, and 38.4% are unmarried. In connection with the educational qualification, the majority of 35.7% of the employees are under-graduates, followed by Professionals (34%) and post-graduates (30.3%). As for annual CTCs concern, the majority, 45.8% of the employee’s annual income, is between Rs.3.1 and 5.0 Lakhs. It is followed by (up to 3.0 lakhs) 40.1%, Rs.5.1–7.5 Lakhs (7.4%), and above Rs.7.5 Lakhs (6.7%). The experience of the employee’s concern, the majority 37% of the employees have 3.1–5.0 years of experience, followed by (3 years) 27.9%, (5.1–7.0) and (>7 years) 11.4%.

4.1. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)

4.1.1. Validity and Reliability

The present research used the partial least squares method to check the validity and reliability. The partial least squares analysis is a two-step approach [4]. The first step is a measurement model, and the second step is a structural model. The measurement model checks the validity and reliability of each item on the latent factor. The rule of thumb convergent validity is >7. The outer loading indicates that each item loading is >7. The results also included the construct reliability and extracted average variance. The results show that the reliability test of the research instrument has good reliability. Reliability can be seen from the value of the loading factor, and each reliability criterion has a loading factor of 0.7 [4], shown in

Table 3. Outer loadings, reliability and validity.

Items	CC	SCA	SL	Cronbach’s Alpha	Rho_A	CR	AVE
CC1	0.868			0.819	0.820	0.892	0.734
CC2	0.831
CC3	0.870
SCA1		0.902		0.771	0.771	0.897	0.813
SCA2		0.902
SL1			0.832	0.791	0.797	0.877	0.705
SL2			0.836
SL3			0.850

Note: CC: Core competencies; SCA: Sustainable competitive advantage; SL: Sustainable leadership.

, and the result discriminant validity is shown in

Table 4. Results of discriminant validity.

Constructs	CC	SCA	SL
CC	0.857
SCA	0.414	0.902
SL	0.786	0.444	0.839

Note: CC: Core competencies; SCA: Sustainable competitive advantage; SL: Sustainable leadership.

.

4.1.2. Hypothesis Testing

Regarding H1, the t & p-value for the relationship between sustainable leadership and sustainable competitive advantage are 3.987 & 0.000. The p-value is <0.01; therefore, the framed hypothesis is significantly supported and confirms that there is a significant impact of sustainable leadership on sustainable competitive advantage. In connection with the H2, the t & p-value for core competencies and sustainable competitive advantage are 2.059 & 0.000. The p-value is <0.01; therefore, the framed hypothesis is significantly supported and confirms that there is a significant impact of core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage, as presented in

Table 5. Assessment of the relationship between sustainable leadership and core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage.

Hypothesis	Original Sample (O)	Sample Mean (M)	SD	t	p	Decision
Sustainable leadership -> Sustainable competitive advantage	0.31	0.312	0.078	3.987	0.000 **	H1: Supported
Core competencies -> Sustainable competitive advantage	0.17	0.172	0.083	2.059	0.040 *	H2: Supported

** Denotes Significant at 1 % level, * Denotes Significant at 5 % level.

and Figure 2.

5. Discussion

The study objective is to assess the impact of sustainable leadership and CC on SCA in the IT sector in Chennai city. In the globalization and advancement era, every organization, be it creating a tiny pin or huge planes, is confronting solid rivalry for its endurance. In this picture, manageable practices assume an exceedingly indispensable role. The study framed two important hypotheses, i.e., the impact of sustainable leadership on SCA and CC on SCA. The model outcomes portrayed a huge impact of supportable authority on SCA. SL, green leadership, and eco-sensitive leadership are exercised interchangeably to associate sustainable practices with management and leadership. The findings of the study are supported by earlier research [6,43]. SL is a wellspring of advantage for affiliations. SL benefits affiliations, advancement, steady improvement, upheld advantage, and long-term accomplishment. These revelations are maintained by [10,62]. The SCA is the way to ensure business accomplishment. It enables a business to have a more conspicuous fixation, arrangements, improved net incomes, and privileged customer and staff upkeep compared to its competitors [43].

The second hypothesis is whether the core competencies influence the SCA. The study results show the momentous relationship between CC and SCA. The CC assists an association with recognizing its items from its adversaries and reduces its costs over its opponents, thereby achieving an advantage [51,63]. Additionally, CC supports planning and creating imaginative administrations. Likewise, the CC assists the assets with expanding on the qualities and eliminating the company’s shortcomings [56,64]. Capacities allude to hierarchical abilities to incorporate its group of assets to be utilized all the more proficiently and successfully [63,64]. The study concluded that SL and CC significantly impact SCA in the IT sector.

6. Conclusions

The study proposed to assess the impact of sustainable leadership and core competencies on sustainable competitive advantage in the IT sector. It is observed from the empirical evidence that the study has described that sustainable leadership is a resource of competitive advantage in IT companies. Sustainable leadership brings opportunities to IT companies in the form of modernization, continuous improvement, sustained competitive edge, and long-term accomplishment. Sustainable leadership has been endorsed as an incredibly fruitful power to overcome regular hardships. Strong shared vision, support for contemporary thinking, data sharing, getting through associations, and ethically and socially trustworthy approaches to acting are focus credits of sustainable leaders. Sustainable leaders additionally advance improvement by giving sureness and sponsorship to delegates to create novel ideas. In IT companies, the SL enriches the competency level of conflict management, interpersonal skills, social intelligence, skillfulness and decision-making. Furthermore, the study’s outcome has significantly influenced sustainable leadership on sustainable competitive advantage. Sustainable leadership is a conception of competitive advantage for organizations. Sustainable leadership brings possibilities to IT companies in the formation of innovation, continuous advancement, sustained competitive edge, and long-term triumph.

6.1. Implications of the Study

Organizations play a significant part in advancing manageable turns of events. Presently, ventures are moving away from a methodology, which spotlights advancing their volume of business towards a long-term direction that acknowledges that economy, society, business, and environment are interconnected. The current review’s discoveries have significant ramifications for customers, top administration, and policymakers. The practitioners of IT companies are urged to cultivate an inventive and open correspondence climate in their associations dependent on existing logical discoveries. Likewise, they could utilize the current outcomes as a benchmark for gradually expanding their qualities and limits, which may prompt better natural productivity.

Moreover, ongoing investigations convince the entrepreneurs, directors, business people, academics, consultants, and practitioners to put a more noteworthy emphasis on natural advancement. It has arisen as a method for easing the negative results of outrageous environmental change. The present manuscript additionally adds to understanding of how administrative carefulness communicates with manageable authority regarding natural advancement.

6.2. Limitations and Scope for Further Study

This study was executed to assess the impact of sustainable leadership and core competencies on SCA in the IT sector in Chennai city. The current study is restricted to the IT sector only. The study responses were gathered from employees working in the IT sector. This study could be extended as a comparative study of IT and other service sectors such as baking and insurance companies in the same region. The study could also be continued as a comparative study between service and manufacturing sectors. The study has been conducted with sustainable leadership, sustainable competitive advantage, and core competencies. It could be extended to include other constructs such as organizational innovation, organizational effectiveness, and organizational climate.