Literature Review: The Role of School Principals in the Implementation of Strategic Management in the Digital Age
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62872/0da4d448Keywords:
kepala sekolah, manajemen strategis, kepemimpinan digital, transformasi digital, manajemen pendidikanAbstract
Digital transformation has repositioned the school principal from an administrative supervisor into a strategic architect of institutional change. This literature review synthesizes twenty-five peer-reviewed studies published primarily between 2021 and 2026 to examine how principals design, implement, and evaluate strategic management processes under conditions of rapid digitalization. Using a PRISMA-guided qualitative synthesis, the review maps four core strategic management functions formulation, organizing/resourcing, implementation, and evaluation/control against four digital leadership dimensions drawn from the literature: digital vision, digital culture, digital infrastructure and capacity building, and digital governance. Findings show that principals who integrate these dimensions rather than treating digitalization as a parallel administrative task achieve more sustained gains in teacher digital literacy, instructional quality, and organizational readiness. The review's novelty lies in proposing the Digital-Strategic Leadership Integration (DSLI) framework, an original synthesis that positions digital competence as a cross-cutting enabler embedded within every stage of the strategic management cycle rather than a discrete leadership trait. The review concludes that strategic management in the digital age is inseparable from digital leadership capacity, and that principal preparation programs, policy frameworks, and future empirical research should treat the two as a single, integrated construct rather than parallel agendas.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Miftahul Zannah Raharjo Putri, Handoko, Siti Rahma Sari, Robiyatul Adawiyah Siregar (Author)

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