The Role of Strategic Leadership in Mitigating Organizational Knowledge Loss During Digital Migration

Ejalonibu Ojo Sakirulai

doi:10.56201/ijebm.vol.12.no8.2026.pg388.398

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The Role of Strategic Leadership in Mitigating Organizational Knowledge Loss During Digital Migration

Ejalonibu Ojo Sakirulai

Abstract

Digital migration, the shift of organizational processes, records, and operations from legacy systems and manual routines to digital platforms, has become a defining feature of contemporary organizational life. While digital migration promises efficiency, scalability, and competitive advantage, it also exposes organizations to significant knowledge loss, as tacit expertise embedded in legacy routines, personnel, and informal practices can be displaced faster than it is captured, codified, or transferred. This article examines the role of strategic leadership in mitigating organizational knowledge loss during digital migration, addressing a gap in the literature where digital transformation research and knowledge management research have largely developed along separate tracks. Adopting a conceptual, desk-based review methodology, the article synthesizes literature on dynamic managerial capabilities, organizational learning, and digital leadership to develop an integrative framework identifying four strategic leadership levers through which knowledge continuity can be preserved during technological transition: knowledge auditing and prioritization, structured knowledge transfer, digitally enabled knowledge architecture, and post-migration organizational learning. The analysis finds that knowledge loss during digital migration is neither inevitable nor purely technical but is substantially shaped by whether strategic leaders treat knowledge continuity as a governance responsibility rather than an incidental outcome of change management. The article concludes with practical recommendations for organizational leaders and contributes theoretically by extending dynamic capabilities theory into the specific organizational context of digital migration.

Keywords

Strategic Leadership; Organizational Knowledge Loss; Digital Migration; Knowledge Management; Digital Transformation; Dynamic Capabilities

References

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The Role of Strategic Leadership in Mitigating Organizational Knowledge Loss During Digital Migration

Abstract

Keywords

References

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