LEADERSHIP, CAPABILITY DYNAMICS, AND KNOWLEDGE ARCHITECTURES IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Abstract

Academic libraries are increasingly required to operate as innovation partners within higher-education ecosystems, although scholarship provides limited clarity on the leadership mechanisms that support this role. Existing work reinforces that entrepreneurial leadership fosters innovation-oriented behaviour in library settings, dynamic capabilities enable adaptation through sensing, seizing, and transforming processes, and the knowledge-based view strengthens organisational learning and intellectual capital. However, these perspectives are seldom interpreted as a unified system. This study examines the leadership challenge of cultivating innovation in academic libraries by integrating Entrepreneurial Leadership (EL), Dynamic Capabilities (DC), and the Knowledge-Based View (KBV). A bibliometric–conceptual analysis of 80 Scopus-indexed publications (2020–2024) was conducted to trace global and Malaysian research patterns, identify fragmentation, and interpret how leadership intent interacts with capability renewal and knowledge mobilisation in policy-driven higher-education environments. Quantitative mapping using VOSviewer was combined with interpretive analysis to construct an integrated EL–DC–KBV framework. The findings demonstrate that EL, DC, and KBV are individually well established but seldom analysed as an interconnected mechanism that explains how libraries reposition themselves as adaptive and knowledge-intensive organisations. The thematic synthesis identifies recurring constraints that slow innovation readiness, including administrative mindsets, fragmented tacit knowledge, weak external sensing, risk aversion, policy–practice gaps, constrained collaboration, and metrics that emphasise usage more than learning and capability outcomes. Interpreting these conditions through the EL–DC–KBV triad provides actionable leadership and capability levers supported by knowledge-based performance indicators. The integrated framework aligns with Malaysia’s Higher Education Blueprint, the MyDIGITAL Blueprint, the Twelfth Malaysia Plan, and the Malaysia MADANI agenda, and positions academic libraries as contributors to SDG 4, SDG 9, and SDG 17. This study advances theoretical integration and offers a contextually grounded basis for leadership-driven innovation in knowledge-intensive public institutions founded basis for leadership-driven innovation in Malaysian higher education.