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In the era of digital transformation, organizations are making efforts towards sustainability. In particular, leadership is transforming into digital leadership according to changes in management environments, which are deeply related to organizational performance. In this study, we focus on organizational performance and sustainability management and clarify the role of digital culture and employees’ digital capabilities in perspectives on digital leadership. We collected data from 149 employees who work in South Korean organizations using a survey based on digital leadership, digital culture, employees’ digital capabilities, and organizational performance, and we tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling. The results show that digital leadership has a positive direct and indirect effect on organizational performance. Moreover, digital culture and employees’ digital capabilities partially mediate the relationship between digital leadership and sustainable organizational performance in South Korea. This study contributes to leadership and resource-based view (RBV) research by providing evidence for the role of digital leadership in sustainable organizational performance. As leadership continues to extend alongside verification of the RBV theory, the crucial role of digital leadership is changing, and the role of employees’ digital capabilities in organizational performance in South Korea needs to be considered.

Economic individualism—involving a belief that the individual should be in control of his/her own economic decisions and an increased emphasis on competition and achievement—is becoming more prominent in several areas of the world, but little is known about the implications of this characteristic for employee attitudes and behavior. Our study investigated the impact of economic individualism on job engagement. More specifically, the research developed and examined a model involving work motivation as a mediator and growth need strength as a moderator. Employees (N = 235, 58.3% male, 33.6% 20–29 years old, 53.2% with a bachelor’s degree) from several companies in South Korea completed survey measures of economic individualism, job engagement, work motivation, and growth need strength. Findings supported work motivation as a mediator and indicated that the indirect effect through work motivation was significant at high levels of growth need strength although not at low levels. These findings provide new insights regarding the individual-level engagement implications of economic individualism and when and why these implications hold, as prior research on economic individualism has focused on the organizational and societal levels.

Plant defensins are small (5-10 kDa) basic peptides thought to be an important component of the defense pathway against fungal and/or bacterial pathogens. To understand the role of plant defensins in protecting plants against the brown planthopper, a type of insect herbivore, we isolated the Brassica rapa Defensin 1 ( BrD1 ) gene and introduced it into rice ( Oryza sativa L.) to produce stable transgenic plants. The BrD1 protein is homologous to other plant defensins and contains both an N-terminal endoplasmic reticulum signal sequence and a defensin domain, which are highly conserved in all plant defensins. Based on a phylogenetic analysis of the defensin domain of various plant defensins, we established that BrD1 belongs to a distinct subgroup of plant defensins. Relative to the wild type, transgenic rices expressing BrD1 exhibit strong resistance to brown planthopper nymphs and female adults. These results suggest that BrD1 exhibits insecticidal activity, and might be useful for developing cereal crop plants resistant to sap-sucking insects, such as the brown planthopper.