PhD Degree Awarded to Researcher Waleed Mohammed Ismail Al-Falahi in Business Administration
Sana’a – Monday February 16, 2026
Researcher Waleed Mohammed Ismail Al-Falahi was awarded a PhD degree in Business Administration by the Center of Business Administration for Graduate Studies at Sana’a University for his dissertation titled: “The Role of Sustainable Leadership in Achieving Strategic Success Through Organizational Capabilities: A Field Study of Yemeni Private Universities.” The dissertation was supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tawfiq Musleh Saleh Al-Sanbani.
The PhD Viva-Voce Committee consisted of Prof. Dr. Zaid Ali Abdulkhaleq Al-Manzou, Al-Bayda University, as External Examiner and Chair; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hamoud Abdullah Saleh Aqlan, Sana’a University, as External Examiner and Member; and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tawfiq Musleh Saleh Al-Sanbani, as Supervisor and Member.
The study aimed to examine the role of sustainable leadership, through its dimensions of employee development, diversity management, leading others, long-term perspective, social responsibility, ethical behavior, and organizational justice, in achieving strategic success through organizational capabilities. Strategic success was examined through survival, adaptation, growth, and effective strategy implementation, while organizational capabilities included marketing capabilities, resource capabilities, organizational learning capabilities, technological capabilities, knowledge management capabilities, and administrative capabilities.
The study adopted a descriptive-analytical approach and used a questionnaire as the primary instrument for collecting field data. The study population consisted of employees at all administrative levels—senior, middle, and executive—in Yemeni private universities, totaling 1,445 individuals. A stratified random sample of 304 respondents was selected. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 27 and AMOS 24.
The study reached several findings, most notably that sustainable leadership plays a role in achieving strategic success through organizational capabilities at the overall level, and that organizational capabilities partially mediate the relationship between sustainable leadership and strategic success. At the sub-dimensional level, however, the findings showed no mediating role for technological capabilities.
The findings also indicated that the levels of sustainable leadership, organizational capabilities, and strategic success in Yemeni private universities were relatively high. Furthermore, statistically significant roles were found for sustainable leadership and organizational capabilities in achieving strategic success, as well as for sustainable leadership in organizational capabilities.
The study recommended strengthening the practice of sustainable leadership, developing organizational capabilities, and utilizing them effectively in ways that contribute to achieving strategic success in Yemeni private universities.
The dissertation defense was attended by a number of academics, researchers, postgraduate students, and other interested individuals, in addition to the researcher’s colleagues and family members.
