Strengthening Women’s Business Leadership in the Digital Economy: Employee Engagement as a Mediating Mechanism in Enhancing the Resilience of Women’s Perceived Gig-Work Outcomes

Abstract

Women’s business leadership in the gig economy has become a critical issue for inclusive digital transformation, as platform work creates new opportunities for female economic participation while also intensifying income insecurity, fragmented support, and work-life pressures. This study aims to construct and empirically validate a model explaining how work-life balance, e-HRM, and employee recognition influence women’s perceived gig-work outcomes through the mediating role of employee engagement. Due to the absence of a complete listing of all women gig workers, a convenience sampling technique was applied because no master data on women gig workers was easily accessible to the researcher within the research location. Survey data from 240 female gig workers were analysed in a study conducted in North Sumatra, Indonesia, in 2025. The sample comprised six gig-work categories: online transportation, online marketplaces, freelance work, cleaning services, digital content creation, and childcare; the demographic characteristics recorded included age, education, work experience, gig-platform type, and monthly income. Data were gathered through a structured questionnaire, which was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling in SmartPLS 3.2.9 to assess reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, R2, f2, direct effects, and mediation using bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples. The measurement model demonstrated acceptable properties, with outer loadings ranging from 0.732 to 0.958, Cronbach’s alpha from 0.880 to 0.952, composite reliability from 0.912 to 0.963, and average variance extracted from 0.676 to 0.837, indicating adequate construct reliability and validity. The structural model explains 34.5% of the variance in employee engagement and 37.1% of the variance in women’s Perceived gig-work outcomes, and the direct-effect analysis shows that work-life balance (β = 0.312; p < 0.001), e-HRM (β = 0.285; p < 0.001), and employee recognition (β = 0.272; p < 0.001) have significant positive effects on employee engagement. Women’s perceived gig-work outcomes are most strongly associated with employee engagement (β = 0.324; p < 0.001), followed by e-HRM (β = 0.261; p < 0.001), work-life balance (β = 0.146; p = 0.007), and employee recognition (β = 0.126; p = 0.008), suggesting that gender-sensitive digital leadership should integrate structural, technological, and psychosocial support. Mediation analysis revealed that employee engagement partially mediated the effects of work-life balance (β = 0.101; p = 0.001), e-HRM (β = 0.092; p = 0.001), and employee recognition (β = 0.088; p = 0.001) on perceived gig-work outcomes. The findings advance women’s business leadership research by suggesting that resilient female participation in the digital economy may be strengthened through engagement-centred leadership mechanisms connecting work-life balance, fair digital HR systems, and recognition practices with sustainable work outcomes, empowerment, and gender-inclusive platform work.