Abstract
This study examines the relationship between business leadership and organisational sustainability in emerging Asian economies, with particular emphasis on the role of sustainable innovation. As sustainability becomes a strategic priority in rapidly developing markets, leadership is increasingly recognised as a key driver of environmental, social, and economic performance. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional research design, data were collected from 300 organisational leaders and managers across SMEs, start-ups, social enterprises, and large firms operating in emerging Asian contexts. The study employed descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation, and predictive modelling to evaluate the proposed framework. The findings indicate that business leadership demonstrates strong positive associations with environmental, social, and economic sustainability, as well as sustainable innovation. Reliability results confirm that all constructs exhibit high internal consistency. Correlation analysis reveals significant positive relationships between leadership and sustainability dimensions, while explained variance results show that leadership explains 41% of the variance in sustainable innovation and, together with innovation, explains 58% of the variance in organisational sustainability. These findings suggest that leadership contributes to sustainability both directly and indirectly through innovation-oriented practices. The study extends sustainability and leadership literature by providing empirical evidence from emerging Asian economies and highlights the importance of developing sustainability-oriented leadership capabilities to enhance organisational resilience, long-term competitiveness, and strategic alignment with sustainable development objectives in dynamic market environments.