Emergent strategy in higher education: Postmodern digital and the future?

 Mintzberg’s version of emergent strategy is based on the idea that strategies are contingenton circumstances that change from time to time often very rapidly and therefore papers focused onstrategy and detailed planning are limited in their practical application.  The word strategy as faras Mintzberg is concerned is anathema, therefore, introducing a concept that has a misconceptionembedded in it. This paper claims that education for sustainable development and higher educationinstitutions’ survival depends on adopting postmodern thinking, in other words, digital transfor-mation.  This conceptual paper proposes a blueprint of a process for developing a series of agilepotentially short-term conceptual solutions thereby embracing the expectation that the rate of changein societies is accelerating. This paper scrutinizes (a) the applicability of emergent strategy/strategicapproach to higher education institutions, (b) how postmodernism influences higher educationinstitutions to become digital hubs of commoditization of knowledge and (c) how the integratedcapabilities of digital transformation build sustainability in education delivery. Structural EquationMethodology is proposed to examine the impact of postmodernism on the sustainable delivery ofeducation in higher education institutions, and the need to foster relevant emergent strategies isalso justified. The paper also develops new research propositions and managerial implications fordriving optimistic digital education.  Ultimately, it offers a framework for spear-leading effectiveand leading post-modernistic digital transformation. Emerging education technology, sustainabledigital transformation and advanced use of robotic-human cognitive collaboration are experiencinga significant transformation. Universities play a vital role in enhancing engagement within highereducation. One of the managerial implications of the results and discussion is the need for higher ed-ucation institutions to provide taught leadership and planning in emergent strategy formulation andimplementation. The findings confirm the significant importance of linking the Structural EquationMethod and the postmodern strategic context in which we argue that higher education institutionsrequire emerging rethinking.