ABSTRACT KRISTA E. SANCHEZ. A Qualitative case study of blended project leadership training and its effect in transferring E-leadership competencies to multiple environments in corporate business and industry project management (Under the direction of DR. AYESHA SADAF) Within rapidly evolving corporate environments, project leadership education continues to show a persistent gap–specifically, the need to strengthen project managers’ soft-skill development alongside traditional technical training. Although blended project leadership training is now common corporate professional development, research remains limited on how such training cultivates and enables the transfer of E-leadership competencies–a set of technology-mediated leadership skills–across virtual, hybrid, and in-person settings. This qualitative case study examined how project managers applied and transferred these six E-leadership competencies after completing a blended project leadership training program within corporate professional development contexts (Shelley, 2015; Van Wart et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2023). Drawing on eight semi-structured interviews with project managers, the qualitative case study found that participants linked distinct skill sets to each of Van Wart et al.’s (2019) six E-leadership competencies and reported that these skills transferred beyond virtual settings into hybrid and in-person environments. The findings extend project leadership education and E-leadership literature by showing that competency development and transfer are shaped by instructor authenticity, adult learning principles, and meaningful interpersonal interaction, with unanticipated insights into the influence of third-party leadership development programs on overall competency growth and participants’ strong desire for more peer-to-peer learning and mentoring within blended training. The study’s implications support continuous improvement in project leadership education, broaden the conceptualization of E-leadership competencies beyond information communication technologies (ICT), and identify transferable skill sets attributed with the six E-leadership competencies.
