Journal of Management & Organization (2018), page 1 of 18

doi:10.1017/jmo.2018.50

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior:

The role of psychological empowerment
Basharat Javed1*, Iqra Abdullah2, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar3, Adnan ul Haque4 and Ume Rubab5
1
Department of Business Studies, NAMAL College Mianwali Pakistan, Mianwali, Pakistan, 2NAMAL Business
Department, NAMAL College Mianwali, Mianwali, Pakistan, 3Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of
Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan, 4University of Wales Trinity Saint David London Campus, London, UK and
5
Department of Management and Social Sciences, Capital University of Science and Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan
* Corresponding author. Email: basharatmsed@hotmail.com

(Received 5 October 2017; revised 5 July 2018; accepted 20 July 2018)

Abstract
In this article, we explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior
with the mediating role of psychological empowerment. We collected data from employees in the
information technology and cargo sectors within the United Kingdom and Canada. The results revealed
that inclusive leadership was positively related to innovative work behavior both directly and indirectly
through psychological empowerment. Cognitive evaluation theory was used to support the findings.
Implications of the study were discussed.

Keywords: creativity; innovation and R&D; leadership; organizational change; cognition

Introduction
In the current competitive environment, changing customers’ needs have made it imperative for
organizations to find ways to promote innovation (Battistelli, Montani, Odoardi, Vandenberghe,
& Picci, 2014; Chowhan, Pries, & Mann, 2017; Hu, Wu, & Gu, 2017). In fact, earlier research
demonstrated that innovation was not only concerned with research and development profes-
sionals but other employees and areas within the organization must be open toward innovation
within their respective roles for the long-term success of the organization (Axtell, Holman,
Unsworth, Wall, Waterson, & Harrington, 2000; Imran & Anis-Ul-Haque, 2011; Schermuly,
Meyer, & Dämmer, 2013; Lee & Wong, 2017). In the innovation process, employees used their
competencies and demonstrated discretionary behavior (Ramamoorthy, Flood, Slattery, & Sar-
dessai, 2005) where they created, promoted and implemented novel ideas. This in turn shaped
their innovative work behavior (IWB) (Janssen, 2000) that helped organizations meet new
changes in a volatile environment (Javed, Naqvi, Khan, Arjoon, & Tayyeb, 2017b).
In view of the importance of employees’ IWB, researchers studied the factors which were
conducive to IWB (Michaelis, Stegmaier, & Sonntag, 2009; Sanders, Moorkamp, Torka, Groe-
neveld, & Groeneveld, 2010; Černe, Jaklič, & Škerlavaj, 2013). Leadership was found to be an
important situational factor that promoted employees’ IWB (Scott & Bruce, 1994; Afsar, Badir, &
Saeed, 2014; To, Herman, & Ashkanasy, 2015). The role of leadership at workplace was char-
acterized as a key agent of change in the organization (Krause, 2004; De Jong & Den Hartog,
2008; Amabile, 2012; Javed et al., 2017b) which is well established in the literature. However, in
the current study we focused on a specific form of relational leadership, namely inclusive

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 2 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

leadership (Choi, Tran, & Kang, 2017). This perspective of leadership was more suitable for
investigating innovative environments as it provided the lens for simultaneous investigation of
both leadership and employee behavior in jointly determining IWB (Nembhard & Edmondson,
2006; Shore, Randel, Chung, Dean, Holcombe Ehrhart, & Singh, 2011; Choi, Tran, & Park, 2015).
Unlike the traditional ‘leader-centric’ approach (Martin, Thomas, Charles, Epitropaki, &
McNamara, 2005; Lapierre, Hackett, & Taggar, 2006) in which the focus was on the leader’s
attitude and behavior while assuming the follower’s characteristics to be homogenous (Heifetz &
Heifetz, 1994; Drath, 2001) in the relational perspective, attention was paid to the characteristics
of the leader, employees’ attitude and behaviors and their relationship with the leader (Maslyn,
Maslyn, Schyns, Schyns, Farmer, & Farmer, 2017). In other words, the relational leadership
approach created and motivated employees to mutually handle the complex challenges of IWB
(Cox, Pearce, & Perry, 2003; Uhl-Bien, 2006; Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, & Ziv, 2010; Schermuly,
Meyer, & Dämmer, 2013). This was supported by a recent study (Javed et al., 2017b) which
empirically examined and confirmed the relationship between relational inclusive leadership
and IWB.
Furthermore, research showed IWB to be complex, nonroutine behavior where employees
spoke up for new ideas, avoided traditional thinking and disagreed with superiors via challenging
the status quo (Kanter, 1988; Kessel, Hannemann-Weber, & Kratzer, 2012). In such an envir-
onment it was understood that many of the new ideas were destined to fail (Mathisen, Einarsen,
& Mykletun, 2012). Gong, Cheung, Wang, and Huang (2012) stated that employees’ voice for
new improvement was also rejected because it was perceived as deviant behavior at work setting.
Consequently, leaders considered innovative employees as disturbance creators (Miceli, Near, &
Dworkin, 2009). These employees faced the prospect of punishment like demotion or termi-
nation against their innovativeness (Ashford, Sutcliffe, & Christianson, 2009). Thus to handle
complex process of IWB, employees sought psychological empowerment to engage in IWB (Knol
& Van Linge, 2009; Afsar & Badir, 2016). Through psychological empowerment, employees
experienced autonomy, meanings, competencies and feedback to showcase IWB (Ertürk, 2012;
Battistelli, Montani, & Odoardi, 2013; Orth & Volmer, 2017).
Research on cognitive evaluation theory (CET) suggested that it was in fact intrinsic motivation
(in this case psychological empowerment) that allowed individuals to feel autonomy, competency,
meaning and feedback in their work (Deci, 1975; Ryan, 1982; Ryan, Mims, & Koestner, 1983; Deci,
Connell, & Ryan, 1989), which in turn affected their IWB (Yidong & Xinxin, 2013; Javed, Khan,
Bashir, & Arjoon, 2017a). CET framework explained that employees evaluated the external factors
to behave in a certain way (Ryan, 1980, 1982; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Similarly, in the milieu of
innovation, employees evaluated the external context to find support for their IWB. If employees
found supportive ambiance, then they felt great motivation to show IWB (Yidong & Xinxin, 2013).
Inclusive leaders provided a supportive external context by motivating employees to share their
point of views regarding new changes (Choi, Tran, & Park, 2015). Inclusive leader exhibited
attributes such as openness, availability and accessibility (Carmeli, Gelbard, & Gefen, 2010; Shore
et al., 2011). In other words, inclusive leaders served as a supportive situational factor which had the
potential to enhance the employees’ psychological empowerment. Furthermore, research studies
also found that psychological empowerment enhanced the IWB (Singh & Sarkar, 2012; Afsar &
Badir, 2016). Thus, psychological empowerment served as an important mediating mechanism in
the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB, which has received limited attention in the
literature.
Recently, Javed et al. (2017b) called for more research to specifically examine the role of
psychological empowerment in the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. In order
to respond this call, the current study used the CET lens and examined psychological empow-
erment as a motivational mediating factor in the relationship between inclusive leadership and
IWB. In summary, our study contributed to the IWB literature (1) by providing a more insightful
understanding of how inclusive leadership enhanced psychological empowerment, (2) explored

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 Journal of Management & Organization 3

the mediated mechanism of psychological empowerment in the relationship between inclusive

leadership and IWB and (3) unlike past studies in this area that relied on the leader member
exchange theory, the current study used a new theoretical CET framework for the investigation
of direct and indirect effects of inclusive leadership on IWB.

Literature Review and Hypotheses Development

Inclusive leadership and IWB
Nembhard and Edmondson defined inclusive leadership as ‘words and deeds by a leader or
leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others’ contributions’ (2006: 947). The
word inclusive means coming to the table by any mean levels, being a respected contributor and
being fully accountable for contribution to the greatest results. In this inclusiveness, the concept
which prevailed is that ‘everyone matters’ (Roberson, 2006) with their access to information and
resources (Mor-Barak & Cherin, 1998). The concept of inclusive leadership was first coined by
Nembhard and Edmondson (2006), and they stated that inclusive leader shaped a situation
where ‘voices are genuinely valued’ (p. 948). Leaders’ inclusiveness captured attempts by leaders
to include others in discussions and decisions in which their voices and perspectives might
otherwise be absent (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). Inclusive leaders promoted a supportive
climate with high objectivity to all individual employees (Hollander, 2009). Whether treating
crises, attending to inequities, or reducing conformist pressures, inclusive leaders started with
respect for others, recognition of their input and responsiveness to them. The necessary quality of
responsibility in both directions was also enduring as a basis for leader–follower relations, which
engendered legitimacy as well as approval (Hollander, 2012).
Nembhard and Edmondson showed that inclusiveness was directly concerned with situations
characterized by power dissimilarities, which promoted behaviors that asked and acknowledged
others’ views (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). Inclusive leaders emphasized shared benefits
where leaders and employees focused on mutual goals which were the essence of leaders–
followers quality relationship (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995; Schriesheim, Castro, & Cogliser, 1999;
Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012). Leaders’ inclusiveness invited employees in
the decision-making process to promote an inclusive culture (Edmondson, Kramer, & Cook,
2004; Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). Therefore, employees having input in the decisions and
discussions, openly spoke, promoted and implemented new ideas (Dorenbosch, Engen, & Ver-
hagen, 2005; De Jong & Den Hartog, 2010). Leaders, who demonstrated the characteristics of
inclusive leadership, initiated a quality relationship which promoted fairness of input and output
to all employees without relying on one person’s capabilities (Hollander, 2012). Therefore, in a
quality-based relationship with leaders’ characteristics of inclusive leadership, employees
experienced an effort–reward fairness, which encouraged them to meet job demands reflective of
IWB (Janssen & Van Yperen, 2004; Reuvers, Van Engen, Vinkenburg, & Wilson‐Evered, 2008).
IWB is defined as ‘the intentional introduction and application within a role, group or organi-
zation of ideas, processes, products or procedures’ (West & Farr, 1990: 9).
IWB is also different from creativity (Dörner, 2012). Creativity means only generation of new
ideas (Amabile, 1988, 1996), whereas IWB means not only creation of new ideas but also
promotion and implementation of useful ideas (De Jong & Den Hartog, 2007; De Jong & Den
Hartog, 2010). Inclusive leaders with their practical inclusion in the work activities showed their
availability to employees (Ryan, 2006; Janakiraman, 2011), which encouraged employees to
develop, promote and implement new and useful ideas (Basu & Green, 1997; Carmeli, Reiter-
Palmon, & Ziv, 2010; Altunoğlua & Gürel, 2015). Inclusive leaders exhibited concerns about the
interests, expectations and feelings of their followers, and were willing to provide assistance
(Carmeli, Gelbard, & Gefen, 2010; Choi, Tran, & Park, 2015). Specifically, inclusive leaders gave
serious consideration to employees’ ideas. Employees therefore felt energized and more com-
mitted to their leaders so that employees were more likely to reciprocate by displaying extra-role

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 4 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

behavior such as IWB (Pless & Maak, 2004; Piccolo, Greenbaum, Hartog, & Folger, 2010;
Walumbwa, Cropanzano, & Goldman, 2011). In this context, social exchange theory supported
the relationship of inclusive leadership and IWB. Based on the social exchange theory, it can be
implied that supportive and inclusive attributes of leadership made employees feel obliged to
repay to the leader and organization. Lin and Liu (2012) explicated that desire to reciprocate led
the employees to involve actively in problem solving that required creative idea generation.
Inclusive leadership in social exchange perspective encouraged positive social exchanges that
developed cognitive thinking and motivation to engage in creative performance (Choi, Tran, &
Park, 2015).
Furthermore, inclusive leaders provided employees an emotional support, which increased
trustworthiness. As such, inclusive leaders showed that they were principled individuals who
made unbiased judgments (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006; Ryan, 2006; Hollander, 2009). Such
behavior encouraged employees to show IWB (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009). One of the critical
ways through which inclusive leaders demonstrated support to employees was that an inclusive
leader took responsibility for ultimate results, especially when new ideas resulted in failure
(Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006; Hollander, 2012). Therefore, employees were encouraged to
take risks in IWB in the presence of inclusive leadership. Researchers empirically found the
positive relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. For instance, Choi, Tran, and Kang
(2017) examined and found the positive relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative
behavior in employees of telecommunication companies in Vietnam. More recently, Javed et al.
(2017b) examined the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB among supervisor–
subordinate dyads in textile industry of Pakistan. Their findings confirmed that inclusive lea-
dership positively influenced IWB. The authors argued that employees involved themselves in the
innovative activities when they had quality relationship with their leaders that motivated them to
take risks for generation, promotion and implementation of unique ideas. Thus, we hypothesized
the following relationship.
Hypothesis 1: There is a positive relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB.

Inclusive leadership and psychological empowerment

Thomas and Velthouse (1990) argued that empowerment was a multifaceted concept that
included four set of cognitions that were meaning, competence, self-determination and impact.
Spreitzer (1995) further affirmed this conceptualization and defined psychological empower-
ment as ‘a form of intrinsic motivation that reflects a proactive orientation toward and sense of
control over work that is manifested in four cognitions: meaning, competence, self-
determination and impact’ (Spreitzer, 1995: 1444); meaning referred to the extent to which
values and beliefs of an employee fit with the demands of the job (Hackman & Oldham, 1980).
The second facet of psychological empowerment was competence, closer to the idea of self-
efficacy, which reflected the belief of an individual in herself about how successfully she could
perform any activity or skill at workplace (Ioannidou, Karagiorgos, & Alexandris, 2016). The
next cognitive class of psychological empowerment was self-determination that referred to the
control and autonomy over initiation, regulation and continuance of any behavior at workplace
(Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989). The final facet of psychological empowerment was impact that
reflected the personal belief about how much one could affect the strategic, administrative,
operative and organizational output at workplace (Ioannidou, Karagiorgos, & Alexandris,
2016).
Spreitzer showed that psychological empowerment encouraged the decentralized decision-
making in organization that authorized the lower level employees to actively play their role in the
decision-making process (Spreitzer, 1995). In this context, inclusive work environment may be
considered most suitable because in such workplace environment voices were heard and

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 Journal of Management & Organization 5

respected, diverse ideas and perspectives were valued, and employees were encouraged to make
their useful contribution to organization (Pless & Maak, 2004). The role of leader was highly
significant to build and nourish a specific environment at workplace. Presenting the inclusive
leadership theory, Hollander (2009) emphasized that leaders’ effectiveness lay in the empower-
ment of their followers and enabling two-way influences through promoting the followers’
autonomy, skills and responsibility. Inclusive leaders were considered open to listen and respond
to their followers’ opinions, shared vision and valued their contributions to organization (Choi,
Tran, & Park, 2015). So, the feelings of empowerment emerged among them (Liden, Wayne, &
Sparrowe, 2000; Nishii & Mayer, 2009).
Inclusive leaders delegated power to employees (Nishii & Mayer, 2009) where employees
enjoyed great autonomy to decide their work activities on their own. Inclusive leader valued the
inclusion of employees at work setting (Salib, 2014), and employees having value of being
included experienced greater empowerment (Randel et al., 2017). Thus, inclusive leader culti-
vated a supportive external setting, which was also supported by the notion of CET (Deci, 1975),
and consequently, employees felt internal motivation in the form of psychological empowerment.
Considering inclusive leadership as one of the most important supportive situational factor, it
may deeply influence the meaningfulness and impact of the job through leveling the self-
determination and competence of employees that consequently heightens the intrinsic motiva-
tion of employees. More recently, Randel et al. (2017) also proposed the relationship between
inclusive leadership and psychological empowerment.
Hence, considering the claims of past researchers, the following hypothesis is formulated:
Hypothesis 2: Inclusive leadership positively affects psychological empowerment.

Psychological empowerment and IWB

Amabile (1988) showed that idea generation at workplace was influenced by numerous intrinsic
motivators such as meaning, feeling of competence, self-determination and impact that were
likely to boost the ability of idea implementation and useful suggestion for change, resulting in an
innovative work environment (Seibert, Wang, & Courtright, 2011). Past research has investigated
whether innovation nurtured in an organization where employees had autonomy, control and
sense of ownership in the daily conduct of their work and ideas (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby,
& Herron, 1996). Researchers maintained that employees worked more innovatively if they had
freedom and choice of how to accomplish a particular given task (Amabile & Gitomer, 1984; Sun,
Zhang, Qi, & Chen, 2012). Javed et al. (2017a) explained that innovative idea generation was a
nonroutine task where an individual had to go beyond their standard operating procedures by
the sense of psychological empowerment and conviction that was provided by all the support
and means to execute such ideas. Furthermore, Alge, Ballinger, Tangirala, and Oakley (2006)
emphasized that empowered employees had more freedom to generate unique ideas and
were more confident that their ideas would be valued in organization. Empowered employees
also felt less constrained and bound by others and rules (Amabile, 1988). A sense of empow-
erment enabled the employees to make a positive contribution at workplace (Block, 1987;
Randolph, 1995).
Employees who had a sense of meaningfulness and determination were intrinsically motivated
toward creative idea generation. Furthermore, other attributes of psychological empowerment
such as competence, control, autonomy and belief to make an impact drove the employees to
implement their ideas at workplace (Sinha, Priyadarshi, & Kumar, 2016). Therefore, it can be
expected that psychological empowerment would be positively related to IWB. Furthermore,
numerous researchers in the past had shown empirically that psychological empowerment
enhanced IWB (Zhang & Bartol, 2010; Seibert, Wang, & Courtright, 2011; Singh & Sarkar, 2012;

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 6 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

Çekmecelioglu & Özbag, 2016). So on the basis of researchers’ arguments, the following
hypothesis is proposed:
Hypothesis 3: Psychological empowerment positively affects IWB.

Mediating role of psychological empowerment

Considering the hypothesized links of psychological empowerment with inclusive leadership and
IWB, the mediating role of psychological empowerment between inclusive leadership and IWB
was also examined in this research. CET provided the support for mediation of psychological
empowerment. CET is a prominent theory in the field of psychology which explained that
intrinsic motivation allowed an individual to feel competent and self-determined (DeCharms,
1968). CET framework explained that intrinsic task motivation in employees was first engen-
dered by meaning and impact. Furthermore, feeling of competence and self-determination
enhanced the employees’ task-relevant motivation (Deci, Connell, & Ryan, 1989). Our argument
is that employees’ observation of inclusive leadership can enhance their task motivation which
may be shaped by psychological empowerment. Furthermore, Deci and Ryan (1985) explained
that individuals at workplace experienced either supportive situational factors or nonsupportive
situational factors, which affected psychological empowerment differently. For example, sup-
portive informational aspects of specific situation influenced the intrinsic motivation through
facilitating internal locus of causality and competence. However, controlling aspects negatively
influenced internal motivation and positively affected extrinsic compliance through facilitating
external locus of causality.
Inclusive leadership served as supportive informational factor, where the leader invited and
appreciated others’ contribution (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006). This created a sense of
psychological empowerment (Dewettinck & van Ameijde, 2011). The ‘words and deeds’ of a
leader appreciated the contribution of others in the decision-making process, whereby employees
were motivated to raise their voice (Nembhard & Edmondson, 2006; Bowers, Robertson &
Parchman, 2012). Inclusive leaders paid sufficient attention to new opportunities to have better
work processes, showed openness for constructive dialog on desired objectives, explored new
ways to efficiently achieve those particular objectives, showed availability for employees’ con-
sultation, emphasized their presence, showed readiness to hear the request of employees and
encouraged employees to access the current and emerging issues (Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, & Ziv,
2010). These characteristics of a leader stimulated employees’ psychological empowerment (Jung
& Sosik, 2002; Parry & Proctor-Thomson, 2002; Jung, Chow, & Wu, 2003; Masood & Afsar,
2017) which motivated employees to not only generate new ideas but also promote and
implement useful ideas (Parker & Axtell, 2001; Dvir, Eden, Avolio, & Shamir, 2002; Tierney &
Farmer, 2004; Chen & Aryee, 2007; Knol & Van Linge, 2009; Afsar, Badir, & Saeed, 2014; Sinha,
Priyadarshi, & Kumar, 2016). Following this line of research, the following relationship is
hypothesized.
Hypothesis 4: Psychological empowerment mediates the relationship between inclusive
leadership and IWB.

Methodology
Sample and procedure
The data were collected under a study program which aimed to look at the relationship between
inclusive leadership and IWB with the mediating role of psychological empowerment in
employees of the information technology and cargo companies in two different countries: United
Kingdom and Canada. These companies were selected because they were facing high pressure in
a complex, changing environment, where they had a high focus on innovation (Bellingkrodt &

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 Journal of Management & Organization 7

Wallenburg, 2015; Brunswicker & Vanhaverbeke, 2015; Huang, Lin, Wu, & Yu, 2015; Love &
Roper, 2015). Therefore, employees working in these companies had innovative jobs where they
were expected to exhibit IWB (Chapman, Soosay, & Kandampully, 2002; Su, Cui & Hertz, 2010;
Sakchutchawan, 2011; Ünay & Zehir, 2012; Akram, Lei, & Haider, 2016; Afsar, Badir, Saeed, &
Hafeez, 2017).
In order to recruit participants and to control for social desirability bias (i.e., the tendency of
survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favorably by others), the
following procedure was adopted. The author attended the work sites and briefly presented the
subject of the study. The author contacted the human resource department directors and
explained to them the purpose of data collection. During the face-to-face meetings, the lead
author offered them a cover letter indicating that participation was voluntary and responses were
to be kept confidential. The cover letter indicated that the lead author did not know any of the
subjects. In addition to a statement of confidentiality, the following specific instructions were
provided with the questionnaire: ‘Please take several minutes to complete the enclosed ques-
tionnaire. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, so your candor is strongly
encouraged. All responses are strictly anonymous and will be only reported in aggregate.
Moreover, the researcher has no means whatsoever to identify any of the respondents. Please also
remember that participation in filling up this questionnaire is voluntary.’ After understanding the
purpose of research, the directors carefully read the cover letter and gave approval for data
collection in their particular firms.
Data were collected in time lags (time 1 and time 2). In time 1, employees filled the
questionnaires regarding predictor (inclusive leadership) variable and demographic variables
(department, gender, age, education, experience, hierarchical level and time spent with lea-
dership). After a month, in time 2, the same respondents filled questionnaires regarding
mediator (psychological empowerment) and dependent (IWB) variables. To match the
respondents of time 1 and time 2, in time 1 respondents were asked to write the name of their
job ID. The lead author explained the reason to them that in time 2 after 1 month, the
respondents will be visited again for additional questions. The technique of job ID was really
appreciated by respondents, because these techniques confirmed their anonymity. Of the dis-
tributed 500 questionnaires, 411 were received. The final sample was 390, and 21 responses
were discarded due to missing data. The overall response rate was 78%. Table 1 shows the
demographic characteristics of employees.

Measurement
All the study variables were measured on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 = ‘strongly disagree’ to
5 = ‘strongly agree.’

Inclusive leadership
The nine items of inclusive leadership were used from the study of Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon,
and Ziv (2010). In this measure, three dimensions of inclusive leadership were used:
openness, availability and accessibility. The respondents were asked to rate items for their
direct supervisors. The sample items were: ‘The manager is open to hearing new ideas’
(openness); ‘The manager encourages me to access him/her on emerging issues’ (accessi-
bility) and ‘The manager is ready to listen to my requests’ (availability). α Reliability of the
measure was 0.86.

Psychological empowerment
The 12 items for psychological empowerment developed by Spreitzer (1995) were used with four
dimensions: meaning, competence, self-determination and impact. Employees rated the items for

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 8 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

Table 1. Demographic profile of respondents

Characteristic Percentage

Department

Administration 6.7

Human resource 2.3

Finance and accounts 5.4

Sale 19.0

Operation 27.0

Marketing 21.8

Information and technology 17.2

Gender

Male 60.3

Female 39.7

Age (years)

< 25 8.5

25–30 29.7

31–34 31.8

35–40 19.5

41–44 7.9

45–50 2.1

51–54 7.9

≥ 50 0.5

Qualification

Intermediate 3.8

Bachelors 52.1

Masters 43.3

Doctorate 0.8

Experience (years)

<5 65.4

6–10 22.6

11–15 4.6

> 15 7.4

Hierarchical level

Entry level 72.6

Middle level 21.5

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 Journal of Management & Organization 9

Table 1. Continued

Characteristic Percentage

Senior level 5.9

Time spent with leadership

<1 12.6

1–2 19.7

3–4 30.8

5–6 34.4

>6 2.6

their psychological empowerment. The sample items were: ‘The work I do is very important to
me,’ I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities,’ ‘I have significant
autonomy in determining how I do my job’ and ‘I have significant influence over what happens
in my department.’ The α reliability of the measure was 0.81.

IWB
The nine items of IWB developed by Janssen (2000) were used. The sample items were: ‘creating
new ideas for difficult issues’ (idea generation); ‘acquiring approval for innovative ideas’ (idea
promotion) and ‘transforming innovative ideas into useful applications’ (idea realization). The
self-reported measures for IWB were used due to the following reasons. First, employees’ cog-
nitive representation of IWB is more subtle for employees than supervisors, this is because
employees have more information on the context, history and background of their work (Jones &
Nisbett, 1987). Second, IWB is a self-awareness process and discretionary in nature. It is possible
that IWB is not observed by others and therefore a misalignment is possible in the way indi-
viduals perceive their innovativeness (Ford, 1996). Finally, it might be possible that supervisors
miss some employees’ genuinely innovative behavior, and only notice the gestures they used to
impress the supervisor (Organ & Konovsky, 1989). In light of these reasons, we adopted Janssen’s
approach (2000) and collected self-reported data for employees’ IWB. The α reliability of this
measure was 0.82.

Control variable
Through one-way analysis of variance, we found significant difference in IWB across depart-
ments (F = 2.26, p < .05), insignificant across gender (F = 1.18, p > .05), age (F = 1.44, p > .05),
qualification (F = 0.93, p > .05), experience (F = 0.24, p > .05), hierarchical level (F = 0.35, p > .05)
and time spent with leadership (F = 1.84, p > .05). Moreover, as we collected data in three
countries, we checked the effect in IWB across United Kingdom and Canada. The results of one-
way analysis of variance showed insignificant difference in IWB across countries (F = 0.95,
p > .05). Thus, department was only the control variable in this study.

Results Measurement
model Common method
variance
Harman single factor analysis was used to check the presence of common method variance. One
factor solution in exploratory factor analysis indicated that it explained only 25.2% loading,

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 10 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

which showed the absence of common method variance (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986; Woszc-
zynski & Whitman, 2004). These results allowed us to run measurement model and test the
hypotheses.
Structural equation modeling using analysis of moment structures was used to test the
hypotheses. Before hypotheses testing, confirmatory factor analysis was used to justify the
measurement model (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988), which consisted of three latent variables:
inclusive leadership, psychological empowerment and IWB. The combination of different fit
indices: model χ2, incremental fit index (IFI), comparative fit index (CFI), Tucker–Lewis index
(TLI) and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) were used to assess the model fit.
The overall measurement model provided an excellent fit to the data: χ2/df = 1.64; IFI = 0.94;
TLI = 0.93; CFI = 0.94; RMSEA = 0.04 (Steiger, 1990; Hinkin, 1998) in Table 2. These con-
firmatory factor analysis results showed that three-factor model had satisfactory discriminant
validity.

Descriptive statistics and correlation

Table 3 shows the descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations and the alpha reli-
abilities. Inclusive leadership was significantly correlated with psychological empowerment
(r = 0.45, p < .01), IWB (r = 0.33, p < .01) and in the expected directions. Psychological
empowerment was significantly correlated with IWB (r = 0.54, p < .01) and in the expected
direction.

Tests of hypotheses
With acceptable discriminant validities established, the hypothesized model was tested. The
department was used as control variable. Hypothesis 1 stated that inclusive leadership positively
affected IWB. We tested model 1 to examine the direct effect of inclusive leadership on IWB
without introducing the mediator. Results supported this effect as indicated by the regression
coefficient and associated significance level (β = 0.35, p < .01) and model fit indices (χ2/df = 1.52;
IFI = 0.96; TLI = 0.95; CFI = 0.96; RMSEA = 0.03). In order to test Hypotheses 2, 3 and 4, we
analyzed model 2 where we introduced the mediator using 5,000 bootstrap 95% confidence
interval. This hypothesized model produced better fit indices (χ2/df = 1.45; IFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.94;
CFI = 0.95; RMSEA = 0.03).
Hypothesis 2 stated that inclusive leadership positively affected psychological
empowerment. Results supported this effect as indicated by the regression coefficient and
associated significance level (β = 0.44, p < .01). Hypothesis 3 stated that psychological
empowerment positively affected IWB. Results supported this effect as indicated by
the regression coefficient and associated significance level (β = 0.55, p < .01). In order to test
Hypothesis 4, we analyzed the indirect effect between inclusive leadership and
IWB through psychological empowerment using 1,000 bootstrap 95% confidence
interval. The indirect effect of inclusive leadership on IWB was also significant but
reduced in size (β = 0.26, p < .01), confidence interval between 0.18 and 0.40. There-
fore, Hypothesis 4 was supported with partial mediation case. The results are shown in
Tables 4 and 5.

Table 2. Measurement model

Models Factors χ2 df RMSEA IFI TLI CFI

Baseline model Three factors 477.79* 291 0.03 0.94 0.93 0.94
Note:
CFI = comparative fit index; IFI = incremental fit index; RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; TLI = Tucker–Lewis index.
*p > .05.

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 Journal of Management & Organization 11

Table 3. Means, SD, coefficient α reliabilities and intercorrelations

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3

1. Inclusive leadership 3.08 0.91 (0.86)

2. Psychological empowerment 3.44 0.72 0.45** (0.82)

3. Innovative work behavior 3.43 0.77 0.33** 0.54** (0.82)

Note: n = 390; *p < .05 and **p < .01. Correlation is significant at 0.01 levels (two-tailed); Correlation is significant at 0.05 levels (two-tailed); α
reliabilities are given in parentheses.

Table 4. Path coefficients in the baseline model

Structural path Path coefficients

Inclusive leadership → Innovative work behavior 0.35**

Inclusive leadership → Psychological empowerment 0.44**

Psychological empowerment → Innovative work behavior 0.55**

Note: *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between inclusive leadership and
IWB with the mediating role of psychological empowerment. The results confirmed all hypo-
thesized relationships: inclusive leadership and IWB, inclusive leadership and psychological
empowerment, psychological empowerment and IWB, and finally mediating role of psycholo-
gical empowerment.
The results indicated a positive relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. Inclusive
leadership as a form of relational leadership directly invited employees in decision-making, and
allowed them to show participative behavior in work processes. Therefore, in an inclusive culture
where employees experienced high support from their leadership, employees tended to risk
disagreement with their leadership and challenged the status quo by showing IWB. Our findings
are consistent with the previous studies, which found positive relationship between inclusive
leadership and IWB (Choi, Tran, & Kang, 2017; Javed et al., 2017b).
Results depicted a positive relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological
empowerment. There are numerous ways by which inclusive leadership enhances psychological
empowerment. For instance, by direct invitation, inclusive leaders shared opportunities
with employees to engage in a constructive and creative dialog. As a result, employees experi-
enced a greater sense of meaning at work. Moreover, inclusive leaders with accessibility attribute
served as a social model. As a result, employees learned important competencies to efficiently
perform a given role. In an inclusive culture, employees received timely feedback of the ultimate
out of work process, where they were clearly explained the impact of their effort on the pro-
duction. Finally, inclusive leaders shared power with employees. As a result, employees decided
their work processes on their own. Inclusive culture cannot be cultivated in an organization until
employees are not empowered to state their opinions, views and ideas (Pless & Maak, 2004;
Brown & Treviño, 2006; De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008; Piccolo et al., 2010).
The result showed a positive relationship between psychological empowerment and IWB.
These findings are aligned with the studies of Singh and Sarkar (2012) and Masood and Afsar
(2017). When employees experience efficacious belief via psychological empowerment, they
challenge the existing work standards and generate innovative ideas (Zhang & Bartol, 2010).

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 12 Basharat Javed, Iqra Abdullah, Muhmmad Adeel Zaffar, Adnan ul Haque and Ume Rubab

Table 5. Results on the mediating roles of psychological empowerment with inclusive leadership and innovative work
behavior

Path coefficient BC (95% CI)

Bootstrapping

Inclusive leadership → Psychological empowerment

→ Innovative work behavior 0.26** (0.18, 0.40)

Note: BC = bias corrected; 5,000 bootstrap samples; CI = confidence interval. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001.

Innovative ideas are different from traditional old methods of job, and while exhibiting inno-
vativeness, employees go beyond the standard operating procedure. Therefore, in the context of
innovation, employees demand psychological empowerment which make them free from fear of
other punishment or termination from the job (Javed et al., 2017b). This is perhaps because new
ideas are not guaranteed to be successful but their failure should not be regarded as waste of
resources.
Finally, the result of the current study confirmed psychological empowerment as a mediated
mechanism in the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. Using CET framework,
this study argued and confirmed that inclusive leadership served as supportive contextual factor,
which enhanced employees’ internal empowerment. Consequently, employees showed greater
willingness to exhibit IWB.

Theoretical Implications
The current study has contributed to the literature on inclusive leadership in several ways. The
direct relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB had already been established. However,
the indirect relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB through mediating mechanism of
psychological empowerment had not been studied in the past. Moreover, the current study
confirmed the significant relationship between inclusive leadership and psychological empow-
erment, which is also an important contribution of this study. Our work supported the notion
that a situational supportive factor (e.g., inclusive leadership) enhanced employees’ IWB (Tett &
Guterman, 2000). Furthermore, the study lent support to the process view of inclusive leadership
(Javed et al., 2017b) where positive impact of leadership empowered employees to show IWB.

Managerial Implications
At the current time, the environmental complexity due to new technological changes has made it
vital for organizations to be innovative in their work processes, products and services. Innovation
is an everyday challenge for organizational members to successfully respond to the workplace
issues, unexpected events, creation of new ideas to improve the work process and to produce and
advance new products and services (Tsoukas & Vladimirou, 2001; Wierdsma, 2004; Tsoukas,
2009; Miettinen, Samra-Fredericks, & Yanow, 2009; Kocher, Kaudela-Baum, & Wolf, 2011).
Innovation is the outcome of organizational practices like supportive managerial efforts, pro-
viding employees the freedom of rotation and flexible roles, which in turn encourage employees
to bring innovative and novel ideas (Boer, Kuhn, & Gertsen, 2006). Other managerial efforts
encourage employees’ participation in the innovation process (Kianto, 2008; Döös & Wil-
helmsson, 2009; Yidong & Xinxin, 2013). Thus, managerial practices play an important role in
organizational innovation via supporting employees’ IWB.
The current study has important managerial implications to boost employees’ IWB. Inclusive
leadership was demonstrated to facilitate employees’ IWB through psychological empowerment.
Inclusive leadership is a more powerful and relevant conducive leadership style for employees’
ideation, promotion and implementation (Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, & Ziv, 2010; Javed et al.,

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 Journal of Management & Organization 13

2017b). This is because inclusive leadership exhibits openness to hear new ideas, show their
availability when employees face challenges and more specifically demonstrate their accessibility
to discuss emerging issues with employees. Consequently, employees can easily share and discuss
the important problems they face while exhibiting IWB. Thus, it is important for managers to
understand how to foster IWB in employees. This study recommends that managers can cultivate
an inclusive leadership style by emphasizing openness, availability and accessibility in order to
create conditions for employees to speak about new ideas and voice their opinions.
It is important to know how managers can cultivate the style of inclusive leadership. Following
a study of Ryan (2006), the current study suggests the following ways through which a manager
can bring his/her inclusive leadership style. First, the manager could show respect to employees,
identify and praise the contribution of the employees. Second, managers attentively listen to
employees. Third, they could provide timely and constructive feedback to the employees. Fourth,
the managers could adopt a forward-looking perspective, instead of only focusing on the eva-
luation of a past performance. Fifth, managers could empower employees to independently
decide their work activities. The final way to become an inclusive leader is to encourage open
communication that positively affects employees’ loyalty and trust. In the presence of such
characteristics in a leader, employees are more likely to exhibit innovation-related behavior
(Choi, Tran, & Kang, 2017).
Moreover, generating new ideas is a trial and error process, where some of the new ideas
generated by employees are likely to fail. Therefore, employees need psychological empowerment
to forward their IWB. In the light of CET framework, we suggest that leader should cultivate
supportive external context, which enhances employees’ internal motivation to take risks. In
order to endorse employees’ state of mind with psychological empowerment, managers should
translate a vision for continuous innovation by recognizing employees work for innovation,
provide employees autonomy in their activities related to their particular job, help them in
bringing greater clarity in their roles (Afsar, Badir, & Saeed, 2014) and accept the employees’
mistakes and failure to achieve desired objectives. Particularly, with regards to the last point
regarding tolerating failure, managers with inclusive leadership style take the responsibility for
failure (Hollander, 2012), therefore, encouraging employees to show more IWB.

Strengths, Limitations and Future Directions

The current study found support for all the hypothesized relationships and provided some meth-
odological and theoretical strengths. In order to reduce potential effects of common methods and
single-source bias, this study followed the instructions of Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, and Podsakoff
(2003). First, we collected data on inclusive leadership, psychological empowerment and IWB from
different sectors (information technology and cargo companies). Second, we collected responses
from employees in two time lags using a time lag of 1 month between them in order to promote a
more effective understanding of the relationships among the constructs that comprise our study.
Despite the strengths of the current study, there is a limitation that we used psychological
empowerment in explaining the relationship between inclusive leadership and IWB. However, there
are a number of other mediator variables that can be considered such as intrinsic motivation, trust
in leadership and psychological ownership.
Acknowledgement. The authors would like to say special thanks to Dr. Sajid Bashir for his guidelines.

References

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available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/jmo.2018.50