The Impact of Diversified and Inclusive Leadership on the Employee Innovative Drive of Public Organizations in the Abu Dhabi

One of the most overlooked aspects of government-based organizations is facilitating the improvement of the public sector in Abu Dhabi. However, with the changing dynamics of globalization, there is a need to evaluate the correlation between diversified leadership and the innovative drive of employees for the public commercial sector in the UAE. This research aims to determine whether the diversified and inclusive approach of leadership in the public sector will drive innovative changes and behaviour in the departments within government organizations in the UAE. The study employs a qualitative research design to explore the existing pool literature on inclusiveness and innovative drive in public sectors in the UAE. The findings of the research indicate that diversified and inclusive leadership management serves a significant impact in the process of cultivating the minds and beliefs of people towards innovative drive in a government setting, highlighting the advantages for managers and leaders in public sectors in being the model of change and increasing the value of employees in the organization.

Introduction

It is well known that innovation is essential to an organization’s ability to survive and thrive. The body of existing literature has focused extensively on innovation at the personal and private enterprise levels (Mutonyi et al., 2020; Massouti et al., 2023; Kuknor & Bhattacharya, 2020); however, there is comparatively little research on innovation at the public sector level. Various organizations all over the globe have experienced and witnessed a series of changes of innovative drive from their employees. The most noticeable changes have been displayed in private sector leadership that stimulates employees’ innovative desires and determination.

Objectives

The primary objective is to determine whether the diversified and inclusive approach of leadership in the public sector will drive innovative changes and behaviour in the departments within government organizations in Abu Dhabi. The researcher will be able to test the hypothesis that diversified and inclusive leadership management serves a great impact in the process of cultivating the minds and beliefs of people towards innovative drive in a government setting, highlighting the advantages for managers and leaders in public sectors in being the model of change and increasing the value of employees in the organization.

Problem Statement

Facilitating the improvement of the public sector in Abu Dhabi is one of the most overlooked aspects of government-based organizations. However, with the changing dynamics of globalization, there is a need to evaluate the correlation between diversified leadership and the innovative drive of employees for the public commercial sector in Abu Dhabi. In most cases, the operation of employees in the public sector has been fixed on little to no innovation that could increase the value of employees and their productivity to the public. Additionally, the effective ways to implement diversified and inclusive leadership approaches paving their way into the core operations of public organizations have only been limited to private entities whose clock runs all around to discover and collect innovative ideas from the employees that will keep the private organization on toes with their competitors. When facing these gaps in the research on the topic, the following research question should be considered:

Research Questions:

1. How can the diversified and inclusive leadership approach in government-based organizations cultivate innovative beliefs in employees for the productivity of the public sector?
2. What factors prevent or facilitate the effective implementation of diversified and inclusive leadership in public agencies within Abu Dhabi?
3. What are the effective ways to implement inclusive and diversified leadership and management principles in the government setting?

Literature Review: Theoretical Background

Theoretically, inclusive and diversified leadership can encourage creative activity among staff members in a variety of ways. First, these leaders can encourage staff members to participate in creative processes. Ashikali et al. (2020) viewed inclusion and diversity as a notion associated with self-motivation as well as a procedure for enhancing employees’ internal perceptions within the firm. A greater desire resulted in a greater willingness to engage in creative action. Second, according to the theory of organizational support, workers’ performance was dependent on support from their employers. The knowledge, time, and guidance required for creative activity were all made available by inclusive and diversified leaders. Maan et al. (2020) maintained that the foundation of inclusion was a worker’s fundamental trust, elucidating that supervisors apply a range of abilities to enhance the potential and capability of their subordinates’ conduct.

Furthermore, according to Khan et al. (2020), inclusive and diversified leadership helps staff members feel accepted in the workplace by fostering a sense of teamwork, upholding equality and fairness, and allowing them to participate completely in decision-making. At the same time, employees’ individuality is preserved by promoting different viewpoints and assisting teammates in contributing completely to the public sector’s processes and innovative results. Third, inclusive and diversified leaders may act as examples of creative conduct. Ely et al. (2020) proposed a favourable relationship between a leader’s inclusivity and involvement in the enhancement of quality initiatives. According to Kerri (2020), inclusive and diversified leadership presented a certain relationship that was manifested through harmonization and transparency in conversation, accessibility, and provision.

Both the governmental and commercial sectors have long acknowledged the significance of leadership and management to an organization’s effectiveness (McCauley & Palus, 2021). Successful leadership and management are crucial for institutions in any industry as they develop a culture and environment that encourage outstanding performance and innovation (Alqudah et al., 2022). Kuknor and Bhattacharya (2020) report that in an attempt to boost the public sector’s productivity, several government agencies have hired managers, specialists, and executives with an innovative history from the private sector as a change to drive innovation in a similar approach.

According to Massouti et al. (2023), The significance of involvement, commitment, safety, fairness, and the multifaceted nature and interconnection of various identities in society, interactions between groups, and their varied corporate and societal characteristics would all be taken into account by a comprehensive, inclusive managerial structure. In such instances, the general population and other players who provide funding for the projects performed by governmental organizations put pressure on the leadership to operate better in governmental institutions (Grego-Planer, 2019). When public sector efficiency is criticized, particularly when it comes to expense containment, comparisons to private organizations are frequently made. In certain instances, it is suggested that government agencies should operate with the same goals as private agencies.

According to Adeinat and Abdulfatah (2019), current thinking on governmental management and leadership indicates that institutions in the government domain may benefit from implementing inclusive and diversified leadership alongside plans and tactics to drive innovation among employees in the public sector. To bring about the required change, government agencies should begin by redirecting their leadership to envision and act in innovative approaches that will facilitate productivity in the company (Aboramadan et al., 2021). The significance of this process stems from the impact that managers and leaders have in motivating other staff members to adopt innovative thinking and alter the culture of their public organizations. Approaches for leading an innovative culture stem from having a supportive government that provides employees room for improvement and comes up with creative ideas for the benefit of the public sector (Kuknor & Bhattacharya, 2020). If implemented in government sector institutions, they can produce better outcomes. Government agencies can benefit greatly from hiring managers who foster innovative inclusion in public organizations. Leaders in public entities should be accustomed to working in a goal-driven atmosphere where objectives drive productivity and innovation go hand in hand. Since governmental entities lack this culture, hiring innovative-driven employees from the private sector will change the working environment within the public entities and result in employees cultivating innovative working culture (Grego-Planer, 2019).

Nonetheless, very few investigations have looked into the relationship between inclusive management and creative employee conduct despite the distinctive and important role that inclusive leadership plays in the field of leadership studies (Ye et al., 2019). Employee participation in creative projects was facilitated by widespread openness, distribution, and affordability. It was common to refer to inventive behaviour as “discretionary behaviour.” The distinctive qualities of inclusive and diversified leadership changed the way followers perceived their support and encouraged more creative conduct.

Methodology

Research Design

The research design was qualitative research. This study used a deductive method for systematic literature review data collection since it was more appropriate than an inductive one for obtaining qualitative data.

 Sample Selection

The researcher focused only on secondary sources published in English between 2013 and 2023. The secondary sources of data included government press release documents, news from international news outlets, and journal articles obtained from renowned business and management databases. The topics covered in secondary literature provided the basis for the research on the impact of diversified and inclusive leadership on the innovative drive of employees in public sectors.

Data Collection

The explicit data collection for this study came from secondary sources dealing with inclusive and diversified leadership. The cost-benefit ratio of doing secondary data research over primary data investigations justifies this decision.

Unit of Measurements

The validity and reliability of the secondary literature were analyzed through the lens and coverage of the researcher of the existing scale literature being reviewed. The validity approach aided in validating data from the pool of literature from any research based on the topic.

The general steps that were employed comprised of four dominant steps: “search (specifying the search query and database types); appraisal (incorporating and excluding pre-established literature and evaluating its quality); synthesis (extracting and classifying the data); and evaluation (explaining the findings and drawing conclusions)”. First, the research review informed the research’s audiences about the author’s familiarity with the significant contributions made to the field of investigation by other scholars. Second, the literature identified the major problems in the field of study as well as evident gaps in the body of existing literature. Third, the approach helped the researcher understand the theories and fundamental concepts that the author has employed throughout the investigation.

Data Analysis

In order to identify trends, correlations, and additional phenomena that may emerge from the examination of the selected body of current literature, categorization was used to separate similar opinions and those that are distinct (Abu-Taieh et al., 2020). In order to evaluate the variations in the diversified and inclusive leadership techniques applied in the public setting, the analysis approach particularly compared numerous patterns and features that emerge throughout the secondary literature. The analysis searched for reoccurring themes and cluster-related patterns to create an image of how the various study authors view the problem of shifting leadership and management techniques across the public and private sectors by organizing codes.

The literature review included a pool of literature on topics on inclusive leadership, diversity in organizational management, inclusive leadership in private sectors, the role of leaders in the innovative drive of employees, the impact of a company’s encouragement in driving innovation, and the leadership style driving innovation behaviour. Some of the sources included are from peer-reviewed journals, research papers, dissertations and other relevant academic proceedings. The literature review, on the other hand, excluded sources about general leadership, leadership in charitable organizations, research with conflicting interests, sources with extreme deviation from the topic, sources with no ethical approval, sources with poor reporting, and sources from complex geographic contexts. The following numbers of sources were included following the filtering based on the inclusion criteria:

Every keyword the researcher simulated in search engines resulted in several outcomes from many authors concerning inclusive and diversified leadership in the drive for innovation. Therefore, after screening the research sources in major academic sites, the relevant sources were picked, and the content was analyzed in detail. For every article that the researcher opened on academic sites such as Google Scholar, MedPub and others, any similar sources cited were also reviewed. However, the researcher could only read for general knowledge but did not use a similar article to obtain information.

Ethical Considerations

When conducting a systematic review of literature as a qualitative approach, the dominant ethical consideration is in plagiarism work. Since every single piece of literature has its original author, using their work without giving credit to the original author is academically unethical. Plagiarism is academic theft in which one may receive credit for people’s work. To address ethical issues related to systematic literature review, the study acknowledged and appreciated the efforts of the authors by citing the author’s name after quoting, paraphrasing or using any information from the source (Gray et al., 2019). This ethical dilemma was also addressed by maintaining the list of sources used in the literature review while considering what is required to be cited to prevent academic theft of intellectual property.

Findings, Analysis and Discussion

This study aimed to determine whether the diversified and inclusive approach of leadership in the public sector will drive innovative changes and behaviour in the departments within government organizations in the UAE. The research identified more than 40 sources through PubMed, Springer, ProQuest, Sage Knowledge, and Google Scholar. Out of the total sources, only 14 were used since they met the inclusion criteria. The selected sources gave deeper insights concerning the diversified and inclusive approach of leadership that drives innovative behaviour in the UAE’s public sector. Most of the sources were quantitatively designed, while some used a thematic analysis approach to compile their findings.

This research included 14 reviewed literature from a pool of sources that aligned with the inclusion criteria. The different sources concentrated on various approaches of inclusive and diversified leadership in the drive for innovative behaviour in the UAE’s public sector. Most of the sources focused on the inclusion of leadership in private sectors and some of the impact of inclusive leadership on team building. Employees from a younger age have progressively taken the lead in employment and business development in modern society. The research has investigated the connection between inclusive and diversified leadership and innovative drive-in employees in the public sector based on the ideas of inclusivity and varied leadership (Khan et al., 2020). Most of the sources have approved that inclusive and diversified leadership positively impacts the innovative drive in the public sector. However, the most impactful literature has highlighted the aspect of the psychological resources of younger employees that must be paired with inclusive leadership to foster innovative change in the company.

Additionally, the study finding indicates that various aspects of inclusive leadership affect various aspects of creative drive. One of the three aspects of an inclusive leadership style is encouraging and recognizing staff members (Maan et al., 2020), which significantly impacts the creative output and inventive thinking of younger staff members. The degree to which leaders engage their younger staff members fairly and with respect affects the innovation achievements that they produce (Grego-Planer, 2019). Moreover, they offer comprehensive details regarding real-world applications. Leaders who embrace inclusivity are better able to produce unique and inventive outcomes for staff members belonging to the younger generation, benefiting the growth and development of the public sector.

Fig. 1. Inclusive Leadership Relational Diagram

Significantly, some studies have provided insights that psychological power moderates leaders’ appreciation and equitable handling of staff members’ innovative accomplishments. In a critical analysis, this can be perceived as a mediating factor between leaders’ support and acknowledgement of workers’ creative output and inventive thinking in the public sector (McCauley & Palus, 2021). In particular, inclusive leaders create a secure atmosphere in a multicultural context where each team member can feel free to be who they are (M Lewis et al., 2019). A culture where it is accepted and valued to be open to diversity will be maintained by such leaders. However, the reviewed sources did not fail in openly highlighting that the importance of diversity, prejudice between groups may be lessened, and tolerance regarding diversity may be improved. As a result, different teammates are seen as part of the team instead of outsiders, strengthening their sense of community (Sarker & Rahman, 2020). These findings contribute to the body of literature by elucidating the distinct impacts of psychological strength on various links between innovative drive and inclusive leadership.

Additionally, in contrast to the ideas of fairness and equity, various sources of the review highlight the ideas of leniency and tolerance while incorporating the idea of “tolerance as a virtue” into the meaning of an inclusive and diversified leadership approach in the public sector (Massouti et al., 2023). Integrating the traits of new generational and traditional workers, the study employed several methods for literature filtering to confirm the relationship between inclusive and diversified modes of leadership and workers’ creative drive (Mutonyi et al., 2020). The findings support offering new generation professionals a complete platform, accommodating their unique qualities, and using the inclusive approach to leadership appropriately. Ultimately, the findings offer a foundation for encouraging the most recent batch of employees to think and act creatively in the public sector.

Recommendations

This research focused on inclusive and diverse leadership throughout this research to encourage innovation in public sectors. Nevertheless, there are restrictions when doing a literature review study. Its trustworthiness is constrained because it draws from a sample population already established in the literature. It implies that realistic samples must be used to test increasingly complicated hypotheses. Future studies should define the relationship between the many aspects of inclusive leadership and the characteristics of inclusivity to deepen our comprehension of how diverse and inclusive leadership fosters inventive drive.

The fact that the study solely contained research from the public sector in the United Arab Emirates raises concerns about the outcomes’ generalizability. However, the research may be theoretically and conceptually applied to studies conducted in different settings. The twin processes that account for diversity impacts can be relevant to any scenario associated with diversity measurements, even though the significance and meaning of various diversity dimensions vary depending on the situation. This renders my results applicable to many contexts and necessitates additional empirical research on inclusive leadership and inclusivity in the public sphere to facilitate creative transformation in various contexts. These studies may also deepen the comprehension of how innovative characteristics—like duties and goal interdependency—specified in the creativity literature and boundary circumstances unique to public organizations, like bureaucratic frameworks and developments, affect how much inclusive administration results in the inclusion of public corporations.

Additionally, I suggest a field experiment that measures the impact of inclusive and diversified leadership on innovative drive and thoroughly examines such leadership’s impact to determine causality accurately. Such would assist in determining the implications of inclusive management and support the establishment of leadership customs; however, it would need public entities to dedicate themselves to cooperating for an extended period. It is possible to learn more about the anticipated accomplishments of inclusive leaders through this kind of research.

Conclusion

The study aimed to determine whether the diversified and inclusive approach of leadership in the public sector will drive innovative changes and behaviour in the departments within government organizations in Abu Dhabi. After employing a qualitative approach to explore and review the existing pool of literature on the topic, the research results indicate that the innovative drive and psychological resources of younger employees in UAE are positively impacted by inclusive leadership in the public sector. The study also concludes that various aspects of inclusive leadership affect various aspects of creative drive. Additionally, it emphasizes that psychological power moderates leaders’ appreciation and equitable handling of staff members’ innovative accomplishments. The recommendations suggest more fieldwork and experimental research with a defined population sample rather than only focusing on the pool of literature on the topic. It also suggests an expanded research that focuses on more than just the UAE but engages the general population of any setting. Further research should define the relationship between the many aspects of inclusive leadership and the characteristics of inclusivity to deepen our comprehension of how diverse and inclusive leadership fosters inventive drive.

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