Inclusive Leadership and Work Engagement: Mediating Role of Interactional Justice and Moderating Role of Individual Level Power Distance Orientation

Abstract

Work engagement has remained globally an issue for the organisations, leaders and policy makers. The model proposed in this study to evaluate work engagement has not been studied earlier for industries in Pakistan. Therefore, this research aims to investigate the model in which inclusive leadership affects work engagement through interactional justice and individual-level power distance orientation moderates the relationship between interactional justice and work engagement in Pakistan's manufacturing and services industry. Firms within Punjab, Pakistan are contacted and requested to participate in the study. Based on the firms' responses, the questionnaires were distributed amongst the employees with the firm’s consultation. The survey questionnaires were distributed in both the manufacturing and services sectors. A total of 270 respondents volunteered to attempt the questionnaires which provided 246 responses usable responses for further data analysis. The analysis of data was carried out using PLS-SEM. The results show that inclusive leadership has a significant relationship with work engagement. The results also reveal that interactional justice significantly and partially mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and work engagement. The individual-level power distance orientation was also found to have a significant but reverse relationship between interactional justices and work engagement, suggesting that an increase in the individual-level power distance orientation decreases work engagement. The paper discloses that inclusive leadership significantly enhances work engagement, and that interactional justice significantly mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and work engagement. This study also confirms that higher individual-level power distance orientation negatively affects the relationship between interactional justice and work engagement, suggesting a reduction in work engagement in the presence of uneven power distribution and lack of horizontal communication. The study contributes empirically to the existing body of knowledge of inclusive leadership, work engagement, interactional justice and individual level power distance further helping the researchers and practitioners.