Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Project Success: Testing of a Model in Information Technology Projects

Impact of Inclusive Leadership on Project Success: Testing of a Model in Information Technology Projects

Arslan Mir, Muhammad Rafique, Namra Mubarak
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 17
DOI: 10.4018/IJITPM.2021010103
OnDemand:
(Individual Articles)
Available
$37.50
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to investigate the impact of inclusive leadership on project success with the mediating role of innovative work behavior and moderating role of knowledge sharing. Data were collected from information technology projects in Pakistan. After validating the proposed model, path analysis was conducted. The findings revealed that inclusive leadership is significantly related with innovative work behavior and project success. Further, the findings showed that innovative work mediates the relationship between inclusive leadership and project success. Moreover, knowledge sharing doesn't moderate the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior. The theoretical and practical implications and limitations of the study are discussed in detail.
Article Preview
Top

Introduction

Leadership has been acknowledged as the main factor that motivate employees to be creative and innovative (Crant, 2000; Hollander, 2009). It is evident that in projects, the value creation leads to the success of the project. Value creation in teams is only formed through creativity and decision making quality, and it is only possible by inclusive approach (Lee-Kelley & Sankey, 2008). Inclusive leadership is considered as a significant element in order to motivate the innovative work behavior among the employees (Bindl & Parker, 2010; Shore et al. 2011). Compared to other forms of leadership such as transformational leadership, servant leadership; inclusive leadership grasp distinctive nature of belongingness, inclusiveness, acceptance and uniqueness (Randel et al., 2018). The inclusive leadership concept was proposed originally in the field of management by Nembhard and Edmonson (2006) and is defined as “words and deeds by a leader or leaders that indicate an invitation and appreciation for others contributions.” Moreover, Ospina (2011) described inclusive leader as valuable and someone who welcome employees in the organization at all levels and is responsible for the outcomes. Inclusive leadership creates a sense of empowerment among the employees (Nishii & Mayer, 2009), as these leaders provide ideas and vision to the employees, so that they understand the demands of the organization and share their own ideas and ways to perform work. Inclusive leadership plays much important role to induce such behavior (Bilimoria, 2012). The impact of knowledge on different kinds of leadership style is evident in various studies. Research provides empirical evidence on the relationship between knowledge sharing and leadership through creativity and team knowledge (Dong, Bartol, Zhang & Li, 2017). It creates a sense of positivity and optimistic emotions to perform their work in creative and innovative ways. (Hollander, 2009). Leadership provides the main vision and provide directions in order to perform the task in creative way to achieve the objectives successfully. A leader should understand the globally changing environment and its demands for knowledge intensive environment and should inculcate systems of knowledge (Millar, Chen & Waller, 2017). The current study aim is to provide empirical evidence about how Inclusive leadership affects the performance of the project which is an understudied topic in the previous literature. Inclusive leadership is relatively a new topic in the field of research. It is relatively an overlooked style of leadership as compared to the styles of leadership. The effect of inclusive leadership has been studied on different constructs like innovative work behaviour and psychological safety (Javed, Naqvi, Khan, Arjoon & Tayyeb, 2017), but that is completely in other industries and contexts. Moreover, for project success, various factors have been identified in different studies that enhance project success. But there is very limited research on linking leadership and more specifically inclusive leadership with project success in the presence of mediating mechanism and boundary conditions that lead inclusive leadership to project success. According to Javed et al. (2017) and Choi, Tran and Park (2015), inclusive leadership should be studied with some mediating mechanism in order to investigate that whether in the presence of some mechanism, it enhance the performance or not. Therefore, in the present study innovative work behaviour is taken as a mediator between inclusive leadership and project success. Similarly, the study of Dong et al. (2017) studied the influence of knowledge sharing on leadership but its role as a moderator has not been studied on this kind of leadership, therefore knowledge sharing is taken as moderator between inclusive leadership innovative work behaviour.

Complete Article List

Search this Journal:
Reset
Volume 15: 1 Issue (2024)
Volume 14: 1 Issue (2023)
Volume 13: 4 Issues (2022): 3 Released, 1 Forthcoming
Volume 12: 4 Issues (2021)
Volume 11: 4 Issues (2020)
Volume 10: 4 Issues (2019)
Volume 9: 4 Issues (2018)
Volume 8: 4 Issues (2017)
Volume 7: 4 Issues (2016)
Volume 6: 4 Issues (2015)
Volume 5: 4 Issues (2014)
Volume 4: 4 Issues (2013)
Volume 3: 4 Issues (2012)
Volume 2: 4 Issues (2011)
Volume 1: 4 Issues (2010)
View Complete Journal Contents Listing