The Effect of Inclusive Leadership on Innovation Strategy in Multicultural Workforces: A Study of the United Arab Emirates

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to analyze the effect of inclusive leadership on innovation strategy in multicultural workforces: a study of the United Arab Emirates. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: The study found that inclusive leadership has a significant positive effect on innovation strategy within multicultural workforces in the United Arab Emirates. Leaders who demonstrated fairness, openness, and empowerment created psychologically safe environments that encouraged employee voice, collaboration, and creativity. Inclusion practices were shown to mediate the relationship between workforce diversity and innovation outcomes, meaning that diversity alone did not guarantee innovation unless supported by inclusive leadership behaviours. Furthermore, organisations that institutionalised inclusive policies such as transparent communication, participatory decision-making, and cross-cultural teamwork exhibited stronger innovation capabilities. The findings also revealed that larger firms and those with formal inclusion programmes achieved higher levels of strategic innovation compared to smaller firms with less structured inclusion efforts. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Social exchange theory (SET), The Categorization-Elaboration model (CEM), Dynamic capabilities view theory may be used to anchor future studies on the effect of inclusive leadership on innovation strategy in multicultural workforces: a study of the United Arab Emirates. Companies should design leadership development programmes that explicitly train managers to foster voice, psychological safety, and knowledge sharing across diverse nationalities. Policymakers should promote diversity and inclusion (D&I) reporting standards for both large firms and SMEs, linking compliance to innovation grants, tax incentives, or preferential procurement policies.