Engaging Employees Via an Inclusive Climate: The Role of Organizational Diversity Communication and Cultural Intelligence

ABSTRACT

This study aims to advance research on internal communication and employee engagement by exploring the role of diversity communication. Specifically, this study tested a conceptual model that links organizational diversity communication efforts and employee cultural intelligence with an inclusive organizational climate and employee engagement. This study also investigated the potential moderating effects of employees’ minority status in the model. Through an online survey of 657 full-time employees working across diverse industries in the U.S. this study showed that an organization’s diversity communication and employee cultural intelligence increase employee perceived inclusive climate in the organization, which ultimately leads to a higher level of employee engagement. Further, for minority employees, an inclusive climate showed a much stronger effect on their level of engagement than for their white counterparts. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• cultural intelligence
• diversity communication
• employee engagement
• inclusive climate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Byrne (2010, p. 111) argues that “‘forcing large error terms to be uncorrelated is rarely appropriate with real data.’” Allowing error covariance within the same construct can also explain content redundancy. c (EE4, 5) =.36, c (EE 7, 8)=.41, c (MCI2, 3)=.34, c(MCI4, 5)=.32, c (IC1, 2) = .26.

2. In constrained model, it was assumed that there was no difference between White and minority employees regarding the effects proposed in the conceptual model.