Individual and Organizational Influences in Driving Workplace Inclusion

In addition to contributing to the budding and important field of workplace inclusion, the goal of this study was to investigate actions that both organizations and the individuals within them can take to increase experiences of inclusion at work. To do this, I explored main and interaction effects of organizational inclusion behaviors (OIB) and an individual’s personal growth initiative (PGI) on perceptions of inclusion—operationalized as the emotional experience of uniqueness and belonging at work. To focus the study on cognition and behaviors that all may adopt and engage in, personality influences were controlled for (i.e., extraversion and neuroticism). The final sample included 295 participants that were predominantly white (55%), employed full-time (92.9%), between the ages 25-35 (58.2%), and identified as man (61.2%). Utilizing a hierarchical regression approach, the final model revealed that extraversion was positively related to perceptions of inclusion (B = .074, p = .035) and neuroticism was negatively related to perceptions of inclusion (B = -.121, p = .039). Additionally, while post-hoc results suggested a potential curvilinear relationship between PGI and perceptions of inclusion (B = .103, p = .029), this relationship disappeared (B = .046, p = .211), when OIB (B = .711, p = .000) was included in the model, indicating that PGI did not account for significant variance beyond that explained by OIB. Interaction terms between PGI and OIB, for both linear (B = -.052, p = .349) and curvilinear (B = -.008, p = .291) relationships, failed to demonstrate significant relationships with inclusion. Overall, OIB repeatedly emerged as the strongest predictor of perceptions of inclusion (B = .711, p = .000), indicating employees look outward when assessing their feelings of organizational inclusion. In a replicated comparative analysis, however, utilizing an operationalization of inclusion as instead perceived involvement in organizational processes, PGI did emerge as a significant predictor (B = .134, p = .001) in addition to OIB (B = .533, p = .000). The results encourage organizations to continue investing in workplace inclusion and provide fruitful areas of future research into the unique role that individuals may play within this