The impact of inclusive leadership on the maintenance of organizational culture in hybrid teams: an employee perspective
Kuruwita Arachchige, Dilini Madushani; Mahahetti Arachchige, Mariyan Shehani Umeshika Fernando (2026)
2026
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202605049200
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202605049200
Tiivistelmä
Organizations face new challenges in maintaining their organizational culture and providing employee equality because of hybrid work environments. The research examines how inclusive leadership practices help overcome challenges to cultural unity and proximity bias. The study investigates how distributed work environments are affected by leadership practices which impact relation-ships and communication methods and employee perceptions of fairness ac-cording to Social Capital Theory.
The research uses a mixed-method approach to study 27 hybrid workers through their responses to a structured questionnaire. The researchers used descriptive statistics and correlation analysis to analyze quantitative data while they performed thematic analysis on qualitative data to gain a better under-standing of employee experiences.
The results show that inclusive leadership is positively associated with organizational culture (r = 0.726), suggesting that leadership behaviors contribute to maintaining shared values and collaboration in hybrid teams. The research found that remote and hybrid employees who worked at the organization showed lower social interactions with colleagues which resulted in reduced or-ganization-wide social ties. The absence of spontaneous communication was identified as a key factor contributing to weaker interpersonal relationships.
The research demonstrates that proximity bias exists in informal work activities. The statistical analysis failed to find any significant effects but the qualitative research showed that remote workers experienced exclusion from spontaneous conversations and initial decision-making processes which created an impression of unfair treatment. The research demonstrates that inclusive leadership helps organizations develop their formal cultural aspects but this approach fails to solve fundamental relationship problems which occur in hybrid work settings. Organizations need to establish formal communication procedures and develop chances for employees to engage in casual interactions while participating equally to achieve enduring success.
The research uses a mixed-method approach to study 27 hybrid workers through their responses to a structured questionnaire. The researchers used descriptive statistics and correlation analysis to analyze quantitative data while they performed thematic analysis on qualitative data to gain a better under-standing of employee experiences.
The results show that inclusive leadership is positively associated with organizational culture (r = 0.726), suggesting that leadership behaviors contribute to maintaining shared values and collaboration in hybrid teams. The research found that remote and hybrid employees who worked at the organization showed lower social interactions with colleagues which resulted in reduced or-ganization-wide social ties. The absence of spontaneous communication was identified as a key factor contributing to weaker interpersonal relationships.
The research demonstrates that proximity bias exists in informal work activities. The statistical analysis failed to find any significant effects but the qualitative research showed that remote workers experienced exclusion from spontaneous conversations and initial decision-making processes which created an impression of unfair treatment. The research demonstrates that inclusive leadership helps organizations develop their formal cultural aspects but this approach fails to solve fundamental relationship problems which occur in hybrid work settings. Organizations need to establish formal communication procedures and develop chances for employees to engage in casual interactions while participating equally to achieve enduring success.