Inclusive leadership and extra-role behaviors in higher education: does organizational learning mediates the relationship?

Purpose: Building on social exchange theory and relational leadership theory, this paper proposes a model of inclusive leadership in higher education institutions. Together with an attempt to examine the impact of inclusive leadership on extra-role behaviors of academic staff, the paper aims to test the intervening mechanism of organizational learning among the aforementioned relationships. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 227 academic staff working in the Palestinian higher education institutions. Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) analysis technique was utilized to examine the hypotheses. Findings: The findings reveal that inclusive leadership exerts a positive effect on extra-role behaviors (organizational citizenship behaviors and innovative work behaviors) in the Palestinian higher education setting. Moreover, the findings show that organizational learning plays a significant mediating role among the relationships examined Practical implications: Academic communities are increasingly diverse. This diversity requires a work environment in which employees take on additional work roles. In response to this diversity, managers of higher education institutions should be concerned about the roles and practices of inclusive leaders. In addition, higher education institutions need to be learning organizations since this would help to mitigate this diversity and create a working atmosphere characterized by continuous learning, collaboration and dialogue. Originality/value: In higher education, most of the literature on inclusive academic leadership is mainly theoretical. Furthermore, organizational learning in higher education research is based on anecdotal perspectives (Dee and Leišyte, 2016). To this end, this paper is novel, as it is one of few studies to empirically investigate inclusive leadership and extra-role behaviors via organizational learning in a non-western academic context.