Leadership as a Driver of Employees’ Innovation Performance: The Mediating Effect of Cultural Diversity in UAE Universities

The aim of this research was to look into the relationship between leadership; transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and employee innovation, as well as the mediating impact of cultural diversity between leadership and employee innovation. Structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from 633 public and private universities’ employees in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the help of the stratified sampling technique, and hypothesis verified through structural equations modelling (AMOS-21). Findings of the study shows that leadership has positive impact on employee innovation and cultural diversity partially mediates the relationship between leadership and innovative performance of UAE universities’ employees. Practical implication of the study is to understand how universities can enhance their employees’ innovation which is crucial for their competitiveness and survival. Moreover, the increasing prevalence of cultural diversity, as work arrangements in universities, raises the question of how to successfully manage employees. Although few studies have looked into how transformational and transactional leadership styles affect employees’ innovation performance, this study expands on the topic by concentrating on sub-dimensions of leadership that foster innovation through idea generation and execution at the United Arab Emirates universities. This study offers valuable insights for educational leaders and throws light on the main characteristics of leadership which helps the employees to perform better in terms of innovation.