Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Availability

Open Access Thesis

Abstract

Workers spend one-third of their lives at work. Therefore, they deserve to work for organizations that focus on equity and inclusion. Despite laws that aim to protect employees, workers still experience discrimination. This thesis explores how leaders perceive their role in fostering an inclusive culture that encourages employees to bring forward workplace concerns. Through qualitative interviews with locally recognized leaders, this study examines how inclusion is understood and enacted in leadership practices. While participants largely demonstrated inclusive leadership values such as shared perspectives, worker empowerment, and collaboration, I found that participants spoke of their employees in terms of personality traits rather than who they are as a person, or their identity ingredients. This means the structural power dynamics at play may not be taken into consideration depending on an individual's identity ingredients. This tendency to collapse identity to personality traits suggests a gap between inclusive efforts and inclusive awareness. The findings highlight the need for leaders to actively recognize and engage with employee identity ingredients to create a diverse and inclusive environment.

Year of Submission

2025

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Department of Communication and Media

First Advisor

Tom Hall, Chair

Object Description

1 PDF file (vii, 65 pages)

Language

en

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