Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

As organizations hire women and minorities, today’s workforce becomes increasingly diverse (Downey et al. 2014). Diversity within the workplace has been widely object of study in the recent literature. The scholarship thus far has focused on the relationship between diversity management and workplace performances. Although diversity management focuses on improving recruitment and training for women and minorities, it ignores exclusions’ effects. Several studies emphasize the importance of organizational inclusion, but fewer have actually tested its effects on workplace outcomes. Inclusion is “a concept in which different voices are sought and utilized as opportunities for added value” (Sabharwal, 2014). Inclusion aims to remove barriers to enable high performance from all employees. Diversity management brings in diversity while inclusion enables it. Shore et al (2011) explains inclusion as the degree to which an employee perceives that he or she is an esteemed member of the work group through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness. The literature also lacks on the psychological mechanisms that underlie the link between the practices associated with insider status and perception of inclusion. On how the feeling of inclusion motivates employees and fosters successful behaviors and outcomes. Bandura (2009) has extensively studied and written on self-efficacy, a mechanism that enables and empowers individuals. “Unless people believe that they can produce some effects there is little incentive to act. Believing in one’s self efficacy is a core component of self-influence” (Bandura, 2009). This study investigates the association between organizational inclusion with workplace performances, it is hypothesized that this association is mediated by motivation and that the relationship between inclusion and motivation is moderated by a self-efficacy mechanism. This study is going to use secondary data analysis, this data was collected by the Office of personnel management (OPM) through The Annual Employee Survey.