Your new experience awaits. Try the new design now and help us make it even better

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.

Sec. Organizational Psychology

This article is part of the Research TopicInclusive Leadership in Multicultural Teams: Innovations, Challenges and SolutionsView all 3 articles

Diverse and Inclusive Human Resource Practices and Employee Creativity: The Psychological Fit Mechanisms and the Role of Inclusive Leadership

Provisionally accepted
Zhixing  ZhaoZhixing Zhao1Jiajia  RenJiajia Ren2*
  • 1Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China
  • 2Xuzhou Central Hospital, Xuzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

In the context of a VUCA environment and an increasingly diverse workforce, stimulating employee creativity has become a key driver of sustained organizational innovation. Diverse and Inclusive Human Resource Practices (DIHRP) are a series of systematic management activities that enhance employees' diversity and inclusion capabilities, stimulate their diversity and inclusion motivation, and provide corresponding opportunities. However, the potential mechanisms and boundary conditions of DIHRP's impact on employee creativity remain underexplored. This study draws on social identity theory and conservation of resources theory to construct a moderated mediation model. Based on survey data from 372 employees, using hierarchical regression and bootstrapping analysis, the results show that: (1) DIHRP significantly promotes employee creativity; (2) both supplementary fit and complementary fit mediate the relationship between DIHRP and creativity; and (3) inclusive leadership positively moderates the direct and indirect effects of DIHRP, thereby strengthening the association between person-organization fit and creativity. This study reveals the psychological mechanism linking human resource practices to creative outcomes, enriches the theoretical perspectives of DIHRP and leadership style, and provides practical implications for optimizing talent management in different organizational environments.

Keywords: Diverse and inclusive human resource practices, Supplementary fit, Complementary fit, Employee creativity, inclusive leadership

Received: 06 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Zhao and Ren. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Jiajia Ren, rjiajia2025@163.com

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.