Influence of Cross-Cultural Leadership on Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Cross-cultural leadership is crucial in today's multicultural workplaces to foster positive employee attitudes and improve organisational effectiveness. But there is still limited empirical evidence on its impact on staff engagement and job satisfaction, especially in new economic countries like Malaysia. This study explores the impact of cross-cultural leadership on employee engagement and job satisfaction and further explores the mediating role of employee engagement. A quantitative cross sectional survey was undertaken based on the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) Theory and Social Exchange Theory with 240 employees from Malaysian organisations. A complementary methodological approach (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling or PLS-SEM and Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis or fsQCA) was used to analyse the data. The PLS-SEM results indicate that the cross-cultural leadership has a significant positive impact on employee engagement and job satisfaction. Employee engagement significantly positively influences job satisfaction, and partially mediates the relationships between cross-cultural leadership and job satisfaction. fsQCA results also reveal that employee engagement is a necessary condition for high job satisfaction and that there are multiple combinations of the cross-cultural leadership and employee engagement that can result in high job satisfaction. These results suggest that culturally competent leadership is complementary with employee engagement in supporting job satisfaction in multicultural work settings. The study makes a contribution to the literature on cross-cultural leadership, in that it offers empirical evidence from Malaysia and combines symmetric and asymmetric analytical perspectives in explaining employee attitudes in culturally diverse organisational contexts. The results are also relevant for organisations that want to build leadership competencies and enhance job satisfaction and employee engagement through effective cross-cultural management.

Received: 2026-07-14 | Revised: 2026-09-28 | Accepted: 2026-09-29 | Published: 2026-09-30

Declarations

Ethics and Guidelines: The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The ethical approval specifically covers the research procedures and data collection activities conducted for this study.

Consent to participate: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. Consent was obtained using a standardized written form, signed by each participant before participation in the survey.

Consent to publish: The authors have provided consent to publish.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Data availability statement: Data will be made available on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Funding: This research received no external funding.

Clinical Trial Number: Not Applicable.

Declaration of using generative AI: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used ChatGPT in order to correct the grammatical errors. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the published article.

Author Contributions: M.H.A.: Conceptualization, methodology, writing—original draft preparation, writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.