Making others feel at home: how inclusive leadership and workplace friendship enhance hospitality employees’ job performance in Malaysia and Singapore

Purpose This study examines how inclusive leadership (IL) enhances employee job performance (JP) in hospitality through emotional and relational mechanisms in multicultural Southeast Asian hotel contexts. Specifically, it investigates the roles of organizational pride (OP), psychological ownership (PO), organizational identification (OI), and workplace friendship (WF) in explaining how IL supports employees in delivering services that help guests feel at home in Malaysia and Singapore. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 336 full-time hotel employees in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the effects of IL on OP, PO, OI, and JP, and to test WF as a moderating factor. Findings IL positively affected OP, PO, OI, and JP. These emotional mechanisms directly enhanced performance, while WF strengthened the IL–job performance relationship in multicultural hospitality teams. Research limitations/implications This study’s cross-sectional design limits causal inference between IL and JP. Although procedural remedies reduced common method bias, self-reported data may still contain response bias. The purposive sample of 4- and 5-star hotel employees in Malaysia and Singapore restricts generalizability to other hospitality settings or cultural contexts. Future research should employ longitudinal or multi-source designs, include broader hotel categories, and test the framework across diverse Southeast Asian and Western environments. Examining demographic, generational, and innovation-related factors would further refine understanding of IL’s emotional and relational effects on sustainable performance in multicultural workplaces. Practical implications Hotel managers should prioritize IL practices that promote employee voice, fairness, and participation. Strengthening OP, PO, and OI can improve frontline performance, while fostering workplace friendships can further support leadership effectiveness during high-demand service situations. Social implications This study highlights the broader social value of fostering IL practices within hospitality organizations, particularly in culturally diverse environments like Malaysia and Singapore. IL promotes fairness, respect, and belonging, which can help reduce workplace tension and create more harmonious multicultural service settings. Strengthening employees’ pride, identification, and supportive peer relationships contributes to a more positive social climate, improving staff well-being and interpersonal cohesion. By encouraging inclusive behaviors at all organizational levels, hotels can cultivate workplaces that value diversity, empower employees, and model socially responsible management practices that extend beyond the organization into the wider community. Originality/value This study advances hospitality leadership research in Southeast Asia by integrating social identity theory, psychological ownership theory, social exchange theory, and relational coordination theory to provide a culturally grounded explanation of how il sustains high-quality service performance.