The impact of digital collaboration tools on inclusive leadership in multicultural teams in the context of global remote work: a psychological perspective on empathy, cohesion, and cross cultural communication

Abstract

As remote and hybrid work becomes increasingly normalized, organizations rely on digital collaboration platforms to coordinate multicultural teams, yet it remains unclear how everyday technology-mediated interaction translates into inclusive leadership. This study examines whether digital collaboration tool use is associated with inclusive leadership through a sequential psychological pathway involving empathy, team cohesion, and cross-cultural communication. Drawing on social information processing theory and emotional contagion theory, survey data were collected from 240 employees working in multicultural remote or hybrid teams and analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group path analysis by gender. Results indicate that both the frequency of tool use and perceived interaction quality positively predict empathy in the full sample, and empathy is subsequently linked to stronger team cohesion, which supports more effective cross-cultural communication and, in turn, higher perceived inclusive leadership. Bootstrap analyses further support the significance of the sequential indirect effect. Multi-group comparisons reveal gender-related differences at the entry stage of the model: among women, tool use frequency predicts empathy whereas interaction quality is not significant; among men, both predictors are significant. Taken together, the findings suggest that the leadership relevance of digital collaboration tools operates primarily through socio-emotional and relational processes rather than through technology use alone, and that these processes may unfold differently across gender groups in multicultural remote work contexts.