Developing ethical leadership for business organizations: A conceptual model of its antecedents and consequences

The effect of workforce diversity on organizational performance with the mediation role of workplace ethics: Empirical evidence from food and beverage industry

This study examines the effect of workforce diversity on organizational performance in the Ethiopian food and beverage sector. It incorporates workplace ethics as a mediator to explain in detail the complex relationship between workforce diversity and organizational performance. The study uses a quantitative design, in which data is collected from a random sample of 359 employees from stratified random firms. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) result verified the viability of three of the four proposed hypotheses. Organizational performance is not directly affected by workforce diversity. But it directly changes in response to the change in workplace ethics. Besides, workplace ethics mediate the relationship between workforce diversity and organizational performance. This implies a more advanced relationship exists between diversity and performance, involving effects transitions via workplace ethics, than what this study initially proposed. Thus, an approach to improving firm performance involves reinforcing good workplace ethics practices. Organizations can mitigate the negative impact of workforce diversity on workplace ethics by creating a more inclusive and ethical workplace. This includes providing training on diversity and inclusion and promoting a culture of respect and understanding.

Mitigating Job Burnout in Jordanian Public Healthcare: The Interplay between Ethical Leadership, Organizational Climate, and Role Overload

In today's dynamic organizational landscape, characterized by rapid technological advancements and evolving workplace dynamics, understanding the factors influencing employee well-being is paramount. This study investigates the interplay between ethical leadership, organizational climate, role overload, and job burnout in public healthcare organizations across northern Jordan. By focusing on ethical leadership, organizational climate, and role overload as determinants of job burnout, this research provides insights into strategies for enhancing employee well-being. Drawing on ethical leadership theory, social exchange theory, and the job demands-resources model, this study employs PLS-SEM to analyze data collected from 260 employees working in Jordanian government hospitals. The findings reveal negative associations between ethical leadership and job burnout, highlighting the importance of ethical leadership behaviors in mitigating employee burnout. Additionally, a positive organizational climate is associated with lower levels of burnout, underscoring the impact of the broader organizational context on employee well-being. The study also explores the mediating role of organizational climate and the moderating effect of role overload in the relationship between ethical leadership and job burnout, providing insights into the complex dynamics at play in healthcare organizations. These findings enrich our understanding of the factors influencing employee well-being in healthcare contexts and underscore the importance of fostering ethical leadership and supportive organizational climates to mitigate job burnout.

Linkages of organizational commitment and leadership styles: a systematic review

Purpose

This paper aims to examine how the linkages between organizational commitment (OC) and five leadership styles, namely, authentic leadership, benevolent leadership, ethical leadership, moral leadership and spiritual leadership, have been investigated in the literature.

Design/methodology/approach

This systematic literature review applies a matrix method to examine the significant literature in leadership and OC, specifically considering themes of self-development, self-awareness, self-regulation, self-discipline and self-motivation necessary for individuals and organizations. The papers from Australian Business Deans Council, Scopus and Web of Science listed journals were reviewed. Forty-three peer-reviewed English publications from 20 journals were selected and analysed.

Findings

The synthesis of these empirical studies revealed that the relationship between OC and these leadership styles had primarily been mostly quantitatively investigated in many countries and sectors. Additionally, ethical leadership remains the most commonly researched style. Furthermore, there are mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions in the relationship between these styles and OC.

Research limitations/implications

The literature search in this study was mainly focused on English articles only; therefore, some papers in other languages may not have been included. Additional qualitative studies based on these linkage themes need to be conducted in human resource development (HRD) contexts.

Practical implications

This review offers an overall picture of the existing knowledge of OC and leadership that will be fruitful for HRD practitioners to understand and replicate these concepts.

Originality/value

There are few systematic literature reviews on the relationship between OC and leadership styles. This paper is among the first systematic reviews to analyse how leadership has been associated with OC and provides potential research directions. HRD practitioners and academia should find the results of this study helpful.

The Mediator CSR Plays the Effective Leadership Belief Role for Resource Dilemma Handling Leadership in Organizational Commitment During Sustainability Development

The authors aim to explore a better fitting leadership style that is designed for the sustainable era in believing and committing to work for cherishing resources and developing the organization toward a new sustainable direction. This study developed the questionnaire items of the Resource-Dilemma-Handling-Leadership (RDHL) scale, representing a new sustainable era's new leadership style, and then to compare it with the transformational leadership style in order to highlight the importance of RHDL for sustainable development. This study took companies, which have more than 100 employees in Taiwan as research samples. Those companies were selected because they were socially tagged as being operating continuously for more than 20 years and identifying themselves with the operational orientation of social responsibility as their business philosophy and core values for management. A total of 532 valid questionnaires were collected, with a 90.6% valid return rate, and tested with the SEM method. Consistent with the authors' inferences from the literature, the test results suggest that CSR plays the role of full mediator between RDHL and OC. CSR itself is like a sense of responsibility, giving employees a sense of mission, to complete meaningful sustainability-relevant tasks in the organization. RDHL, compared with TL, has a better prediction power on CSR and OC. Theoretically, this study implies that the impact of leadership of the organization on OC in the aspects of sustainable development should be going through the influence of the ELB system in the form of CSR to promote the organization's internal and external organizational CSR performance, with added internal strengthening power from OC. Practically, the new RDHL concepts brought up by this study include the training and enhancement of leadership skills based on the content of the scale items being explored. The new RDHL scale contains a comprehensive description of the spirit of the new sustainable era's leadership style. Also, the future applications of RDHL ideas in the form of human resource development should help the realization of the ideally sustainability behavioral patterns of leaders and employees in the organizations.

The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Employee Job Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Media Richness and Perceived Organizational Transparency

Ethical leadership (EL) is a vital component driving firms' practice, significantly affecting employee satisfaction (ES). The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between EL and employee job satisfaction. Moreover, the study investigates the mediating effect of media richness (MR), perceived organizational transparency (OT) on EL, and ES. In addition, the study used a convenient sampling technique for collecting the data from 276 employees working in the service sector of Macau. Essentially, questionnaires had used as the fundamental tool guiding the data collection method. The findings indicate a positive and significant relationship between EL, ES, MR, and perceived OT. The MR and perceived OT have significant mediating effects between EL and ES. The study is beneficial for the service sector of Macau to plan the strategies for their employees in terms of organizational sustainability and success. The study is also helpful for the government to understand EL and for the researcher to search the new aspects of EL in organizations for future research direction.

Role of Leadership in Adoption of Blockchain Technology in Small and Medium Enterprises in Saudi Arabia

This research aims to determine the role of the leadership and potential benefits that blockchain adoption may bring to SME financing in the Kingdom, as well as the foreseeable challenges that may hinder small businesses from benefiting from the adoption of blockchain. It is interesting aspect to see how leadership manages to adopt new changes amid several challenges and threats. This article also outlines policy and regulatory trends that SMEs can save operating costs and improve efficiency, thereby increasing transparency and easier access to funds. Digital technology and creative business models have the potential to help narrow the financing gap for SMEs. E-commerce and the sharing economy provide SMEs with more market access and new business models, as well as the data-driven business prospects generated through data sharing under the framework of open banking. This study provides recommendation that there is a dire need to pay attention on the complete mechanism of the SME's in order to support them as well as promote them to show their distinction in the contribution of social and economic development. This study provides implications for the financial institutions, government agencies and society to come forward equally for the common interest.

Linking ethical leadership and behavioral outcomes through workplace spirituality: a study on Indian hotel industry

Purpose

This study aims to understand and examine the mediating role of workplace spirituality on ethical leadership and behavioral outcomes. The study used the social exchange theory and social learning theory to study the underlying mechanism.

Design/methodology/approach

The data was collected from 348 frontline hotel employees of North India using convenience sampling. The study used structural equation modeling and Macro PROCESS Hayes (2017) to test the hypothesized model.

Findings

The study found a positive association between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behavior and a negative association between ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior. Workplace spirituality mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and its outcomes.

Practical implications

The study brings out the significance of ethical leadership and workplace spirituality in enhancing organizational citizenship behavior and reducing unethical pro-organizational behavior.

Originality/value

There is a paucity of research done on the mediating role of workplace spirituality in understanding its significance in aligning ethical leadership and behavioral outcomes. Hence, the authors attempt to address this gap by understanding the role of workplace spirituality and its association with ethical leadership, unethical pro-organizational behavior and organizational citizenship behavior among the employees of the hotel industry.

Effect of Chief Executive Officer’s Sustainable Leadership Styles on Organization Members’ Psychological Well-Being and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Situational leadership theory and the contingency approach of leadership were utilized and applied based on situational theory. Based on a total of four foundational theories, that is, bottom-up spillover theory, theories of prosocial behavior, and so on, this study empirically analyzed what influence a chief executive officer’s (CEO’s) sustainable leadership styles (servant, ethical, and authentic leadership) have on the psychological well-being and organizational citizenship behaviors of organization members. The study was conducted on adult employees of midsized or larger companies (including subsidiaries) across four countries: South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, and South Africa. Data were obtained from 649 adult employees. SmartPLS was used to conduct structural equation modeling analysis of the data. The results were as follows: (1) CEOs’ servant and authentic leadership styles had statistically significant positive (+) effects on employees’ psychological well-being; however, ethical leadership did not. (2) CEOs’ ethical leadership had a statistically significant (+) effect on employees’ organizational citizenship behavior; however, servant and authentic leadership did not. (3) Employees’ psychological well-being had a statistically significant (+) effect on organizational citizenship behavior. CEOs are attracting more attention than ever, leading companies in today’s rapidly changing times. This suggests that it is necessary to comprehend principles that show when, where, and how important leaders are and sustainable leadership styles that can increase their chances of success. Moreover, this study derived constructive implications that a leader can overcome today’s challenges through sustainable leadership styles.

A Focus on Ethical Value under the Vision of Leadership, Teamwork, Effective Communication and Productivity

The new economy and the knowledge-based society brought significant changes in all the areas of our daily lives. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis implicated tremendous transformations in all the domains, on the one hand, threatening the balance of our society and, on the other hand, challenging the dynamic of the new economy development and the rhythm of the societal modernization. In these delicate times, the all-important relationship between ethics, leadership, teamwork, effective communication, productivity, and performance is brought to the attention, in particular, due to its benefits for our society, taking into consideration the pivotal advancement that a well governed relationship of this type could provide to the knowledge-based economy. The present research describes the implication of ethics in leadership, teamwork, effective communication, and productivity, which includes the application of ethical values as university graduates assume the role of each of the mentioned dimensions of study in the organizations. The absence of research that relates ethics to these four elements simultaneously was noticed. This information is essential to know how these dimensions influence the organizational level. The sample that included 410 university graduates was applied in Baja California, Mexico, and the industrial nucleus of great relevance, bordering California in the United States of America. The data was obtained using a questionnaire. A reliability and validity analysis of the measurement instrument was carried out in terms of the ethical values associated with the dimensions mentioned using the exploratory factor analysis by the principal components method. Qualitative items were also analyzed using the constant comparison method. The results obtained in this research provide a greater perspective and practical knowledge and support of usefulness and practical reality to businesspeople and employees, leaders and university graduates; and also extensive to students, teachers, and human beings in general, in order to be better prepared to give and apply solutions with their consequent ethical and productive achievements desired by all. Additionally, this current research has the purpose to raise the will to understand, at a higher level and at a more in-depth degree of knowledge, the relationship between ethics, leadership, teamwork, effective communication, productivity, and performance, in the attempt to foster a creative and innovative business environment, based on a robust and sustainable business administration and business competencies, capable to position at higher ranks the strengths, opportunities, aspirations and outcomes that today’s new economy is due to offer and diminish the dangerous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the COVID-19 crisis in all the domains.

How does organizational leadership contribute to the firm performance through social responsibility strategies?

Despite the wide-ranging studies on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), firm performance, and Organizational Leadership (OL), there have been only a few studies examining the inter-relationship between them. Accordingly, this investigation has tried to investigate how OL contributes to the firm's performance through the CSR strategies. It has an internal orientation to CSR motivations compared to the existing studies that mostly considered the external factors in implementing of CSR in firms; also, it has a comprehensive view toward the firm's performance by considering both financial and non-financial aspects of performance. It could be said that this study has tried to answer the question of whether or not CSR can be as a mediator between the OL and firm performance. Data collection was performed from 285 manufacturing and consumer products firms located in Malaysia during the four-month period of June-September of 2020. AMOS Structural Equation Modeling (AMOS-SEM) method was applied to analyze the model. Following the Baron and Kenny approach in testing the hypotheses, it was found that the relationships of OL and financial performance, as well as OL and non-financial performance were partially mediated by CSR. In addition, the non-financial performance was found as a full mediator between the OL and financial performance. Further, the results revealed two full mediated relationships in this way that non-financial performance was a full mediator variable between CSR and financial performance, as well as CSR and non-financial performance which were found as two multiple full mediators between OL and financial performance. The results help Malaysian managers to understand their current status, capabilities, strong points and weaknesses in leadership regarding to CSR. Moreover, due to the positive effects of CSR on both firm's financial and non-financial performance, CSR is recommended to be integrated in leadership style and the organizational strategies in order to having better performance.

Linking ethical leadership to administrative innovation in Ethiopian banks: the mediating role of knowledge process capabilities

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge process capability (KPC) between ethical leadership (EL) and administrative innovation (AI) in the banking sector of Ethiopia.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted by a standardized questionnaire survey to collect the data from 266 employees of Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in 93 branches. The study employed structural equation modeling approach with Analyzing Moment of Structures 23.0 to test the hypothesized mediation model.

Findings

The results of this investigation disclose that EL has a significant and direct effect on AI and KPC. KPC also influences AI significantly.

Originality/value

The study revealed that KPC plays a partial mediating role in linking EL to AI, which is a new contribution to the existing literature of EL. This dimension can provide new dimensions to design organizational leadership which is based on sustainability paradigm. This can strengthen the organizational capabilities aiming to increasing innovative behaviors in order to have a deep-seated strategy.

Becoming morally disengaged: how long does it take?

Purpose

Leadership is a time-dependent process and a recent leadership research trend posits a central role of time-based variables. The dyadic tenure plays a keystone role in understanding leader–follower dynamics, especially as regards leader ethics. In line with this, from a social learning theory perspective, the authors propose a model that explains how and when ethical leaders' behaviors influence subordinates' moral disengagement.

Design/methodology/approach

With a sample of 220 employees, the present study tests the conditional indirect effect of ethical leadership on followers' moral disengagement via instrumental ethical climate (IEC), using dyadic tenure as the moderator variable. The analyses were conducted with Hayes PROCESS macro.

Findings

Results suggested that IEC fully mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and moral disengagement. Thus, when followers perceive low levels of ethical leadership, they notice higher levels of IEC, which is positively related to moral disengagement. However, IEC perception only influences moral disengagement when dyadic tenure approaches the third year.

Originality/value

This paper answers calls to include time-based variables in leadership studies. Hence, using dyadic tenure, this study gives support to previous propositions that were still awaiting empirical test.

The impact of ethical leadership on employee creative deviance: the mediating role of job autonomy

Purpose

This study aims to explore the impact of ethical leadership on employee creative deviance, with job autonomy as a mediator and creative self-efficacy as a moderator between job autonomy and creative deviance.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was developed based on construct measures from the literature. A total of 316 responses were received from employees of information and communication technology companies located in China's Pearl River Delta.

Findings

Both ethical leadership and job autonomy have a positive impact on employee creative deviance; job autonomy plays a mediating role between ethical leadership and creative deviance; creative self-efficacy does not have a significant moderating effect on the job autonomy-creative deviance relationship.

Research limitations/implications

Future studies could explore the potential moderating role of both job autonomy and creative-self efficacy in the link between ethical leadership and creative deviance.

Practical implications

This study recommends that organizations should adopt and promote an ethical leadership approach to manage creative deviance at work. Organizations could explore alternative methods of task completion to support the job autonomy for the employees to mitigate the dilemmas associated with creative deviance.

Originality/value

This is one of few studies that examine the impact of ethical leadership on employee's creative deviance, despite the fact that the influence of ethical leadership on the followers has been extensively examined.

Ethical leadership and employee unethical pro-organizational behavior: a moderated mediation model of moral disengagement and coworker ethical behavior

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to understand how ethical leadership and coworker ethical behavior will influence employee unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). In particular, the authors examine the mediating effect of moral disengagement on the relationship between ethical leadership and UPB and also investigate the moderating effect of coworker ethical behavior on the aforementioned effect.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 251 employee–coworker dyads from five organizations in Taiwan at two time points. Moderated mediation analysis was conducted to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that moral disengagement mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employee UPB. Moreover, the results show that coworker ethical behavior moderates the relationship between moral disengagement and employee UPB, as well as the mediated relationship between ethical leadership and employee UPB via moral disengagement. Specifically, both the moral disengagement–UPB relationship and the ethical leadership–moral disengagement–UPB relationship become weaker when coworker ethical behavior is high.

Practical implications

The results highlight the importance of creating an ethical work environment to get everyone behaving ethically in the workplace, because nurturing an ethical atmosphere in organizations will be useful in reducing the occurrence of UPB even for those who have high levels of moral disengagement.

Originality/value

This study shows that coworkers matter morally as much as leaders, demonstrating the importance of social influence from coworkers in organizations.

Strengthening knowledge sharing and job dedication

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a moderated mediation model to explain how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical leadership influence knowledge sharing and job dedication through the mediating mechanism of positive affective tone and cognitive meaningfulness.

Design/methodology/approach

The research hypotheses were empirically tested using a survey of employees from the high-tech industry in Taiwan. The research constructs in this study were measured using five-point Likert scales modified from existing literature. The survey data were empirically analyzed with two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) and regression analysis.

Findings

The empirical results of this study reveal that CSR and ethical leadership positively relate to positive affective tone and cognitive meaningfulness. Knowledge sharing is positively affected by positive affective tone whereas job dedication is positively affected by positive affective tone and cognitive meaningfulness. While the relationship between positive affective tone and job dedication is positively moderated by job demand, the relationship between cognitive meaningfulness and job dedication is negatively moderated by job demand.

Originality/value

This study elucidates the ethical influences from organizations (i.e. CSR) and leaders (i.e. ethical leadership) respectively to explain affective and cognitive processes involved in work situations. At the same time, by clarifying the moderating role of job demand, this study provides valuable implications for managers to effectively leverage job demand for increasing employees’ job dedication.