Understanding the unique impact of dimensions of ethical leadership on employee attitudes

Abstract

This study extends earlier findings on ethical leadership  by testing the relationship of the seven dimensions of ethical leadership with job satisfaction, organization commitment, job embeddedness, and cynicism. It uses time-lagged data from 585 employees in Pakistan. Using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, the study supports the concept of multidimensional ethical leadership in the Eastern setting and indicates that the dimensions of people orientation, fairness, power sharing, ethical guidance, and role clarification are associated with the majority of outcomes, as suggested by social exchange theory. However, the concern for sustainability and integrity dimensions had a limited effect.

Keywords:

• ethical leadership
• dimensions of ethical leadership
• social exchange theory
• workplace outcomes

Acknowledgments

We thank anonymous reviewer and Dr. Thomas Hadjistavropoulos for their valuable comments and review on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge that we have not received any grant or funding for this research project.This manuscript is an original work that has not been submitted to nor published anywhere else.All authors have read and approved the paper and have met the criteria for authorship.