Title: Ethical leadership and employee ethical behaviour: exploring dual-mediation paths of ethical climate and organisational justice: empirical study on Iraqi organisations

Authors: Hussam Al Halbusi; Mohd Nazari Ismail; Safiah Binti Omar

Addresses: Department of Management, College of Economics and Political Science, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 20, Al Khoud 123, Oman ' Department of Business Strategy and Policy, Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Petaling Jaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ' Department of Business Strategy and Policy, Faculty of Business and Accountancy, University of Malaya, Petaling Jaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract: Due to ethical lapses of leaders, interest in ethical leadership has grown, raising important questions about the responsibility of leaders in ensuring moral and ethical conduct. Research conducted on ethical leadership failed to investigate the active role that the characteristics of ethical climate and organisational justice have an increasing or decreasing influence on the ethical leadership in the organisation's outcomes of employees' ethical behaviour. Thus, this study examined the dual-mediations of work ethical climate and organisational justice on the relation of ethical leadership and ethical behaviour of employees. A total of 620 full-time employees from five Iraqi provinces working at 33 Iraqi organisations in the field of manufacturing, retailing, medical, insurance, information technology, legal, finance, and telecommunication responded to the questionnaire survey. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the model and data analysis was carried out using structural equation modelling-partial least square (SEM-PLS). The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between ethical leadership behaviour and the ethical behaviour of employees. Primarily, the study also found that ethical climate and organisational justice play a very significant mediating role between ethical leadership and employees' ethical behaviour.

Keywords: ethical leadership; ethical climate; organisational justice; employees' ethical behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2021.116510

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2021 Vol.15 No.3, pp.303 - 325

Received: 01 Sep 2019
Accepted: 21 Jan 2020
Published online: 27 Jul 2021 *

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