Ethical Leadership Style and Organizational Citizenship Behaviour: The Mediating Role of Employee Work Engagement
Background: Ethical leadership plays a vital role in improving the employees' work engagement and has an effect on organizational citizenship behaviour. Despite the increase in awareness of ethical leadership in organizations, little attention has been given to this issue. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to draw on social exchange theory perspectives to examine the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour. Methods: The study uses the cross sectional design method and collected data from 321 employees working in the Public service Commission of Sierra Leone to test all hypotheses. Findings The study finds that ethical leadership facilitates employees to engage in their work and encourages them to strengthening their organizational citizenship behaviour. Importantly, employees' work engagement was found to positively mediate the effect of ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour. Implications of the study and future research directions are also discussed.