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The Effects of Ethical Leadership on Job Satisfaction: Mediating Role of Employee Engagement  

You, Jeong-Sook (Graduate School of Entrepreneurship and Industrial Management, Chung-Ang University)
Lee, Jong-Keon (School of Business Administration, Chung-Ang University)
Publication Information
Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship / v.16, no.6, 2021 , pp. 229-239 More about this Journal
Abstract
This study examined the influence of ethical leadership on employee job satisfaction and the mediating role of employee engagement in the relationship between these two variables. In this study, employee engagement was divided into job engagement and organization engagement. Data were collected from 183 employees working for Korean companies. The results of this study are as follows. First, it was found that ethical leadership was positively related to both job engagement and organization engagement. Second, ethical leadership was also positively related to job satisfaction of employees. Third, job engagement and organization engagement were found to partially mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction respectively. The results of this study suggest a theoretical contribution in that it expanded existing studies on the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction. This study is significant in that it revealed a mechanism that ethical leadership directly affects job satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction, but indirectly positively affects employee engagement variables such as job engagement and organization engagement. The results of this study also suggest practical implications that CEOs should strive to help organizational managers demonstrate ethical leadership. In addition, the results of this study suggest practical implications that managers and human resource development experts need to seek ways to increase the level of engagement of employees in the organization. Finally, this study presented limitations to be revised and supplemented in future studies and future research directions.
Keywords
Ethical Leadership; Employee Engagement; Job Engagement; Organization Engagement; Job Satisfaction;
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