Ethical leadership and employee behaviours: an empirical study of mediating factors

This paper examines the effects of ethical leadership on employee behaviour through the mediating role of ethical climate and employee attitudes. This study proposes that ethical leadership has an influence on organisational citizenship behaviour, specifically through ethical climate, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The results based on a sample of 213 employees from four private universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina support the hypotheses. This study demonstrates that job satisfaction and organisational commitment, which are influenced by ethical leadership, are important mediating factors that affect employees’ organisational citizenship behaviour. The ethical climate that is shaped by ethical leadership also has a mediating impact on employees’ job satisfaction and organisational commitment, which in turn strengthen organisational citizenship behaviour at the private universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.