Ethical Leadership, Affective Commitment, Work Engagement, and Creativity: Testing a Multiple Mediation Approach

This study aimed to explore the relationships among ethical leadership (EL), affective commitment (AC), work engagement (WE), and employees’ creativity (EC). In total, 233 Chinese public sector employees completed the survey in three phases. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze the data. The paper found positive relationships between EL and WE and with EL and EC. The results further revealed that AC partially mediates the EL-WE relationship, while both AC and WE fully mediate the relationship between EL and EC. Testing these relationships via a multiple-mediated approach significantly contributed to the existing research on leadership.