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This study aims to explore how ethical leadership and innovative climate impact project success through employees innovative behavior. In addition, based on the conservation of resources theory, this study also examines whether time pressure moderates the innovative work behavior and project success nexus.

Data were collected from 403 employees working in Vietnam's information technology (IT) companies. The partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to investigate the impact of ethical leadership and innovative climate on project success, the mediating effect of innovative behavior and the moderating role of time pressure.

Empirical findings indicate that ethical leadership and innovative climate positively impact on project success. Moreover, employees' innovative behavior has a complementary effect on these relationships. In addition, time pressure moderates the nexus between innovative work behavior and project success.

The findings suggest that IT companies can promote innovative work behavior among employees by building ethical leadership and enhancing an innovative climate. Moreover, when designing and implementing a project, project managers should take care to allow enough time for innovative behavior within the team.

This inquiry is probably the first attempt to explore the mechanism linking ethical leadership and innovative climate to project success, with the mediating role of employees' innovative behavior. Additionally, time pressure is an increasingly relevant factor in contemporary business, but so far little explored in research. This study extends the current knowledge by considering the moderating role of time pressure in the innovative behavior and project success nexus.

The increasing number of ethical scandals reported in many public organizations all over the world, highlighted the need for more in-depth studies on the influence of ethical leadership and management practices in the public sector organizations. This study examines the link (direct and indirect) between ethical leadership, HRM practices, ethical climate and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) within the context of Nigerian local governments.

A cross-sectional design was adopted and data for the study was collected quantitatively by administering questionnaires to supervisors/leaders and their respective employees/subordinates. A total of 270 participants comprising 135 leaders/supervisors who are head of departments and another 135 employee/subordinates participated in the study. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used in testing the hypotheses.

The findings show that ethical leadership, HRM practices and ethical climate significantly affect OCBs. Also, the study shows that ethical climate mediated both the relationships between ethical leadership and OCBs, and HRM practices and OCBs respectively. Thus, the study concluded that both ethical leadership and HRM practices can influence OCBs directly and also indirectly through ethical climate.

The study empirically delineates the importance of ethical leadership, HRM practices and ethical climate in promoting more OCBs within the context of Nigerian local governments. Therefore, managers/administrators should encourage ethical leadership style, and implement good HRM practices and promote ethical climate within their organization so as to boost their employees' OCBs.

The findings of this study will contribute to the understanding of the relationships between ethical leadership, HRM practices, ethical climate and OCBs in the public sector organizations within Nigeria. The findings will also provide additional support that ethical climate is an important mechanism on the relationship between ethical leadership and HRM practices on OCBs.

Research has demonstrated that ethical leadership helps to limit subordinates' workplace deviance. In this chapter, we draw on social cognitive theory of moral thought and action to further understand why ethical leadership has a preventing impact on workplace deviance. We propose that the key mechanism between ethical leadership and deviance is moral disengagement, which refers to the process of making unethical behavior morally or socially acceptable. Specifically, subordinates learn cognitively and emotionally from ethical leaders to minimize the adoption of moral disengagement. When they decrease the use of moral disengagement, subordinates are less likely to display deviant behavior.

Recently, ethical leadership has become a widely studied research topic. Simultaneously, many studies have begun to emphasise the role of interpersonal communication competence (ICC) in successful leadership. However, there has been little discussion on the links between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. To address this research gap, this study aims to compare and combine the research traditions of ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. The study is based on two literature reviews examining (a) ethical leadership (substudy 1; N = 27) and (b) leaders’ ICC (substudy 2; N = 18). The research questions are as follows: (a) How are the requirements of leaders’ ICC noticed in the literature of ethical leadership? (substudy 1) (b) How are the requirements of ethical leadership noticed in the literature of leaders’ ICC? (substudy 2) The findings reveal that (a) studies in ethical leadership rarely pay attention to leaders’ ICC and (b) studies in leaders’ ICC do not often discuss ethical aspects of ICC, at least explicitly. While a larger sample would have been preferred, the study contributes to previous research by addressing a research gap between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC and suggests integrating these research traditions to better understand the nature of ethics and ICC in leadership. By promoting novel interdisciplinary research perspectives, the study provides a foundation for further research and development of (a) a competence-based approach to ethical leadership and (b) an ethics-focused approach to competent leadership communication.

The authors integrate social cognitive theory with social exchange theory to examine how subordinates' perceptions of leader-member exchange (LMX) and moral disengagement mediate the relationship between congruence on implicit leadership theories (ILTs) of ethical leaders and characteristics recognized in one's supervisor (ethical ILT–supervisor alignment) and subsequent engagement-related outcomes (engagement attitudes, job satisfaction and supervisor-directed deviance). The authors then examine romance of leadership (ROL) as a moderator of these relationships.

The authors tested the theorized indirect effects and boundary conditions in a moderated mediation model using 180 working adults over three time points, in a polynomial regression framework using a block variable approach.

The authors found moderated indirect effects between ethical ILT–supervisor alignment and work-related outcomes via LMX and moral disengagement. ROL served as a boundary condition, such that the high levels bolstered the positive effects of ethical ILT–supervisor alignment.

The study results suggest that examining ethical leadership through the lens of implicit theories may be fruitful and highlight the importance of accounting for context when assessing the impact of ILTs.

The beginning of the twenty-first century was plagued with extensive, evasive, and disheartening U.S. business and political leadership failures. Despite the accounting profession’s standards of professional ethics, accounting as a profession also was tainted with various ethical leadership indiscretions during this time. In response to these ethical leadership failings, renewed interest in developing accounting professionals with strong ethical principles and ethical leadership behaviors emerged. In many firms, training and development in ethical behavior is now at the forefront of communications and professional development efforts. The question remains, however, can the profession instill in its members the importance of ethical conduct? Can ethical leaders be developed who model ethical behavior? In response to the call for leaders who are ethical and moral, this research examined a model of ethical leadership and its impact on leader effectiveness for leaders within the accounting profession. The analysis shows that ethical and transformational leadership behaviors make independent and significant contributions to explaining leader effectiveness.

Ethical leadership is of great interest in the accounting profession. After numerous ethical and moral leadership failures over the last two decades, where accounting professionals played a significant role in the fraudulent behaviors that impacted individuals, businesses, and the economy as a whole, the profession has renewed its focus on promoting ethical behavior. To date, research contributing to improving ethical behavior in the accounting profession has been minimal. A plethora of research has identified the deficiency of ethical reasoning and conduct in accounting students and professionals but has provided minimal recommendations on how to improve the status quo. Earlier studies have also found that values based, ethical and transformational leadership behaviors contribute to leader effectiveness in the accounting and business professions. What has not been studied or identified are the specific ethical and transformational leadership behaviors that should be sought or developed in professionals that would improve the ethical conduct and effectiveness of accounting leaders. This study seeks to address the gap in the literature by using neuro network analysis to understand the individual components of ethical and transformational leadership that result in leaders that are more effective in the profession. It concludes that in this study of 212 accounting professionals, ethical leaders that: (a) communicate openly, (b) are trustworthy, (c) consider and support their subordinates’ interest and (d) are altruistic, with a selfless concern for the well-being of others and transformational leaders that encourage their followers to think creatively are innovative are more effective leaders.

Employee work engagement has become a major concern for managers as hardly 21% of employees are engaged in their work. Therefore, this study aims to unveil the association between ethical leadership and employee engagement. Specifically, the study explores the mediating role of trust in leader between ethical leadership and employee work engagement and moderating role of harmonious work passion in the association between trust in leader and employee work engagement.

This study collected data from 491 employees and their immediate supervisors working in various organizations (in Pakistan) through “Google Forms”. The data were analyzed through analysis of moment structure (AMOS) and structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to examine measurement model (for unidimensionality) and structural model (for hypotheses testing).

The study noted that ethical leaders positively influence their subordinates to engage in their work. In addition, employees' trust in leader was noted to mediate the association between ethical leadership and employee work engagement. Finally, employees high in harmonious work passion are more likely to engage in their work when perceived their leaders ethical style.

The study suggests to management that fair dealing and involvement in decision-making (ethical leadership) improve employee work engagement as such practices build employees' level of trust in their leaders. In addition, management is suggested to give freedom to employees while selecting their tasks as it positively contributes to their harmonious work passion which ultimately benefits the organization.

Drawing upon social exchange and self-determination theory, this study is the first of its kind that explored the moderating role of harmonious work passion and mediating role of trust in leader between ethical leadership and employee work engagement.