The Role of Ethical Leadership in Turnover Intention and Organizational Identification: Evidence from Cement Industry in Pakistan

Abstract

Leadership is the central role of any organization, and the success of an organization depends on the leader. Scholars and practitioners focus on the need for leaders to be ethical and moral in conduct. Based on entity morality theory and social identity theory, the present research aspired to explore the character of ethical leadership in fostering organizational identification and mediating the role of Turnover intention. This study used a cross-sectional research design with a deductive approach and collected data through a questionnaire using a random sampling technique. Data were collected from 380 employees of the Cement industry of Pakistan and analyzed by regression analysis. Results suggest that ethical leadership is positively correlated to organizational identification and negatively correlated to Turnover intention. A core limitation of this study is the small sample size and cross-sectional design. Future studies may collect data from larger samples and data on actual turnover rather than intention. This research posits that leaders of cement industries working in rural outskirts of Pakistan may use ethical leadership to foster organizational identification and reduce turnover intention.This study is a significant contribution to the literature as it has collected data from the companies working in rural outskirts of Pakistan, which are away from traditional industrial zones.