Sustainable Ethical Leadership and Employee Outcomes in the Hotel Industry in Cameroon

Abstract

Lack of sustainability in ethical behavior is one of the principal reasons for unsustainable outcomes. The present study observes how sustainability in ethical leadership affects employee outcomes like trust, effective commitments, and organizational deviance. Ethical behavior and decisions of leaders will continue to be a source of concern in organizations where deviant actions are carried out by employees. The perception of bad ethics becomes a threat to the success of the organization. This study examines the impact of ethical leadership (EL) on trust (TR), affective commitment (AC), and deviance behavior of employees in the hotel industry. Using convenience sampling and a cross-sectional research method, the study made use of 150 questionnaires to get the perceptions of the respondents about the constructs. Data were obtained from employees of hotels in Cameroon. Confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and correlation analysis were conducted to assess the primary outcomes and to test the causality between each set of variables. The results showed that ethical leadership encourages employees to build trust in their leaders. Employees become effectively committed to their jobs and, thus, find no reason to engage in deviance actions. Furthermore, the results also confirm that trust feelings towards the leader by the employees positively influence affective commitment, hence, prevent deviance actions. Therefore, effectively committed employees do not engage in organizational deviance behaviors (OD). In light of these results, practical implications and recommendations are provided for decision-makers and future researchers.