The Effects of Ethical Leadership on Work Engagement: The Role of Psychological Capital and Organizational Identification

This study has investigated into the relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement by examining psychological capital as mediator and organizational identification as moderator. A total of 345 employees from a major Korean domestic companies as well as multinational companies located in Korea have participated in this research. The findings of this study indicated that ethical leadership effectively fosters follower’s work engagement. In ad- dition, psychological capital mediating the influence of ethical leadership on work engagement. In sum, this study has expanded the positive effects of ethical leadership on employee positive outcomes, and the meaningfulness of psychological capital could be re-illuminated by this study. However, organizational identification did not act as a moderating role. Implications from both theoretical and practical standpoints were discussed and several recommendations for future research were presented as well.