Ethical leadership and eudaimonic well-being at work: the roles of organizational identification and caring ethical...

Ethical leadership has been widely examined as an important antecedent of employee attitudes and behaviors, yet less is known about how it contributes to employees' eudaimonic well-being at work. Drawing on ethical leadership theory and social identity theory, this study examines how ethical leadership is associated with two dimensions of workplace eudaimonic well-being, namely positive relations with others and personal growth. It further investigates the mediating role of organizational identification and the moderating role of caring ethical climate.

Data were collected through a two-wave time-lagged survey of 310 employees from project and property management enterprises in China. Confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, bootstrap mediation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis were used to test the proposed model.

The results showed that ethical leadership was positively associated with organizational identification, positive relations with others, and personal growth. Organizational identification partially mediated the relationships between ethical leadership and both well-being dimensions. Caring ethical climate strengthened the associations between ethical leadership and organizational identification, positive relations with others, and personal growth.

These findings suggest that ethical leadership is associated with employees' relational and developmental well-being not only through organizational identification but also within a caring ethical work climate. This study contributes to organizational psychology research by clarifying the identity-based mechanism and ethical climate boundary condition through which ethical leadership supports eudaimonic well-being at work.