ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1559427
This article is part of the Research TopicCreative Organization Development through LeadershipView all 22 articles
Belonging through Values: Ethical Leadership, Creativity, Psychological Safety with the moderating role of ethical climate
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of International Business and Economics, Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
- 2Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study aims to provide conceptual insights on how varying levels of value congruence vary employees' sense of belongingness within ethically led organizations. The ethical leadership effect was tested directly and indirectly through belongingness and psychological safety on creativity; the ethical climate was considered as a moderator. Study 1 data was multi-sourced and was collected from 377 participants at three different time points. Study 2 was scenario-based data collection. 208 employees participated in this study. The process and Hayes techniques were used for SPSS. Findings were that ethical leadership was a significant factor in influence directly and indirectly through belongingness and psychological safety on creativity; the moderating role of ethical climate was also found significant. Belongingness varies at high and low levels of congruency with the leader. Findings suggest that ethical leadership is a strong predictor of belongingness and psychological safety that helps employees to be creative. Overall, the working climate, if it is ethical, also improves the impact of ethical leadership. Then, it discusses the theoretical and practical implications of ethical leadership for research and practices.
Keywords: Ethical Leadership, Ethical climate, Belongingness, psychological safety, Value congruence, creativity
Received: 12 Jan 2025; Accepted: 09 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Qasim and LAGHARI. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Azhar Ali LAGHARI, Shanxi Agricultural University, Jinzhong, Shanxi Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.