Purpose: The current research aims to investigate the role of ethical leadership in improving business processes and the impact of ethical leadership on employee engagement with mediating role of relational identification and ethical climate. Although ethical leadership displays and promotes morality in their followers, current literature is silent about the inclusion of relational identification and ethical climate. The present study intends to develop and test a model with the chain of mediation in the relationship between ethical leadership and employee engagement.Design/methodology/approach: A total of237 responses were collected from the banking sector using quantitative research techniques, and data were gathered through a self-administrated questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used through SEM- MPLUS to generate the results and test hypotheses.Findings: The results suggested a significant impact of ethical leadership on employee engagement through relational identification and ethical climate (moral obligations, moral convictions and elevation). By using the results, practical and theoretical implications are discussed.Research limitations/implications: Besides all the proposed hypotheses that have been accepted, there are some limitations associated with this study. One limitation is usage of single source information, as the data were collected only from the banking sector employees. Moreover, only three variables are taken in the context of ethical climate (moral obligations, moral convictions and elevation). However, some other variables could also be included under the umbrella of ethical climate, e.g. moral virtue. Future researchers should also add different employee attitudes, such as job involvement, job satisfaction and organizational commitment, other than employee engagement.Originality/value: An abundance of research is conducted on ethical leadership; however, with the development of knowledge and new thoughts related to identification and ethical climate, there is a strong need to conduct the research by including other overlooked possible paths.

Purpose: The current study highlights the dark side of a perfectionist leader hindering in business processes and also investigates its impact on procrastination through workplace incivility, psychological distress, and psychological detachment by using the tenet of conservation of resource theory. Positivism research philosophy was adopted, followed by a deductive approach.Design/methodology/approach: The survey technique was used to collect the quantitative data from the employees working in public sector organizations. 364 samples were collected and analyzed using SEM-Mplus techniques, where structured and measurement models were produced and interpreted accordingly.Findings: The results suggested that perfectionist leaders become a source for their followers to involve in procrastination because of depletion of ego and psychological resources. The results supported the chain of mediation and both paths of perfectionist leaders, workplace incivility, psychological detachment, and procrastination and perfectionist leaders, workplace incivility, psychological distress, and procrastination.Originality/value: The results and dynamics of the current study provided some meaningful managerial and theoretical implications and future research directions for the researchers. The study contributes significantly to the body of literature since it captures and analyzes the overlooked elements in the context of perfectionist leaders.

Purpose: The objectives of the current study were to identify the antecedents and outcomes of authentic leadership. For antecedents, the research considered the HEXACO (Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience) personality model and thereby identified the impact of authentic leadership on employee performance with the mediating role of psychological safety and employee engagement by using the trait theory.Design/methodology/approach: The current study adopted a positivism research philosophy followed by a deductive approach. Overall, 347 samples were collected from the public sector organizations using quantitative research techniques, and data were gathered through a self-administrated questionnaire. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used through structural equation modeling (SEM)-Mplus to generate the results and test the formulated hypotheses.Findings: The results revealed that honesty-humility significantly impacts authentic leadership (β = 0.094 and p < 0.05). Similarly, other dimensions of HEXACO also play a significant role in forming authentic leadership. After analyzing the HEXACO as the antecedent of authentic leadership, sequential mediation of psychological safety and employee engagement was checked and identified that authentic leadership in the presence of mediators was insignificant. Hence the full mediation has been recorded.Originality/value: Since its inception, a plethora of research has been available on the authentic leadership theory. However, the empirical evidence revealed that most research is related to outcomes of authentic leadership. As far as antecedents of authentic leadership are concerned, the literature is still silent, specifically on the development of authentic leaders. The current study is significantly contributing to the theory of authentic leadership, and in this context, the study is unique since it is taking the HEXACO personality model as an antecedent of authentic leadership to investigate its role in the development of authentic leaders. Moreover, the study is also identified as the impact of authentic leadership on task performance, not in isolation, but by taking psychological safety and employee engagement as a mediating mechanism.

Purpose: The research intended to identify the impact of employee exploitation on knowledge-sharing behavior and withdrawal, not in isolation, but by taking psychological ownership and psychological detachment as mediating variables. Moreover, the research aims to identify optimism’s moderating role concerning employee exploitation and psychological ownership. The research aims to suggest the management implementation of the human-centric business process and, subsequently, management to obtain maximum output from employees.Design/methodology/approach: Positivism research philosophy followed by a deductive approach is adopted to meet the objectives of the current study. Survey techniques with a self-administrated questionnaire were used to collect data from employees working in public sector organizations. Moreover, 255 employees with the highest qualification were shortlisted to capture the variables’ impact. Data analysis was done by using SEM-AMOS approaches and obtained structural and path models to test the formulated hypotheses.Findings: Results suggested that employee exploitation has a significant relationship with withdrawal, and psychological detachment mediates the relationship. The other path suggested the insignificant role of optimism as a moderator in the relationship between employee exploitation and psychological empowerment. However, psychological empowerment fully mediates the relationship between employee exploitation and knowledge-sharing behavior.Originality/value: A plethora of research is available on employee exploitation; however, the current research is first to capture both positive and negative paths in public sector organizations. It provides clear insights for managers to reformulate and reanalyze their organizational policies to get employees' positive attitudinal and behavioural outcomes.

Purpose: Achieving innovation performance (IP) through high-performance work system (HPWS) remained relatively unexplored. Literature on the HPWS-IP linkage mechanism raises a question mark and highlights the existence of a black box. Therefore, the present study aimed to empirically fill the gap in the literature by developing a framework to theorize HPWS nexus with IP through serial mediation of intellectual capital (IC) and organizational ambidexterity (OA).Design/methodology/approach: To answer the study questions survey-based, multi-source and time-lagged data were collected to examine the proposed model. SPSS 24 version was used to evaluate descriptive statistics and through Smart-PLS 3.32., partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the study hypotheses.Findings: Study findings indicate that HPWS not only has a significant direct impact on IP but also has a significant indirect relationship with IP through the mediation of IC and OA. Both IC and OA also mediated this relationship serially.Originality/value: The originality of the study lies in the fact that it studied HPWS as an antecedent of IC and OA and IP as the consequence. Further, the study fills the knowledge gap in previous literature in which limited or no study has used the serial mediation model with two mediators particularly IC and OA to explore the relationship between HPWS and IP.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the sequential impact of authentic leadership through relational identification and positive emotions on employee’s attitude, i.e. engagement in work related activities. The data was collected through self-administrated questionnaire from 550 employees of the public sector organizations. The results suggested that authentic leadership has significant impact on employee’s relational identification, which further leads to positive emotions and employee engagement.