Ethical leadership and newcomer adjustment: examining a moderated mediation model

Purpose Substantial research has examined the pivotal role of ethical leadership in generating employee outcomes. To date, though, little is known about the relationship between ethical leadership and newcomers' adjustment. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this gap by examining the effect of ethical leadership on newcomers' adjustment. In doing so, the authors highlighted positive emotions of newcomers as a mediating mechanism that explains the aforementioned association. Design/methodology/approach Data were drawn from a two-wave sample of 271 newcomers. The hypotheses were tested by using hierarchical regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS macro. Findings The results demonstrated that ethical leadership affects employees' positive emotions which, in turn, positively relates to newcomers' adjustment. Additionally, newcomers' social comparison orientation moderated the effect of ethical leadership on newcomers' positive emotions. Research limitations/implications The research uses a correlational research design, making it difficult to derive causal inferences from the data. Moreover, the data we obtained on the variables were all based on employees' self-reports, which might inflate the relationship between some of the variables. Originality/value To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study that illustrates the role of ethical leadership in enhancing both newcomers’ positive emotions and adjustment.