Abstract:

The study examines the effect of ethical leadership on employee attitudes such as motivation to work and organizational identification as well as verify the role of psychological empowerment as a potential mediator of examined relationships. The authors surveyed 730 employees from 33 large companies operating in Poland. The structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. The results reveal that employee perception of ethical leadership positively affects both examined attitudes, while psychological empowerment partially mediates the impact of ethical leadership on employee motivation to work and organizational identification. We discuss the theoretical implications of our findings, along with the practical insights, limitations, and future research directions.