Dedicated but exhausted? The role of ethical leadership for employee wellbeing in UK student unions

Josh Rivers (), Neill Thompson () and Debora Jeske ()
Additional contact information
Josh Rivers: Northumbria University, UK
Neill Thompson: Northumbria University, UK
Debora Jeske: University College Cork, Ireland

Journal of Human Resource Management, 2018, vol. 21, issue 2, 16-27

Abstract: Building on previous leadership and well-being research, the aims of the present study were to investigate the relationship between ethical leadership and employee well-being (work engagement and emotional exhaustion) within student unions. We also considered the role of trust as a potential mediator in this relationship. Survey data was collected from 137 full-time employees working at student unions in the UK. Path model analysis revealed that trust in one’s manager partially mediated the effects of ethical leadership and work engagement and emotional exhaustion. While trust increased work engagement and reduced emotional exhaustion, ethical leadership also had a significant indirect effect on both outcomes. An interaction between employee dedication and ratings for manager’s ethical leadership suggested that more dedicated employees are less emotionally exhausted if their managers scored highly on ethical leadership. However, when the employees felt less dedicated to the job, managers’ ethical leadership behaviours did not reduce employees’ emotional exhaustion. The study examined the effect of ethical leadership in student unions, adding to the very sparse research on the experience of full-time employees working for student unions.

Keywords: non-profit; ethical leadership; trust; work engagement; dedication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 M54 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.jhrm.eu/2018/11/16-dedicated-but-exhau ... n-uk-student-unions/ (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cub:journl:v:21:y:2018:i:2:p:16-27

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Resource Management from Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Management Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Anna Lasakova ().