Investigating the Relationship between Ethical Leadership on Employees’ Turnover intentions: The Mediating Role of Work Engagement in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Liberia

Abstract

The current study's goal is to investigate how ethical leadership affect employees' intentions to leave SMEs, with a focus on the mediating function of work engagement and a moderating role of corporate social responsivity. This study examines the body of research on employee turnover and turnover intentions in order to create a comprehensive perspective on the topic and offer a corrective action plan to reduce employees' intentions to leave and increase their productivity. This study also aimed to investigate how work engagement functions as a mediator and corporate social responsibility as a moderator in these interactions. In this paper, we examine the impact of ethical leadership on employee turnover intention. Ethical leaders act as role models in the organizations, promoting ethical behaviour among their subordinates. The findings of this research can have important implications for organizations, as managers of SMEs are important sources for organizational success. Our results will demonstrate that a leadership approach which is ethical is likely to create a productive, ethical and trusting work climate conducive to the work engagement of employees and therefore reduce turnover. Information was gathered from 200 workers across Liberian small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and the proposed framework was tested using regression analysis. Each respondent was asked to complete a questionnaire about their work experience and their experiences with their leasers. To accomplish the research goal for this exploratory study, a quantitative survey methodology was employed. The majority of the data showed that the hypotheses were supported. Overall, the study's findings offer solid proof that ethical leadership is crucial components for SMEs and have a big impact on staff retention, both directly and indirectly. The findings also demonstrated that, as predicted, work engagement acted as a mediator between the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ desire to leave.