علی رجبی

Arguments debating on how unethical behaviours affect immoral actions have been in existence since the beginning of civilization.In recent years, ethical scandals and ethical behaviours have been of great concern to researchers, organisations, government. Due to ethical lapses of leaders, interest in ethical leadership has grown, raising important questions about the responsibility of leaders in ensuring moral and ethical conduct. Various researchers in the field of ethics and leadership,   have noted that people with less ethical values tend to display more unethical behaviours and find opportunities to fulfil their personal desires, at the expense of others or their organisations.The establishment of ethical behaviours requires guidance and clear values and structures which is very critical to set up. To prevent the occurrences of unethical behaviours and immoral actions taking place in the workplace, organisational leaders need to take strategic actions . In any workplace, it is imperative that the institution or organisation be led by leaders of superior quality. Superior leaders need to display superior values and superior qualities, that is, they must possess high levels of ethical values, display ethical behaviours, and also apply the highest of ethical standards in their decision making, actions, and behaviours. Such a demonstration of leadership sets an ideal example for the followers . Research conducted on ethical leadership failed to investigate the active role that the characteristics of ethical climate and organisational justice have an increasing or decreasing influence on the ethical leadership in the organisation’s outcomes of employees’ ethical behaviour. Thus, this study examined the dual-mediations of work ethical climate and organisational justice on the relation of ethical leadership and ethical behaviour of employees. A total of ۳۴۲ employees of Imam Khomeini Hospital in Esfrain city, and the sample size based on Cochran's formula is ۱۸۱ employee   responded to the questionnaire survey. The tool for collecting data and information from the statistical population was a questionnaire. Questionnaire criteria to measure ethical leadership variable from Feng (۲۰۱۹) , employees’ ethical behaviour from Lu and Lin (۲۰۱۳), ethical climate from Victor and Cullen (۱۹۸۸), organisational justice from Colquitt(۲۰۰۱). Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the model and data analysis was carried out using    and Lisrel software. The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between ethical leadership behaviour and the ethical behaviour of employees. Primarily, the study also found that ethical climate and organisational justice play a very significant mediating role between ethical leadership and employees’ ethical behaviour.

Key words: ethical leadership,   ethical climate,   organisational justice,   employees’ ethical behaviour