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

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Date
2018
Authors
Rivers, Josh
Thompson, Neill
Jeske, Debora
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Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Management
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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.
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Keywords
Non-profit , Ethical leadership , Trust , Work , Engagement , Dedication
Citation
Rivers, J., Thompson, N. and Jeske, D. (2018) ‘Dedicated but exhausted? The role of ethical leadership for employee wellbeing in UK student unions’, Journal of Human Resource Management, XXI (2), pp. 16-27.
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© 2018 the authors.