Ethical Leadership Practices and Staff Organizational Commitment: The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction inPublic Universities of Eastern Ethiopia

The objective of the study was to investigate the status of ethical leadership practices and its impacts on academic staff job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and to examine the mediating role job satisfaction plays between ethical leadership practices and academic staff organizational commitment in public universities. A descriptive survey research design was employed. A sample of 351 academic staff and 242 university leaders was selected using stratified random sampling. Ethical Leadership Survey, the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire, and the Three Commitment Models were employed to collect data. Percentages, frequencies, mean and standard deviation, Pearson correlation, linear regression, and mediation analysis were used to analyse the data. The study revealed a notable difference in perceptions of ethical leadership practices between university leaders and academic staff. The study revealed ethical leadership predicts academic staff job satisfaction and commitment. Job satisfaction partially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership practices and academic staff affective commitment. However, it fully mediates between continuance commitment and normative commitment. Thus, it could be concluded that fostering an ethical leadership culture is essential to enhancing job satisfaction. Hence, it will be recommended university administrators may give focus to ethical leadership practices and design strategies on how to foster them.