The Impact of Ethical Leadership and Employee Engagement on Customers’ Perceived Service Quality: A Study of Sri Lankan Public Service
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47747/jbm.v1i2.1114Keywords:
Customers’ Perceived Service Quality, Ethical Leadership, Employee Engagement, Public Service, Sri LankaAbstract
This paper investigates how ethical leader influences employee engagement for enhancing the quality of public service in Sri Lanka while examines their customers’ perception of service quality, employees’ perception of the style of ethical leadership, and the level of employee engagement. For that, two questionnaires were distributed. The first questionnaire was distributed through 500 employees in 83 Divisional Secretaries to identify the level of ethical leadership and employee engagement. The second questionnaire was distributed to 2500 customers to identify the level of service quality. To measure these constructs customized scales were used. The results found that, the customers were generally satisfied with the service provided by the public service. Employees in public service were satisfied with the ethical leadership of their administrators and they engage well. The results indicate that ethical leadership and employee engagement significantly affect customers’ perceived service quality and employee engagement is partially mediates the association between ethical leadership and service quality. This study helps to identify the extent of ethical leadership exhibited by public officers, and how it influences service quality through employee engagement. The findings will help the public service to identify its strengths and weaknesses, and will serve as an important source of feedback to the public service that can be used in decision-making processes to better serve customers. In addition, this paper filled the gap in the literature by addressing the relationship between ethical leadership, employee engagement and customers’ perceived service quality. The empirical findings of this will help to enhance the body of knowledge in the area of service quality. The findings will help to uncover the nature of ethical leadership, and employee engagement in the existing public service in Sri Lanka
References
Amaradasa, A.A. (2012). Improving public sector quality and productivity: a formidable challenge (On line) Available at: archives.dailynews.lk/2012/10/09/bus23.asp, (Accessed 4th July 2017).
Awang, Z. (2015). SEM Made Simple: A Gentle Approach to Learning Structural Equation Modelling. Bandar Baru Bangi, MPWS Rich Resources.
Brown, M. E., and Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 17(6), 595–616. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2006.10.004.
Brown, M. E., and Treviño, L. K. (2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 595−616.
Brown, M. E., Treviño, L. K., and Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117−134. doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2005.03.002
Brown, T. J., Churchill J, G. A., and Peter, J.P. (1993). Improving the measurement of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 69(1), 127-139.
Carasco-Saul M., & Kim, W.K.T. (2014). Leadership and Employee Engagement:
Proposing Research Agendas through a Review of Literature, Human Resource Development Review 14(1):38-63, doi: 10.1177/1534484314560406.
Cowardin-Lee, N., & Soyalp, N. (2011). Improving organizational workflow with social network analysis and employee engagement constructs. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 63(4), 272-283. doi.org/10.1037/a0026754.
Den Hartog, D. N., & Belschak, F. D. (2012). When does transformational leadership enhance employee proactive behavior? The role of autonomy and role breadth self-efficacy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), 194–202. doi.org/10.1037/a0024903.
Erdogan, H.E., and Bavik, A. (2008). Scale Development Process: Service Quality in Car Rental Services. The Electronic Journal of Business Research Methods, 6, 133-146.
Fleming, J. H., & Asplund, J. (2007). Human sigma, Gallup Press, New York, NY
Guo K (2022) The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Employee Job Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Media Richness and Perceived Organizational Transparency. Front. Psychol. 13:885515. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.885515
Hair, J. F. J., Black, W.C., Babin, B. J., and Anderson, R. E. (2014). Multivariate Data Analysis.
(7th ed), New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Halvorsen, B., Bartram, T., Kia, N. and Cavanagh, J. (2022), Meeting customer needs through ethical leadership and training: examining Australian bank employees. Asia Pac J Hum Resour. https://doi.org/10.1111/1744-7941.12329.
Haq (2011) Ethics and leadership skills in the public service. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 15 2011) 2792–27962011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.04.190.
Hart, D.K. (2001). Administration and the ethics of virtue. In Handbook of administrative ethics. (pp. 131-150), (T. L. Cooper Ed.). New York: Mercel Dekker Inc.
Herath, H.M.A. (2008). Grassroot Institutions for Regional Development: Sri Lankan Experience, Vidyodaya Journal of Humanities and Social Science 02, 305 – 334.
Iddagoda, Y. A., Opatha, H. H. D. N. P., & Gunawardana, K. D. (2016) Towards a Conceptualization and an Operationalization of the Construct of Employee Engagement. International Business Research, 9 (2), 85-98.
Iqbal, Z.A., Abid, G., Torres, F., Hassan, Q.and Zafar, R. (2020) Ethical Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior: The Mediating Role of Individual Attributes. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity. 6(3):68. https://doi.org/10.3390/joitmc6030068
Kaffashpoor, A., and Sadeghian, S. (2020). The effect of ethical leadership on subjective well-being, given the moderator job satisfaction (a case study of private hospitals in Mashhad). BMC Nurs. 19:111. doi: 10.1186/s12912-02000496-w
Kahn, W. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal engagement and disengagement at work.Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724. doi: 10.2307/256287.
Kanungo, Rabindra N; Mendonca, Manuel,(2001) Ethical leadership and governance in organizations: A preamble, .Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences; Vol. 18, Iss. 4,
Kalshoven K, Den Hartu D.N and De Hoogh A.H.B. (2011). Ethical leadership at work questionnaire (ELW) Development and Validation of a multidimensional measure. The leadership quarterly 22 (2011) 51-69.
Kalshoven, Karianne & Den Hartog, Deanne. (2009). Ethical Leader Behavior and Leader Effectiveness: The Role of Prototypicality and Trust. International Journal of Leadership Studies. 5.
Markos, S., & Sridevi, M. S. (2010). Employee Engagement: The Key to Improving Performance. International Journal of Business and Management, 5(12), 89-96.
Michael E. B. and Marie S. M. (2010), Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , October 2010 , pp. 583 – 616, DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/beq201020439
Mostafa, A. M. S., & El-Motalib, E. A. A. (2018). Ethical Leadership, Work Meaningfulness, and Work Engagement in the Public Sector, Review of Public personnel Administration, 40 (1), 112-131, doi.org/10.1177/0734371X18790628.
Nosheen Adnan, Omar Khalid Bhatti & Waqas Farooq | (2020) Relating ethical leadership with work engagement: How workplace spirituality mediates?, Cogent Business & Management, 7:1, 1739494, DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2020.1739494
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., and Malhotra, A. (2005). E-S-QUAL: A multiple-item scale for assessing electronic service quality. Journal of Service Research, 7(3), 213-233
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., and Berry, L. (1985). A conceptual model of service quality and its implications for future research. Journal of Marketing, 49(Fall), 41-50.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A. and Leonard B. (1988). SERVQUAL: A Multiple-Item Scale for Measuring Customer Perceptions of Service Quality. Journal of Retailing, 64 (Spring), 12-40.
Rabie, M.O.,and Abdul Malek, M.(2020).Ethical leadership and employee ethical behavior:
a moderated mediation mechanisms.SEISENSEJ.Manage.3,73–88. doi:10.33215/sjom.v3i2.321
Rana, S. & Ardichvili, A, (2015).bEmployee Engagement Instruments: A Review of the literature Submitted to the UFHRD Conference 2015, University College Cork, Ireland.
Rank, J., Carsten, J.M., Unger, J.M., & Spector, P.E. (2007). Proactive customer service performance: Relationships with individual, task, and leadership variables. Human Performance, 20(4), 363-390.
Salanova, M., Sonia A., & Jose´ M. P. (2005). Linking Organizational Resources and Work Engagement to Employee Performance and Customer Loyalty: The Mediation of Service Climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (6), 1217-1227.
Saul, M.C., Kim, W. & Kim, T. (2014) Leadership and Employee Engagement: Proposing Research Agendas Through a Review of Literature, Human Resource Development Review 14(1):38-63, doi:10.1177/1534484314560406 .
Schaubroeck, J., Lam, S. S. K., & Peng, A. C. (2011). Cognition-based and affect-based trust as mediators of leader behavior influences on team performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96: 863–871.
Schaubroeck, J.M.,Lam, S.S.K, and Peng, A.C.(2016) .Can peers’ ethical and transformational leadership improve coworkers’ service quality? A latent growth analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol 133, pg. 45-58. doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.02.002.
Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71-92.
Sharma, A., Agrawal, R., and Khandelwal, U.(2019). Developing ethical leadership for business organizations. Leadersh. Organ. Dev. J. 40, 712–734. doi: 10.1108/ LODJ-10-2018-0367
Singhapakdi,A.and Vitell,S.J (1990) Marketing Ethics: Factors Influencing Perceptions of Ethical Problems and Alternatives, Journal of Micromarketing. Volume 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1177/027614679001000102.
Southard, R. N. (2010) Employee Engagement and Service Quality, Masters of Public Affairs Washington State University.
Teimouri, H., Hosseini, S. H., and Ardeshiri, A. (2018). The role of ethical leadership in employee psychological well-being (Case study: Golsar Fars Company). J. Hum. Behav. Soc. Environ. 28, 355–369. doi: 10.1080/10911359. 2018.1424063
Thenuwara, H.N. (2018), The Role of the Public Sector in Promoting Economic Growth in Sri Lanka, ‘Talking Economics’, the blog of the Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka (IPS), Sri Lanka’s apex socio-economic policy think tank.
Yousaf, K., Abid, G., Butt, T. H., Ilyas, S., & Ahmed, S. (2019). Impact of ethical leadership and thriving at work on psychological well-being of employees: mediating role of voice behaviour. Business, Management and Economics Engineering, 17(2), 194-217. https://doi.org/10.3846/bme.2019.11176.
Yukl G., Mahsud R., Hassan S. and Prussia G.E. (2013). An Improved Measure of Ethical Leadership. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 20(1) 38-48
doi: 10.1177/1548051811429352 http://jlo.sagepub.com.
Wallace, L. & Trinka, J., (2009). Leadership and Employee Engagement. Public Management, pp. 10-13.
Wijesiri, L. (2016). Ethical dilemma of the public service. Newspaper.
Wijesekera, A.T. and Fernando, R.L.S., (2016). Scale for Measuring Perceived Service Quality of Public Service in Sri Lanka: With Special Reference to Divisional Secretariats in Gampaha District. Public Administration Research; Vol. 6, doi:10.5539/par.v6n2p1.
Wijesekera, A.T. and Fernando, R.L.S.,(2018).Ethical Leadership Measures for Public Service in Sri Lanka, International Business Research, 11(7). doi:10.5539/ibr.v11n7p106.
Wijesekera, A.T. and Fernando, R.L.S.,(2018). Measures for Employee Engagement: Public Service in Sri Lanka International Journal of Social Science Research and Review 3(2). doi: https://doi.org/10.47814/ijssrr.v3i2.37.
Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perceptions of price, quality and value: A means-end synthesis of evidence. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 2-22.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Achini Tharanga Wijesekera
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright for this article is retained by the author(s), with first publication rights granted to the journal.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
