Title: Investigating the mediating effect of perceived ethical climate between toxic leadership and job satisfaction

Authors: Ümit Şevik

Addresses: The Faculty of Security Sciences, Gendarmerie and Coast Guard Academy, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of toxic leadership on job satisfaction using perceived ethical climate as a mediator between toxic leadership and job satisfaction, based on resource conservation theory and ethical climate theory. The data was collected from 502 employees working in public and private companies with simple random sampling. Structural equation modelling (SEM) and Pearson correlation were used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that there is a significant negative moderate relationship between toxic leadership and job satisfaction. The results also showed that there is a significant moderate and negative correlation between toxic leadership and ethical climate and there is a significant moderate and positive correlation between ethical climate and job satisfaction. It was determined that the perceived ethical climate had a partial mediator effect in the relation between the toxic leadership, and job satisfaction. Moreover, the results are discussed within the scope of contributions to the literature, theory and practice, and recommendations are made for future research.

Keywords: toxic leadership; ethical climate; job satisfaction; structural equation modelling; SEM.

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2024.141903

Middle East Journal of Management, 2024 Vol.11 No.6, pp.589 - 604

Received: 10 Mar 2023
Accepted: 20 May 2023
Published online: 03 Oct 2024 *

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