The mechanism of team-member exchange and its relationship to ethical leadership and team commitment

In today's volatile business environment, team-based commitment remained important and helped organization to perform better and be more adaptable. Therefore, team-based structures are increasingly important to organization, in part that due to their ability to leverage team leadership and individuals' abilities to work collaboratively. This study contributes to what is known about team-based structures by examining the underlying process of team-member exchange as a mechanism for linking ethical leadership and team commitment. Drawing on social identity and social exchange theories, we develop a mediation model and demonstrate the link between team-member exchange, ethical leadership, and team commitment. The model was tested on a sample of 100 team leaders and 370 team members in the Malaysia aviation industry. Results from a hierarchical linear modeling analysis provided support for the model. That is, ethical leadership was positively related to team commitment through team-member exchange, conceptualized and operationalized as team members sharing and exchanging information, helping each other, and recognizing each other's contributions towards the team. The study contributes to the literature on ethical leadership and enhances our understanding of the relationship between leadership and team behavior through team-member exchange.