RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ETHICAL LEADERSHIP, AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT, JOB INVOLVEMENT AND ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT

The purpose of this research was to investigate the influence of ethical leadership of heads of department on the lecturers' affective commitment and job involvement as well as to examine the role of organisational support as the mediator between the variables. This study utilised quantitative survey design and was implemented by cross-sectional method using questionnaire as an instrument. A total of 306 lecturers were selected from five polytechnics in Malaysia based on their geographical location by applying multi-stage sampling method. Data were collected using a set of bilingual questionnaire which comprised five sections namely demographic characteristics, ethical leadership, organisational support, affective commitment and job involvement. Findings indicated that ethical leadership was a significant predictor of organisational support, affective commitment and job involvement. Results also revealed that ethical leadership, organisational support and job involvement were at moderate levels while affective commitment was at high level. Mediation effect test revealed that organisational support served as a strong mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership with job involvement while organisational support partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment. The study proposed a model of ethical leadership and organisational support to enhance affective commitment and job involvement.