1. Introduction
An important factor in determining organizational competitive advantage and maintaining sustainable growth is employees’ innovative work behavior [
1,
2,
3]. Due to increasing global competition, customer expectations, and a highly dynamic business environment, organizations need to develop innovations to meet emerging issues and challenges [
4]. Long et al. [
5] stated that innovation can lead to new products, services, business models, and changes to socioeconomic systems. Lasisi et al. [
6] emphasizes that successful organizations must be innovative and creative and states that employees are the key drivers of innovation and creativity, and they will lead the organization to a sustainable competitive advantage. When employees are innovative, organizations are better able to meet the changing needs of their customers, and their constant innovative work behaviors also provide long-term benefits to the organization [
7]. On the other hand, research by Kindstrom et al. [
8] emphasizes that organizations need to continuously innovate their services to survive and grow in today’s intense business competition. Further, service organizations have played a crucial role in the flourishing of developing economies [
9]. However, although the importance of service organization innovation has been recognized by scholars and practitioners, innovation in service organizations in developing economies has not attracted much research attention from academia [
9,
10]. Therefore, effective innovation in service organizations becomes a major concern to provide a competitive tool in a highly dynamic business environment [
8]. Thus, in this context, understanding the driving factors of individual innovation behavior and effectively stimulating them in the service organization is the research objective of this study.
Past research has identified leadership as a major source of promoting innovative work behaviors among employees [
2,
4]. With the frequent outbreak of global corporate scandals, scholars have turned their attention to corporate ethics and social responsibility, demanding more ethical behavior from leaders than ever before [
2]. Against this backdrop, ethical leadership has become a focus of academic scholarly attention over the past decade [
11,
12,
13,
14]. Ethical leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers” (p. 120) [
15]. Social exchange theory provides the theoretical basis for the relationship between ethical leadership and innovative work behavior [
16]. According to the view of social exchange theory, leaders’ justice, trust, and fairness for followers can bring great psychological experience to individuals and make employees experience more meaning at work [
17]. In return, employees develop a strong sense of responsibility and will voluntarily devote energy to more innovative activities for the organization. Therefore, the social exchange theory is used in this study to explain the influence mechanism between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. A growing body of research has shown that ethical leadership has a significant impact on employees’ work attitudes and behaviors, such as effectively predicting job satisfaction, organizational commitment, ethical behavior, knowledge hiding, knowledge sharing, psychological well-being, and organizational environmental citizenship behaviors [
11,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21]. However, research on the role of ethical leadership in influencing subordinate task performance, particularly innovative work behaviors, is relatively limited. Furthermore, most studies have focused on the impact of ethical leaders on employee creativity [
12,
22,
23], while rarely theorizing about its impact on innovative behavior. Although Tu and Lu [
24] and Wen, Wu, and Long [
2] have revealed that ethical leadership is positively related to employees’ innovative work behavior, as noted by Ahmad et al. [
1], there is a minority of research on the internal mechanisms and boundary conditions of this relationship. Demirtas et al. [
25] called for further exploration of potential mediators that can link ethical leader behavior to the outcomes of follower behaviors. Based on this argument, it is believed that there are two key mediating variables that will lead to enhanced employee innovation behavior triggered by ethical leadership, i.e., psychological safety and work engagement.
Drawing on social learning theory [
26] and social exchange theory [
27], psychological safety and work engagement are proposed as important mechanisms for the positive relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behaviors to fill the current research gap. Psychological safety was defined by Edmondson [
28] as the “shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” (p. 354). It is a state of mind in which employees feel safe to “show and employ one’s self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status or career” (p. 708) [
29]. Social learning theory suggests that ethical leaders could influence the behavior of followers through role modeling [
30], and followers also learn and imitate the behavior of leaders in the work environment [
15]. Specifically, the strong moral qualities that ethical leaders possess (such as responsibility, concern for others, honesty, and fairness) will set an example for followers. Followers learn from the words and actions of ethical leaders and apply these observed ethical behaviors to their colleagues. That is, ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behaviors through their own qualities, thus creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust [
19], i.e., enhancing employees’ psychological safety. Employees with high levels of psychological safety feel safe in expressing their ideas and are willing to offer suggestions and new ideas [
1], thereby promoting innovative behaviors. In conclusion, when employees feel that their leaders respect them and care about their interests, it makes them believe that they are in a safe climate in the organization [
23], which increases psychological safety, which, in turn, increases the likelihood of innovative work behavior [
1]. Work engagement is defined by Schaufeli and Bakker [
31] as “a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (p. 295). Ethical leadership behaviors with managers can enhance employees’ dedication to work by building employee relationships based on trust, thus promoting work engagement [
32]. Employees with higher levels of work engagement, dedication, and absorption are more likely to bring new ideas to work and increase innovative work behaviors [
33,
34]. The principle of reciprocity emphasized by social exchange theory helps explain this exchange relationship. According to the social exchange theory, when employees are treated with fairness, care, and respect by their leaders, they are more engaged in their work and are more likely to exhibit innovative behavior when faced with complex tasks out of appreciation for such treatment. Furthermore, as employees’ psychological safety is enhanced, it will lead to employee engagement, which enables employees to exhibit more creativity at work [
35]. Thus, ethical leadership also indirectly influences employees’ innovative work behaviors through psychological safety and work engagement serial mediation pathways. Hence, this study aims to explore the relationship between the two important dual mediating roles of psychological safety and work engagement in the influence of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative behavior. This work has advanced our understanding of the potential mechanisms between ethical leadership influencing employees’ innovative work behaviors.
In addition, the positive impact of employee work engagement in an organization on innovative behavior may depend on other factors, such as an individual’s openness to experience. Previous research has suggested that employees with high openness to experience are more proactive in seeking new information and knowledge at work [
36], and confident in their ideas [
37], more likely to exhibit higher creativity [
38,
39]. As a result, employees with higher openness to experience are more likely to exhibit innovative behaviors than those with lower openness to experience, given the level of work engagement. Thus, to deepen our understanding of the influencing mechanism between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behaviors, this study further investigates the moderating role of openness to experience.
Ultimately, the objectives of this study were fourfold. First, we examined the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative behavior to substantiate our reliance on social exchange theory to explain the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative behavior. Second, we examined the mechanisms of influence between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative behavior. The dual mediating role of psychological safety and work engagement in this relationship was tested. Third, we investigated the moderating role of openness to experience in the relationship between work engagement and employees’ innovative work behavior. Finally, we considered whether openness to experience positively moderates the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between ethical leadership and innovative behavior. The findings of this study could also provide some managerial recommendations for organizations to understand the importance of focusing on the development of managers’ ethical leadership.
3. Method
3.1. Sample and Procedure
To test the theoretical model, we contacted six service companies in Guangdong Province, China, for data collection because Guangdong is the most populous city in China and has a high concentration of employees in service industry enterprises. Of these companies, two are focused on banking, another two on finance, and the remaining two on hospitality. There are several reasons for choosing service companies for this study. First, these companies generally consider innovation to be a key factor in organizational viability and success and encourage employees to innovate in their services and reward them based on their innovative performance. Therefore, it seems reasonable to consider this sample as the most suitable to achieve our study objectives. Second, until now, innovation research has focused more on technological innovation in manufacturing organizations and IT organizations [
1,
33,
56]. Although the importance of service organization innovation has been recognized by scholars and practitioners, innovation in service organizations in developing economies has not attracted much research attention from academia [
9,
10]. Third, to survive and grow in today’s intense business competition, organizations need to constantly make innovations in their services [
8]. Further, service organizations have played a crucial role in the flourishing of developing economies [
9]. Thus, based on the reasons stated above, service companies were included in the sample to collect data. We conducted a questionnaire survey from April to May 2022.
Before the formal investigation began, our researchers contacted HR managers at each company to explain the purpose of the investigation. Respondents were selected for this study based on two criteria. The respondents were full-time employees of the company, and the human resource manager was asked to consider the diversity of the sample, such as gender, age, education level, etc., and to distribute the questionnaire randomly. HR managers agreed to assist us in collecting the data after approval from senior leadership, and a computer program randomly selected employees and their email addresses. We distributed and collected the sample through an online questionnaire. In order to reduce the common method deviation, we adopted multi-source collection at an interval of two weeks to collect sample data [
77].
At the beginning of the questionnaire at Time 1, we explained the research process and purpose of this study. We promised that all completed questionnaire information is only used for academic research and is strictly confidential, and participants can terminate the survey at any time. In Time 1, participants completed a questionnaire on demographic variables (e.g., age, gender, education, and tenure), ethical leadership, and psychological safety scales. Each employee participating in the questionnaire at this stage was given a unique ID number. Subsequently, participants were required to enter this unique ID number in the questionnaire when later participating in the Time 2 survey. Finally, the researchers matched the questionnaires collected during these two time periods.
A total of 487 questionnaires were collected in Time 1. After two weeks, the 487 participants were instructed to complete work engagement, openness to experience, and innovative behavior scales. At Time 2, 421 questionnaires were received, with a response rate of 86.44%. Finally, after excluding non-standard questionnaires (those with identical or incomplete scores throughout the survey), we used 394 valid paired data to test our hypotheses. Of the 394 participants, 200 (50.76%) were male, and 194 (49.24%) were female. The average age of the employees was 28.79 years, and the average working tenure was 3.48 years. For education, 62.18% of the samples had a bachelor’s degree or above. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) 22.0, AMOS 22.0, and Hayes ‘ PROCESS macros were used to test the relationships of the hypotheses.
3.2. Measures
All variables in this study were measured using well-established English scales and were translated into Chinese through a translation-back translation procedure [
78] to improve the accuracy of the questionnaire. Except for control variables, all items were measured using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree).
Ethical Leadership: Employees rated their ethical leaders according to the 10-item ethical leadership scale established by Brown and Treviño [
40]. Specific items included the following: “My leader defines success not just by results but also the way that they are obtained.” and “My leader has the best interests of employees in mind.“
Work Engagement: Schaufeli, Bakker, and Salanova [
79]’s nine-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) were used to measure employees’ work engagement, which consists of vigor, absorption, and dedication. Sample items included in this scale were, “At my work, I feel bursting with energy (vigor)”, “I am proud of the work that I do (dedication)”, and “I get carried away when I am working (absorption)”.
Psychological Safety: This study used the five-item scale for measuring psychological safety from Carmeli, Reiter-Palmon, and Ziv [
80], which is based on Edmondson [
28]’s work. Sample items include “No one in this organization would deliberately act in a way that undermines my effort.” and “I am able to bring up problems and tough issues.”
Openness to Experience: We measured openness to experience with the four items used in the study by Madrid et al. [
37]. This is adapted from Donnellan et al. [
81] and Goldberg et al. [
82]. Participants were asked to rate how they described themselves on the following four items using a five-point Likert scale. Example items include: “get excited by new ideas” and “enjoy hearing new ideas”.
Innovative Work Behavior: Innovative work behavior was measured with a scale of six items developed by Scott and Bruce [
44]. Sample items from that scale include: “I Search out new technologies, processes, techniques, and/or product ideas.” and “I promote and champion ideas to others.” The survey questions are in the
Supplementary Materials.
Control Variables: This study selected gender, age, education level, and work tenure as the control variables. Employee gender was coded as follows: 1 = male and 2 = female. Education level was coded as follows: 1 = senior high school or below, 2 = junior college, 3 = bachelor, and 4 = postgraduate or above. Employee age was coded as follows: 1 = under 25 years, 2 = 26–30 years, 3 = 31–40 years, 4 = 41–50 years, and 5 = over 51 years. Work tenure was coded as follows: 1 = less than 3 year, 2 = 3–5 years, 3 = 6–8 years, 4 = 9–11 years, and 5 = 12 years and above.
3.3. Statistical Analysis
As the sample employees in this study were nested in groups, both individual effects and between-group effects needed to be considered in the data analysis. Hofmann [
83] suggested that having significant group differences in the dependent variable is a prerequisite for hierarchical linear model analysis. Therefore, before conducting the data analysis, we used HLM 6.02 software to test whether the sample needed to be analyzed at multiple levels, specifically using employee innovative work behavior as the dependent variable and constructing a null model without any independent variables. The calculation of HLM showed that the between-group variance (τ00) was 0.021, and the within-group variance (σ2) was 0.590. The ICC value was τ00/(τ00 + σ2) = 0.034. According to the judgment criteria suggested by Cohen [
84], when the ICC value is less than 0.059, it represents that the outcome variable does not have a sufficient between-group variation to be suitable for multilevel analysis. Thus, synthesizing the results of the above analysis, this study applied the traditional regression analysis to test the research hypothesis.
We used SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 22.0 to analyze the data. First, SPSS 22.0 was used to test the reliability of variables and conduct descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. Second, AMOS 22.0 was used to conduct confirmatory factor analysis. Third, the PROCESS macro for SPSS version 3.1 was used to test mediation, moderation, and conditional process effects.
5. Discussion
Although some studies have analyzed the relationship between ethical leadership and employee innovation work behavior [
1,
2,
24], the current literature has not examined these two areas in sufficient depth, and the possible influence paths and boundary conditions that exist between them need to be further explored. Thus, to fill these gaps, this study explored the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the influence of ethical leadership on the innovative work behavior of employees in service industry enterprises, based on social exchange theory and social learning theory. Specifically, this research revealed psychological safety and work engagement as important influencing mechanisms in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior, and used openness to experience as a boundary condition to explain the relationship between work engagement and employees’ innovative behavior, as well as the indirect (via work engagement) relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. This expanded the literature on ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behaviors.
The results indicate that ethical leadership positively influences employees’ innovative work behavior, implying that employees’ innovative work behavior becomes more active when leaders are ethical and moral. This result is also consistent with previous studies where the authors concluded that ethical leadership is important in promoting the innovative work behaviors of employees [
2,
3,
91]. Through empirical analysis, this study also confirms the multiple mediating effects of psychological safety and work engagement. The results of the study indicated that psychological safety and work engagement partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior, respectively. In addition, psychological safety and work engagement also play serially mediating roles in the EL-EIWB relationship. As argued earlier, ethical leaders make ethically balanced decisions in their organizations, care, and show genuine concern for their employees, which helps promote interpersonal relationships of mutual respect and trust [
12,
56], shaping employees’ psychological safety [
1]. When employees feel psychologically safe in the organization, they will be more engaged in their work and show more vigor and concentration in their work [
72], resulting in many beneficial ideas and behaviors that promote innovation. Finally, this study found that employees’ openness to experience moderated the positive relationship between work engagement and innovative work behavior and that this relationship was stronger when openness to experience was higher. Similarly, the results also showed that openness to experience moderated the indirect relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative behavior (via work engagement), with the indirect relationship being stronger when openness to experience was higher. Based on these results, we provide theoretical and practical implications and present directions for the future, which are discussed below.
5.1. Theoretical Implications
This study has several theoretical implications for the literature. First, our research uses an ethical lens to examine the role of positive leadership behaviors in influencing employee innovation behaviors. Although there is a growing body of research on leadership’s impact on creative outcomes and innovation, most studies have focused on leaders’ effects on employee creativity, with limited research on their effects on innovative work behaviors [
4,
92]. In particular, the impact of ethical leadership on employee task performance and innovative behavior needs to be further explored [
3]. In doing so, we responded to recent calls [
2,
3,
91] to further explore the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative work behaviors. Thus, through an in-depth analysis of the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior, our research provides clear empirical evidence for the causal relationship between the two and enriches theoretical research on innovative work behavior.
Second, this study explores the internal mechanism that exists between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behaviors. Through empirical analysis, we found that psychological safety and work engagement play an important mediating role in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. This empirical result contributes to the literature on the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior [
24,
91,
93]. Specifically, our research found that leaders can promote the development of individual employees’ psychological safety by demonstrating ethical leadership behaviors, which ultimately lead to more innovative behaviors in employees [
1]. Consistent with social learning theory [
26], our findings indicate that ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behaviors through their qualities, which enrich followers’ psychological safety and increase the likelihood that they will engage in innovative work behaviors. Moreover, ethical leaders tend to approach problems ethically. When their followers perceive that their leadership is ethical, followers will put more energy into their work [
32,
60,
63,
94], thereby promoting innovative work behavior. This result enriches the principle of reciprocity emphasized by social exchange theory [
27], where ethical leaders facilitate the making of exchanges so that employees feel obliged to put in more effort in return for their work. In general, the results of the study show the positive role of ethical leadership in organizations; its impact on employees’ innovative work behavior is exerted through psychological safety/work engagement and helps us to better understand how and why ethical leadership can improve employees’ work behavior. Our study responded to calls for further exploration of the mechanisms mediating ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior [
2,
93], and this contribution is timely.
Third, our study further validates the sequential mediating role of psychological safety and work engagement in the influencing mechanisms of ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. This result is also consistent with previous studies where authors suggested that work engagement and psychological safety are necessary for task performance and innovative behavioral aspects [
1,
91,
95]. In addition, our research demonstrates that psychological safety has a significant impact on promoting employee engagement. It is also a valuable addition to the existing ethical leadership literature. In particular, the results provide additional evidence for the importance of psychological safety in organizations. Previous studies have found the effect of psychological safety on other key variables, such as commitment, satisfaction, and voice behavior [
19,
68]. However, we found that it can also help increase work engagement, which is a key predictor of increased employee innovation work behavior. This provides a new explanation path to explain the influence of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative work behavior and enriches the internal mechanism between them. These findings also suggest that more attention should be paid to the potential mediating role of psychological safety in promoting positive behavioral outcomes.
Lastly, there are relatively few studies on the boundary conditions between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. To our knowledge, no research to date has provided empirical evidence of individual personality trait openness to experience as a boundary condition for the relationship between work engagement and employee innovative work behavior, and the indirect (via work engagement) relationship between ethical leadership and employee innovative work behavior. We contributed to the literature on the link between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior [
24,
91,
93], demonstrating that openness to experience as an individual personality trait is a boundary condition for the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. Specifically, our results showed that employees’ openness to experience promotes the formation of employees’ innovative work behaviors. With a high openness to experience, work engagement has a greater influence on innovative work behavior. Moreover, we demonstrated an openness to experience also moderated the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. In particular, our study showed that the mediating effect of work engagement in the relationship between ethical leadership and innovative work behavior was stronger in a high level of openness to experience. Thus, this study broadens the boundary conditions for the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ innovative work behavior and provides new perspectives on the role of openness to experience in organizing contexts.
5.2. Management Implications
In addition to the above theoretical implications, our research also has several important managerial implications for enterprises. First, the findings underscore the importance of ethical leadership in the impact of employees on innovative work behavior. Previous research has shown that employees’ positive behaviors are influenced by leadership style. Our research supports the observation that ethical leadership can lead to employees who are less fearful of the consequences of failure and more engaged in innovative behavior. Managers should focus on ethical practices using actions to demonstrate character traits such as honesty, integrity, and altruism to motivate their followers to emulate these behaviors. Therefore, the more managers focus on ethical practices, the more positive actions employees will perform. Thus, enterprises should recognize the role that the moral qualities of leaders (e.g., honesty, integrity, and altruism) play in promoting positive employee behavior. For the development of the enterprise, one should pay attention to the selection process of managers and strengthen the ethical training of managers. Specifically, in addition to the requirements for working ability, enterprises also need to consider whether the person is moral and ethical when selecting a manager. Moreover, enterprises also need to provide appropriate training and education programs to improve supervisors’ ethical awareness and leadership abilities.
Second, this study shows that ethical leadership indirectly affects employees’ innovative work behavior through the mediating effect of psychological safety and work engagement. The higher the level of psychological safety or work engagement of employees in the enterprise, the more engaged they are in innovative work behaviors. Therefore, managers can cultivate employees’ work engagement and psychological safety by listening to their opinions, caring for them, enhancing two-way communication, encouraging them to participate in decision-making work, and creating a fair working environment. In short, enterprises need to do their best to create a work environment where employees can feel comfortable presenting ideas and expressing opinions. This helps to stimulate employees’ enthusiasm for work tasks and putting more energy into the work, which leads to more innovative work behaviors.
Third, although many researchers have examined leadership ethics, relatively little attention has been paid to leadership ethics from a developing country perspective. Chinese traditional culture values morality and ethics; the importance of ethical leadership in enterprises are constantly emphasized, and organizational members place great attention on the moral qualities of their leaders [
3]. On the other hand, the ethical level of leadership is expected to optimize employee behavior and workplace outcomes in collective cultures compared to individualistic Western cultures [
56]. This research was conducted in a Chinese cultural context where the impact of ethical leadership was more effective than in organizations with a Western background. This stems from Chinese tradition and is in line with the Chinese culture and mindset. Hence, this study provides a resource for organizations in a collectivist culture to better promote positive employee attitudes and behaviors, especially for service enterprises. Develop and nurture ethical leadership in managers, thus improving the innovative work behavior of employees and giving enterprises an edge over the competition
Fourth, the impact of work engagement on employees’ innovative work behavior is stronger in employees with a high degree of openness to experience. Moreover, employees with a high degree of openness to experience have a stronger mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between ethical leadership and innovative work behavior. Therefore, for the sustainable innovation of enterprises, human resource managers should also consider selecting people with an openness to experience characteristics when conducting corporate recruitment. In addition, managers need to focus on employees with high openness to experience because employees with high openness to experience tend to embrace new changes and make the necessary sacrifices for the organization [
74]. More importantly, individuals high on openness are actively motivated to seek out new information and knowledge [
36], and can facilitate the development of ideas from different sources of knowledge [
75]. In summary, these characteristics of employees with high openness to experience are important for promoting innovative behavior in the workplace.
Finally, hospitality, finance, and banking, as representatives of the service sector, are industries that interact more with customers. Therefore, the generation and implementation of new service models are essential for the sustainability of enterprises. The results of this research provide new ideas and perspectives for increasing employee innovation behavior in service industry enterprises. Furthermore, by testing our hypotheses in China, we provide additional empirical evidence from developing countries on the usefulness of ethical leadership in promoting employee psychology, work attitudes, and behaviors. Although the effectiveness of ethical leadership has been extensively researched in Western societies, such studies are relatively limited in emerging economies like China. However, our findings provide direct evidence for the prevalence and applicability of ethical leadership in Chinese organizations. These results have clear implications for service enterprises and are likely to be transferred to other organizations. Thus, the findings of this study deepen our understanding of the effectiveness of ethical leadership across social cultures.
6. Research Limitations and Future Prospects
There are still some limitations of this study that should be considered in future research. First, data for all the variables in our study were collected from one source and self-reported, although we collected data in two phases, two weeks apart to avoid possible common method variance. However, the possibility that there may be common method variance that cannot be fully controlled still cannot be ruled out. Collecting data from multiple sources should be considered in future research to improve the accuracy of the conclusions. For example, employees’ innovative work behaviors can be assessed by their immediate leaders. Moreover, considering that the data for this study are from a single service industry company, the data collected may be nested in nature and, therefore, the results may be biased. Thus, future researchers can perform multilevel analysis to validate the data. Second, Western societies are more individualistic, while traditional Chinese culture emphasizes ethical and moral collective values. Our sample comes from service industries in China, which may limit the generalizability of our results in a Western cultural context. Therefore, conducting cross-cultural research in other industries in different countries is an important topic to be explored in the future. Third, although our research provides a theoretical framework by examining how and when ethical leadership can be effective in promoting innovative work behaviors, there may be underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions that we have not considered. Future research still needs to explore other mediating and moderating factors in the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior. Specifically, future researchers can explore the mediating variables between ethical leadership and employees’ innovative work behavior from other psychological factors, such as psychological capital, psychological empowerment, and self-efficacy. In addition, organizational factors, such as organizational innovation climate and perceived organizational support, may be considered moderator variables in future research. Finally, although our study focused on the impact of ethical leadership on employee innovation work behavior, different leadership styles may have different outcomes. Future research might also compare ethical leadership with other leadership styles (e.g., transformational leadership and authentic leadership) to discover which leadership style is more effective in promoting innovative behavior in employees.