The Influence of Ethical leadership and Organizational Culture on Employee Commitment in the South Africa Local Government Municipality

Purpose: This study aims to determine the influence of ethical leadership and organisational culture on employee commitment in a South African local government municipality in Gauteng Province. Design/methodology/approach: The authors adopted a cross-sectional quantitative research design. Primary data was gathered by administering a five-point Likert scale questionnaire to respondents online. Respondents were selected through the probability simple random sampling technique. Field data were analysed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS version 27) aided by descriptive tools of standard deviation, mean and frequency while the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), correlation analysis, and structural equation model (SEM) were used to make inferences from the data. The authors employed correlation to assess the relationship between ethical leadership, organisational culture, and employee commitment. Findings: The outcomes of the study indicated positive correlations between the variables. This implies that an increase in one variable means a similar increase in the other. However, it emerged that organizational culture influences employee commitment more than ethical leadership. Practical implications: Regarding the influence of ethical leadership, it is recommended that organisations such as the local municipalities need focus on human resource development programmes, institute mentorship, and training initiatives to assist managers. The municipalities must further reinforce empowerment traits, and establish staff development centres to enhance existing the performance of municipal leaders in management positions. Besides, it is recommended that the management of municipalities practice “the leading by example phenomenon” and “the role modeling culture” to improve employee performance and commitment. Originality/value: Though there has been several empirical studies on ethical leadership and organisational culture, the analytical framework adopted outlines practical approaches that municipal managers need to adopt to enhance ethical leadership and culture in organisations.