You Lead Right, We Deliver Right: How Ethical Leadership Drives Project Success Through Trust and Knowledge Sharing

Grounded in the Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Social Identity Theory (SIT), the study investigates the impact of ethical leadership style on project success, with a focus on the mediating roles of trust and knowledge sharing. The study adopted a descriptive time-lagged design, in which data was collected from 415 project workers at three separate time points. Data on ethical leadership was collected at Time 1, trust and knowledge sharing at Time 2, and Time 3 focused on project success. Data was analyzed quantitatively using Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modelling with SmartPLS 4. The results show that ethical leadership has a significant and positive effect on project success, trust, and knowledge sharing. Further, both trust and knowledge sharing have a significant positive effect on project success. The mediating effect of trust and knowledge sharing on the relationship between ethical leadership and project success revealed a partial mediation. This study is among the first project management literature to empirically validate a dual-mediation framework that simultaneously examines trust and knowledge sharing as parallel mediators between ethical leadership and project success within a developing economy context. By integrating social exchange theory and social identity theory through a time-lagged design, the study offers a more rigorous and theoretically grounded explanation of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to project outcomes, contributing novel insights that extend beyond existing single-mediator and cross-sectional studies.