THE ROLE OF ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN PROMOTING EMPLOYEE INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOR MEDIATED BY THE PERCEIVED MEANINGFUL WORK AMONG THE ICT SECTOR STAFF IN OMAN

The ICT sector in Oman has a lot of potentials to grow and contribute to the employment creation and diversification of the economy of the country. The sector also faces global international competition and requires to give greater attention to the creative potential of its staff to compete. In the present study, we investigated how ethical leadership can influence employee innovative work behavior with the mediating role of perceived meaningful work. By using the survey method as a primary method of data collection, we generated a useable sample of 121 participants belonged to the ten selected ICT firms. We utilized the SmartPLS version 3 for data analysis. The analysis included an assessment of the measurement model for testing the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the constructs for which we found satisfactory results. The second stage of analysis included an assessment of the structural model for hypothesis testing. We found that ethical leadership has positive and significanteffects on employee innovative work behavior (?=1.77, P<.05); and perceived meaningful work (?=.815, P<.05). We did not find significant effects of perceived meaningful work on employee innovative work behavior (?=-.077, P>.05). The analysis of indirect effects for testing the mediation hypothesis shows that perceived meaningful work does not work as a mediator between the relationship of ethical leadership and employee innovative work behavior (?=-.634, P>.05). Our findings imply that ICT firms should develop ethical leadership behavior among the supervisory staff, line managers, and team leaders to facilitate favorable employee outcomes in this particular context. Keywords:Ethical Leadership, Innovative Work Behavior, Creativity, Meaningful Work, ICT, Oma