Purpose Unethical leadership represents one of the most serious obstacles to the development of organizations and societies. Although a range of empirical studies have investigated unethical leadership behaviour in different contexts, studies on this issue are almost non-existent within the Algerian context. This study aims to explore the role of social and organizational factors in shaping unethical leadership behaviour within Algerian public organizations. Design/methodology/approach A series of in-depth interviews were conducted with 15 leaders from public organizations. The collected data were analysed using a thematic approach with ATLAS.ti 8 software. Findings The reported social and organizational factors fall into five themes: social values, organizational culture, corruption, peer influence and political environment. Originality/value Given the grave consequences of unethical leadership behaviour, this study contributes to our understanding of the role of social and organizational factors in shaping unethical leadership behaviour in an understudied context. This can help in mitigating the factors that lay the ground for these destructive and unethical behaviours in public organizations.

IntroductionThe challenge of restricting unethical behavior requires public companies to reinforce ethical practices among leaders through various instruments. Previous research suggests that the (un)ethical behavior of leaders can be influenced by many situational factors. This study aimed to investigate the influence of ethics training and education on unethical leadership behavior in the Algerian public companies.MethodsData were collected through semi-structured interviews with 15 leaders from public companies in Algeria. Data analysis was facilitated using ATLAS. ti 8 qualitative analysis software.ResultsThe findings show that public companies in Algeria suffer from several issues related to leaders’ ethics training and education. The findings also indicate that some of these unethical leadership behaviors are the result of ineffective training programs and poor ethics education within public companies.DiscussionThe absence or ineffectiveness of ethics training and education within and outside organizational settings has a detrimental impact on leaders’ ethical character. This study is the first to explore how public companies in Algeria engage in ethical training and leadership education. The different sectors of the Algerian business can use the findings as a point of reference to embed the appropriate ethical climate in their respective organizations.