Can hotel employees arise internal whistleblowing intentions? Leader ethics, workplace virtues and moral courage

Abstract

PurposeThis study investigates the relationship between leaders' ethical behaviors and internal whistleblowing among hotel employees through the mediation role of organizational virtuousness. According to the conceptual framework, ethical leadership creates a virtuous workplace and encourages whistleblowing.Design/methodology/approachA survey approach with responses of 442 employees from Egyptian five-star hotels was used. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses proposed based on leader–member exchange (LMX) and ethical leadership theories.FindingsEthical leadership has a favorable impact on organizational virtuousness and, as a result, has a significant impact on whistleblowing intention. The ethical leaders–subordinates' intents to whistleblow association partially mediated organizational virtuousness. To assist them in reporting ethics violations, most hotel employees require organizational characteristics, such as organizational climate and psychological empowerment, in addition to individual characteristics, such as moral bravery and ethical efficacy.Originality/valueThe conceptual framework of this paper adds a new guide for future research related to the hospitality literature, which is how employees' intent to internal whistleblowing. As such, senior management should serve as a moral role model for hotel employees, inspiring them to be moral and allowing them to participate in decision-making.

Humorous leadership, upward voice and resistance to change in the hotel context: from affective events theory perspective

“…While the AET theory is intended to aid in the understanding of employee attitudes and behaviors, its explanation of procedures should simplify within settings, according to Pirola-Merlo et al (2002). This theory is applied to sight-seeing bus tourists in tourism management (Stylos et al , 2022), job satisfaction of leaders and work-related problems (Coyle and Foti, 2022) and supervisors’ behavior affects job stress, positive emotions and ethical leadership (Mkheimer et al , 2022; Liu et al , 2021).…”

“…Employee influence over issues that are crucial to them in the workplace (Mkheimer et al , 2022), such as engagement, participation in the organization, upward problem-solving and upward communication, is known as an employee’s “upward voice” (Yin and Ni, 2021). This effect plays a focal role in professional life.…”

“…Currently, most complex business environments are confronted with enormous challenges (Shehawy, 2021). As a result of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreaks’ effects on all industries, particularly the hotel industry (Mkheimer et al , 2022), everyone experienced uncomfortable traveling, which had a severe effect on all vital sectors (Selem et al , 2022a; Toanoglou et al , 2022). Therefore, the World Health Organization’s executive director released rules for stopping international travel to combat coronavirus sickness (Yin and Ni, 2021).…”

Trade-off between future travel avoidance and self-protectiveness post-COVID-19: the roles of adventurousness and safety-seeking tendency

“…A structured questionnaire-based quantitative approach was employed (Selem et al , 2022) to verify the linkage of adventurousness with self-protectiveness and future avoidance in the Egyptian tourism context. Egypt is among the most reasonably priced and secure tourism destinations to visit for travel (Mkheimer et al ., 2022; Selem et al ., 2022). Egypt features year-round warm beaches in addition to the magnificent ancient temples, monuments and artifacts that still stand there (Ragab et al ., 2020).…”

“…Egypt is among the most reasonably priced and secure tourism destinations to visit for travel (Mkheimer et al ., 2022; Selem et al ., 2022). Egypt features year-round warm beaches in addition to the magnificent ancient temples, monuments and artefacts that still stand there (Ragab et al ., 2020).…”