The Ethical Advantage: Boosting Employee Commitment in Small Businesses through Leadership and Empowerment

Aaron Chin Chen Lai; Maniam Kaliannan; Magiswary Dorasamy

doi:10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_141

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The Ethical Advantage: Boosting Employee Commitment in Small Businesses through Leadership and Empowerment

Authors

Aaron Chin Chen Lai¹, Maniam Kaliannan¹^{, *}, Magiswary Dorasamy²

¹The University of Nottingham Malaysia, Jalan Broga, Semenyih, Selangor Darul Ehsan, 43500, Malaysia

²Taylor’s University, No. 1, Jalan Taylor’s, Subang Jaya, Selangor, 47500, Malaysia

^*Corresponding author. Email: maniam.kaliannan@nottingham.edu.my

Corresponding Author

Maniam Kaliannan

Available Online 15 May 2026.

DOI: 10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_141 How to use a DOI?
Keywords: ethical leadership; affective commitment; psychological empowerment; micro, small and medium enterprises; social identity theory; social exchange theory
Abstract: This study examines the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment among Malaysian MSME employees, testing psychological empowerment as a mediator. Grounded in Social Identity and Social Exchange Theories, a mixed-methods approach was employed with 213 participants. Structural equation modeling confirms that ethical leadership positively influences affective commitment, with psychological empowerment partially mediating this effect. The findings extend ethical leadership research by providing empirical evidence from a non-Western context and offer practical implications for HR strategies to reduce employee turnover.
Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s)
Open Access: Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title: Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities and Arts (SSHA 2026)
Series: Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date: 15 May 2026
ISBN: 978-2-38476-577-5
ISSN: 2352-5398
DOI: 10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_141 How to use a DOI?
Open Access: Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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ris enw bib

TY  - CONF
AU  - Aaron Chin Chen Lai
AU  - Maniam Kaliannan
AU  - Magiswary Dorasamy
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/05/15
TI  - The Ethical Advantage: Boosting Employee Commitment in Small Businesses through Leadership and Empowerment
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 5th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities and Arts (SSHA 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1380
EP  - 1390
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_141
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-577-5_141
ID  - Lai2026
ER  -

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