Investigating the Role of Ethical Leadership on Employee Innovativeness through Bottom-Up Job Redesigning: Self-Leadership as a Catalyst

Abstract

In contemporary studies, leadership has been frequently highlighted as an important aspect in facilitating innovative work behavior (IWB) in ever-changing organizations. Drawn on social learning theory, this research investigated the influence of ethical leadership (EL) on employee’s innovative behaviors (IWB). The relationship between ethical leadership (EL) and employee innovative behavior (IWB) is mediated by job crafting (JC), with the moderating role of self-leadership (SL) also being studied. In total, 370 valid responses were retrieved from the service industry of Zhejiang province in China. The study used Mplus 8.0 to run the moderated mediation model. It is found that ethical leadership (EL) is positively linked with innovative work behavior (IWB) and job crafting (JC). Subsequently, the study also found that job crafting (JC) is significantly related to innovative work behavior (IWB). Additionally, the study confirms that job crating (JC) significantly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership (EL) and innovative work behavior (IWB). Additionally, the study reveals that a high level of self-leadership (SL) strengthens the association between ethical leadership (EL) and job crafting (JC).

1. Introduction

Work agility, rapid shifts in culture, society, and the economy, and the difficulties posed by worldwide competitiveness are forcing businesses to reexamine their policies, procedures, and standards. Present organizations view their personnel as an essential resource that can make a difference in society [1]. Thus, academic and research scholars continue encouraging workers’ innovative behavior [2,3]. Leaders in organizations are influential figures who can encourage workers to proceed creatively at work, resulting in new adjustments to their challenging circumstances [4]. Subsequently, leadership style in enterprises is widely regarded as one of the key determining parameters that foster employee innovation. Most studies on ethical leadership (EL) concentrate on moral dilemmas and link EL to workers’ moral identification [5] and immoral actions [6]. The literature has depicted several predictors of employee innovative behavior [7]. However, this study area is still in its infancy despite numerous studies on the relationships among various leadership philosophies, creativity, and business transformation. Several additional studies have documented the contribution of diverse leadership philosophies in enhancing creative performance [8,9]. IWB significantly contributes to organizational breakthroughs, expansion, and existence, and still attracts relatively little academic attention. Individuals typically exhibit more innovative attempts if ethical managers promote innovation implementation, transmit opportunities to promote employees’ personal growth, and accept their failures [10].

The ideology of Brown et al. [11] denotes ethical leaders as “normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships”. Notably, they serve as examples for followers to express themselves ethically. Their acts clearly state the moral and ethical objectives they seek to achieve and demonstrate to followers how they may help. Such value-driven leaders will likely be respected by their followers and model their behavior after it [11]. A moral individual and a moral supervisor can provide insight into an ethical leader’s traits. An ethical leader embodies these virtues through his job and personal life [12]. The leader is also transparent, righteous, credible, compassionate, and fair in his dealings. In addition, an ethical supervisor as an ethical leader is anticipated to shape subordinates’ attitudes and behaviors through ethical leadership behavior, including putting an emphasis on morality, valuing peers, fostering their professional growth, increasing the significance and discretion of their duties, as well as making rational and equitable decisions [13,14].

Innovative behavior is a set of actions that employees take to generate new concepts while at work as well as to execute them in turn, such as actively seeking out and learning about emerging possibilities and approaches, fostering the creation of ideas, attempting to secure sponsorship, promoting ideas that are generated, and conducting the viability evaluations [15,16]. Effective leadership is crucial in encouraging employees’ innovation because innovation is a challenging endeavor with substantial risks [17]. Sense-making strategies such as JC can manage the prospective risk. JC is an intentional act that employees use to alter the workplace’s tasks and social limits for career and professional objectives [18]. JC is a bottom-up job redesign approach that provides autonomy and empowerment to reshape job boundaries. Self-driven individuals are more inclined to reshape innovative and challenging tasks. These self-driven individuals have the SL qualities to accomplish responsibilities. SL provokes independence and motivation for oneself by employing a particular set of interpersonal and psychological procedures, in contrast to traditional management styles, which emphasize the impact of leaders’ metaphorical practices on individuals [19].

The objective of this research is engrossed in two challenges, i.e., “whenever and in which manner EL may stimulate worker’s innovative behavior in the service industry”. This study has contributed to manifolds. Firstly, how ethical leaders encourage their subordinates to behave innovatively during peeks hours in the hotel industry. Secondly, the current study delineates the mechanism that instigates the employees to innovate by the mediating effect of JC. Thirdly, the moderating role of SL provokes JC strategies that lead to IWB. This research develops a moderated mediation model that illustrates when and how EL influences employees’ JC. Fourthly, drawn on social learning theory [20], it is possible to exercise EL more efficiently and create greater worth and practical references for EL. Social learning theory states that ethical behaviors toward workers are cultivated when individuals are in environments conducive to their challenges.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Supporting Theory

Conferring to social learning theory, the current study designated the diffusion phenomenon that transmits the ethical conduct of leaders to employee behavior [21]. The theory embraces that individuals lower in the chain of command tend to observe and imitate their supervisor’s conduct considering the latter is frequently regarded as a trustworthy exemplar, mainly owing to their position compared to those at lower echelons of the organization [22,23,24]. Therefore, we argue that disseminating positive and ethical behavior from leaders to employees encourages them to think out of the box and proceed with innovative ideas to satisfy the customers. Additionally, this theory contends that when leaders are closely associated with their subordinates, their actions are highly apparent, making it more straightforward for followers to emulate the leader’s behavior. Social learning theory states that by copying the behaviors of authoritative figures, such as leaders, workers might pick up certain indispensable behaviors [25]. Drawing on social learning theory, we argue that EL stimulates a positive and ethical working environment where employees learn moral conduct from their leaders and behave ethically, even with aggressive clients. We emphasized that EL may boost employee innovation by inspiring people to engage in ethical behavior compassionately instead of only pursuing external monetary rewards. As a result, we concluded that a social learning framework might be used to describe how EL affects service innovation. When leaders employ EL, they create and display moral behavior based on their moral principles and altruistic goals; followers subsequently pick up these moral values through social learning. As a result, individuals feel free to make decisions and strategies about their challenges, resulting in better services (JC). Employees who work in a positive environment where EL is practiced are more likely to provide suggestions to their managers and converse with other team members about their thoughts and ideas. So, they are crafting their jobs with SL. This system allows workers to express higher levels of innovation.

2.2. Ethical Leadership (EL) and Employee Innovative Work Behavior (IWB)

Innovative employee behavior is significant in fostering businesses’ sustainable success and growth. Innovation in services is a challenging and thrilling intellectual process, and workers’ innovative mindset and behavior will be influenced by the numerous behaviors of their immediate leaders [17]. The capability of businesses to survive and maintain a sustainable competitive edge in this constantly changing period is contingent upon their ability to innovate consistently. We contend that strong ethical convictions and consistent ethical normative behavior among leaders can influence employees’ drive, i.e., willingness to work hard, which inevitably will be reflected in indications of innovative workplace behavior. Ethical leaders create a positive climate and boost individuals to provide new services to customers to meet quality standards.

Both academics and practitioners have placed a high value on EL in the last decade [8,26]. Numerous researchers have explored the impact of EL on workers’ attitudes and behaviors at work and depicted being an effective predictor of job satisfaction [27], voice behavior [28], and ethical performance [29]. Some academics have examined the association between EL and employee creative behavior [30]. Ethical leaders demonstrate that work is an important domain in the service industry, and it should be advantageous for everybody else, the team, the business, and the community. Followers need to understand the importance of their duties, develop innovative concepts, and strive to put them into practice to support the organization’s objectives [14,26].

H1. 

Ethical leadership (EL) positively influences employees’ innovative work behavior (IWB).

2.3. Ethical Leadership (EL) and Job Crafting (JC)

The self-initiated adjustments that workers make to the tasks or in the social boundaries of their work to enhance personal fit with their job are referred to as JC, a particular type of proactive behavior at work [31]. According to Hornung et al. [32], JC is a needed plausible channel through which businesses can obtain an advantage over their competitors. The leader does not expressly approve of it but is instead started by individuals [33]. Because JC has been demonstrated to significantly impact employees and contribute to the interests of the organization in an ever-changing environment, there is growing concern over determining variables that promote JC, with a particular focus on dispositional characteristics [34,35], specific job attributes [36], and style of leadership [37]. In recent years, research has shown that leaders are particularly important in a business context and that their approach to management has a significant impact on how jobs are created [38,39].

The ethical leader must take into account how his employees engage in the process of decision-making as well as provide them workplace autonomy, including the independence and discretion to set their clocks to ensure when exercising expertise over their assignments [40] along with encouraging recommendations and suggestion, advancement, and enactment of creative ideas, as a substantial amount of self-reliance will encourage employees’ innovative behavior [41].

H2: 

Ethical leadership (EL) positively influences employees’ job crafting (JC).

2.4. Job Crafting (JC) and Innovative Work Behavior (IWB)

JC endeavors are a subgroup of proactive attitudes that are started by an individual instead of being formally awarded by the organization [42]. They are “the actions employees take to shape, mold, and redefine their jobs” [33]. Specific demands are believed to act as intrinsic propelling aspects that serve as motives for JC, which addresses why workers participate in various JC avenues [33]. Innovative people are a significant resource for any company, but they are especially important in industries that contact consumers often. For example, in the hospitality industry, front-line employees adopt unique behaviors crucial to preserving and fostering a positive relationship with clients and visitors. Service innovation to customers is essential to meet quality standards.

Creating or accepting novel yet helpful ideas and their execution constitute innovative workplace behavior [43]. We contend that as personnel designs their duties, they open up opportunities to be more innovative at work through integrating projects that will promote creative thinking, cultivating connections to coworkers who can support novel ideas, emphasizing competencies that may be employed to an innovative perspective on novel goods and procedures in the organization, and implementing a perspective of their job role that will promote participation in the invention for the organization as well, generally. Such tasks involve not merely creating innovative ideas but figuring out which will be appropriate and practical, often distilling a wide range of possibilities into an achievable set [44].

H3: 

Job crafting (JC) positively influences employee’s innovative work behavior (IWB).

2.5. Job Crafting (JC) as a Mediator

The premise of confined job design is inappropriate in the hospitality sector since hotel staff must find several methods of pleasing hostile or dissatisfied consumers to satisfy and sustain them. That is why front-line employees reshaped their jobs and used unconventional service techniques to enhance customer amenities. According to Wang et al. [38], personnel that complies with effective leaders are likely to use their abilities at work as do leaders, which results in a higher degree of JC. JC has extrapolative value for a positive outcome in organizations through the development of psychological capital, as has already been demonstrated in the literature [16]. Therefore, JC will be impacted by the use of talents stimulated by EL, which ultimately stimulates IWB. The literature has determined that servant leadership contributes to IWB by sequentially mediating the trust and JC of employees in participative organizational culture [3]. Through JC, substantial empirical evidence exists that transformational leadership encourages employees’ innovative behaviors. The research also investigates how knowledge-sharing behavior moderates the association between transactional leadership and IWB [45].

Similarly, a spiritual leader positively influences employee innovative behavior through the intervention of JC [46], and a servant leader encourages employees’ innovative behavior through sequential mediation of JC and psychological empowerment [47]. Our comprehension regarding how leadership affects and why workers nurture their jobs has increased due to this series of studies, which concentrated on top-down mechanisms and emphasized the importance of leadership approaches [3,47].

H4: 

Job crafting (JC) mediates ethical leadership (EL) and innovative work behavior (IWB) relationships.

2.6. Self-Leadership (SL) as a Moderator

Self-led workers can enhance their efficiency and proactive measures by using various cognitive and behavioral approaches to regulating their behavior. Primarily, behaviors such as self-reflection, self-organizing, and self-gratifying are included in behavior-focused techniques. By implementing behavior-focused strategies, workers may increase their self-awareness and self-driven initiatives while managing necessary but potentially unpleasant duties [19]. Employees are more likely to take the initiative to add work-related content and change strategies to meet objectives, consequently promoting JC. Nevertheless, it is deplorable that the interactive effect of employee-oriented SL and EL on JC has been substantially ignored in the extant literature. Over time, some academics have become interested in SL, an internal self-determination mechanism [48,49]. The present research has demonstrated the moderating effect of SL among EL and JC. The dual leadership strategies provide job autonomy to the individual, leading to IWB.

Additionally, SL benefits people in contemporary management and innovation [50]. Consequently, we argue that investigating the moderating effect of SL on JC has significant theoretical and practical implications. Therefore, we propose our hypothesis:

H5: 

Self-leadership (SL) moderates the relationship between ethical leadership (EL) and job crafting (JC) such that the relationship becomes stronger when self-leadership (SL) is high rather than low.

The argument presented above indicates that SL serves as a protective measure for EL and JC, and it also plays a mediating role in the connection between EL and IWB. The hypothesis suggests that JC leads to innovative behavior among employees. Therefore, it makes sense to assume that SL enhances the positive mediating effects in the relationship between EL and IWB, as explained by the moderated mediation model (see Figure 1). Consequently, when individuals possess high levels of SL, the direct and indirect associations between EL and IWB are more significant.

H6: 

Self-leadership (SL) moderates the indirect effect between ethical leadership (EL) and innovative work behavior (IWB) through job crafting (JC). The association becomes stronger when employees are high in self-leadership (SL) instead of low.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Sampling Procedures

Data were gathered from the service industry of Zhejiang province in China to test the association among the studied constructs. Initially, the approval was guaranteed by the relevant HR heads of the company, who willingly participated in the surveys. Additionally, a unique code was assigned to the given list of employees to ensure the employees’ privacy. With the assistance of HR business partners, the data were gathered in different working units. To retrieve the real facts, the bilingual member of the research team translated the questionnaire from Chinese to English by adopting a back-translation procedure [51]. We surveyed two waves. Before distributing the questionnaires, the purpose of conducting surveys was informed to the respondent, and the confidentiality of their responses was guaranteed. In time one (T1), the authors gathered information regarding the demographic characteristics of the employees and evaluated the EL rated by employees and the dimension of JC. During this phase, 535 questionnaires were distributed to employees, and 440 respondents returned the surveys. At time 2 (T2), we distributed the surveys to only those employees who responded in period one (T1). Employees were asked to rate SL and IWB in this phase. In this stage, we dispensed the surveys to 440 employees, and 370 valid responses were retrieved for subsequent analysis with a true response rate of 69.16%.

Out of 370 participants, 53.2% were male while 46.8% were female. The majority of the respondents belonged to the 21–30 years old, having 47.3% weightage, and most of the employees had bachelor’s degrees (accounting for 40%). Regarding employees’ marital status, most were married (accounting for 59.2%).

3.2. Measures

To determine the relationship between variables, the study used a 6-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. The study employed a 15-item scale created by Yukl, et al. [52] to assess ethical leadership (EL) with a reliability score of 0.90. A 5-item scale developed by Slemp and Vella-Brodrick [53] was used to assess job crafting (JC) with a reliability score of 0.83. Self-leadership (SL) was evaluated using a 9-item scale developed by Houghton, et al. [54] with a Cronbach alpha of 0.94. Innovative work behavior (IWB) was evaluated through a 6-item scale established by Scott and Bruce [43] with an internal reliability score of 0.95.

3.3. Control Variables

Present research incorporates employees’ age, gender, educational attainment, and marital status as control variables and helps determine the moderated mediation mechanism. In line with earlier empirical research [55,56], gender was categorized into two classes: 1 = male and 2 = female. The level of education counted as a quantitative variable. Marital status includes subheads such as single, married, divorced, and widow.

4. Results

4.1. Analytical Strategy

Initially, the research conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to evaluate the measurement model [57]. Subsequently, a path analysis technique was employed to explore the associations between the variables under investigation. The study runs the moderated mediation model with the help of Mplus 8.0 and determines the relationships based on conceptual reasoning. To determine the effect of H1 and H2, we regressed innovation work behaviors on EL and JC. Similarly, to examine the result of H3, we regressed the JC of EL. To evaluate the indirect effects, the study deployed 10,000 bias-corrected bootstrap samples as per the guidelines of Little et al. [58]. Furthermore, to study the boundary condition and investigate the interactive effect, the study tested the model by drawing 10,000 bootstrapped samples. The value of the simple slope was also calculated at ±1 standard deviation following Aiken et al. [59] guidelines. To run the moderating effect, the study mean centered on the independent and moderating variable.

4.2. Construct Validity

The study runs confirmatory factor analyses [24] to determine the discriminability among the studied construct: EL, JC, SL, and IWB with the help of Mplus 8.0. As shown in

Table 1. CFA Models Result.

Models	χ2	d.f.	χ2/d.f.	CFI	TLI	RMSEA	SRMR
Four-factor model (hypothesized model)	859.08	504	1.70	0.97	0.96	0.03	0.07
Three-factor model (JC and IWB)	2287.52	524	4.36	0.85	0.83	0.09	0.13
Two-factor model (EL, JC, and IWB)	3011.20	526	5.72	0.78	0.76	0.10	0.17
Single-factor model (all factors combined)	3781.32	527	7.17	0.72	0.68	0.12	0.18

, the study’s four-factor model fits the data well: χ² ₍₅₀₄₎ = 859.08, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.96, SRMR = 0.07, and RMSEA = 0.06 which was more suitable compared to all tested models including, a three-factor model in which JC and IWB were loaded together Δχ² (Δdf) = 1428.44(20), p < 0.01, a two-factor model in which JC, SL, and IWB were loaded together Δχ² (Δdf) = 723.68(2), p < 0.01, and single-factor model Δχ² (Δdf) = 770.12(1), p < 0.01. The complete details for each tested model are reported in Table 1.

4.3. Assessment of CMV

As per the guidelines of Podaskoff et al. [60], one potential harm that affects the validity of research findings is the common method variance (CMV). To mitigate the CMV effects, we collected the data in two waves. Further, the study tested the CMV issues through two different approaches. First, the explained variance extracted by the single factor method was 0.34, falling below the 0.50 threshold criteria [61], representing that the single factor did not emerge in the variance. Second, the common method factor was added to the hypothesized four-factor model (Baseline Model 1), giving a new CMV model. All scale items were loaded into a common method factor and specified to correlate with other substantive latent factors [62,63]. The results come through the CMV model seem to be a good fit (χ² (509) = 1028.19, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.09). However, the model comparison signifies that the CMV model did not significantly better as compared to best-fitted model in CFA (χ² [df = 5] = 159.11, p < 0.01).

4.4. Hypotheses Testing

Table 2. Descriptive Statistics.

Factors	Mean	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. Gender	1.44	0.49
2. Age	2.53	0.78	−0.01
3. Education Level	1.65	0.72	−0.04	0.20 **
4. Marital Status	2.49	0.92	0.03	0.05	0.04
5. EL	4.44	0.79	−0.01	−0.02	−0.03	0.07	(0.90)
6. JC	4.75	1.04	−0.04	−0.00	0.00	0.13 *	0.35 **	(0.83)
7. SL	4.69	1.11	0.04	−0.00	−0.09	0.06	0.58 **	0.39 **	(0.94)
8. IWB	4.36	1.14	−0.00	−0.04	−0.01	0.09	0.28 **	0.36 **	0.55 **	(0.95)

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01.

reveals the descriptive results of all study variables.

Table 3. SEM Results.

Paths	β	S.E.	LLCI	ULCI
Direct
EL → IWB	0.22 **	0.08	0.08	0.37
EL → JC	0.37 ***	0.06	0.26	0.49
JC → IWB	0.36 ***	0.08	0.23	0.58
Indirect
EL → JC → IWB	0.14 **	0.04	0.08	0.21

** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

reports the results of direct and indirect effects. As per our predictions, EL significantly influenced IWB and JC (β = 0.36, S.E. = 0.08, p < 0.01), supporting H1. Furthermore, the study found that EL was significantly linked with JC (β = 0.37, S.E. = 0.06, p < 0.01), supporting H2. Subsequently, JC significantly impacted IWB (β = 0.22, S.E. = 0.08, p < 0.01). Thus, H3 confirms our proposition. H4 suggests that JC mediates the association between EL and IWB. As delineated in Table 3, JC significantly mediates the relationship between EL and IWB (β = 0.14, C.I. = 0.08, 0.21), confirming H4.

H5 suggests that the linkage between EL and JC was moderated by SL. Model 2 demonstrates that the interaction effect of EL and SL was significantly associated with JC (β = 0.09, S.E. = 0.04, p < 0.01). Additionally, the study conducted the slope analysis at ±1 standard deviation and drew the moderation graph accordingly. Figure 2 presents that the normal slope of EL on JC was significant when SL was higher (β = 0.42, S.E. = 0.19, p < 0.01) rather than low (β = 0.22, S.E. = 0.18) supporting H5 (see

Table 4. Moderation Results.

Job Crafting (JC)
	Model 1			Model 2
Factors	β	S.E.	95%C.I.	Β	S.E.	95%C.I.
Control Variables
Gender	−0.10	0.08	[−0.04, 0.04]	−0.09	0.05	[−0.23, 0.04]
Age	−0.01	0.05	[−0.10, 0.07]	0.00	0.05	[−0.08, 0.08]
Education	0.03	0.05	[−0.04, 0.03]	0.01	0.04	[−0.05, 0.09]
Marital Status	0.16 *	0.07	[0.04, 0.28]	0.14 *	0.07	[0.02, 0.26]
Independent Variables
Ethical Leadership (EL)	0.18 *	0.08	[0.05, 0.32]	0.32 ***	0.07	[0.20, 0.45]
Moderator Variable
Self-Leadership (SL)	0.22 **	0.05	[0.12, 0.31]	0.26 ***	0.03	[0.20, 0.32]
Interactive effects
EL X SL				0.09 *	0.04	[0.01, 0.17]

* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

).

The moderated mediation effects are presented in

Table 5. Moderated mediation Results.

	EL-JC-IWB (Mediating Effect)
Factors	Β	S.E.	95% C.I.	95% C.I.
Ethical Leadership
−1 SD	−0.004	0.002	−0.00	−0.002
+1 SD	0.008 *	0.004	0.003	0.016
Difference	0.066 *	0.034	0.013	0.124

* p < 0.01.

where the indirect association of EL on IWB through JC was significant in the case of high SL (β = 0.08; C.I. = 0.003, 0.016), rather than in the case of low SL (β = −0.004; C.I. = −0.009, −0.002). The indirect difference term was significant (β = 0.066; C.I. = 0.0134, 0.124) supporting H6.

5. Discussion

This study contributes to EL, JC, SL, and IWB in the Asian context by utilizing a moderated mediation model. Based on the principles of social learning theory, the present research incorporates JC as a mediator and SL as a moderator to examine the relationship between EL and JC. The results of the study demonstrate that JC plays a significant role in mediating the relationship between EL and IWB. Additionally, the study shows that SL is a crucial factor in moderating the link between EL and JC.

5.1. Theoretical Contributions

The study has notable and important theoretical implications regarding IWB. First, the study’s main contribution is to explore the EL–IWB relationship in the service industry, especially in China, due to its rapidly growing economy and development. Earlier empirical investigations explored the relationship between manufacturing and the IT sector and encourage innovation through digital means rather than person-oriented approaches [33]. Second, the study includes JC as a self-initiated mechanism through EL that positively influences IWB. Prior studies integrate voice behaviors [64] and psychological safety [65] as mediators to determine the influence of EL on IWB. Third, the study includes SL as a moderator in the relationship between EL and JC. The study findings report that SL strengthens the positive effect of EL on JC. Additionally, individuals who are high in SL are more enthusiastic and compassionate toward their set targets, thereby strengthening the positive impact of EL on JC.

5.2. Practical Implications

This research improves our insight into how ethical leaders can give employees the freedom to redesign their jobs while effectively influencing attitudes and behaviors. This research is possibly one of the initial attempts to theorize, based on the social learning theory, that ethical leaders encourage IWB by mediating JC and moderating SL in China’s context. Organizations must take decisive action to strengthen ethical leaders and foster positive workplace culture influencing workers to perform their duties ethically. To inspire followers to act morally and ethically, a leader has to communicate a clear moral perspective to the team. This research can serve as a helpful reference for strategies, seminars, and programs for developing leaders.

5.3. Limitations of the Study

There are several limitations of the present study. Firstly, the study only includes the service industry as a target population in the Chinese context. However, future scholars may integrate other industries such as information and communication, retail, and fashion to know the varied nature of workplace practices and prevailing standards. Second, the study only includes JC as a mediator. Future studies may consider the parallel mediation approach to uncover the relationship in novel settings. Third, the current study incorporates SL as a first-stage moderator. Therefore, future scholars consider the dual-stage moderated mediation approach by applying dual moderators at the first and second stages. For instance, at the second stage, moderator researchers may encompass empathic concern further to signify the relationship between EL-IWB [66]. Further, future studies may use longitudinal data to draw inferences based on conceptual underpinning.