The moderating effect of gender on the relationships between age, ethical leadership, and organizational commitment

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between principals’ ethical leadership behaviors and teachers’ organizational commitment levels according to teachers’ age and gender. The scales were administered to a sample of 403 primary school teachers (199 females, 204 males). A multi-group analysis was performed through Maximum Likelihood method by taking the correlation matrices and the means of male and female groups with normal scores for each group. Results showed both male and female teachers’ organizational commitment levels were positively influenced by their school principals’ ethical leadership behaviors. However, the female teachers’ commitment levels are more strongly influenced by ethical leadership behaviors. Also, the older male teachers have more negative perceptions on their principals’ ethical leadership behaviors than their younger counterparts.