The Effect of Ethical Leadership on Work Engagement: A Study on Humanitarian Aid Organizations in Turkey

The aim of the study is to survey the influence of ethical leadership on work engagement and its dimenions. Furthermore, we examined the descriptive statistics, t- test, anova test, reliability, correlation and regression analysis. İt is noted that this examination is based on a survey of humanitarian aid organizations and 1312 people working for humanitarian aid organizations in Turkey. Consequently, it is found that all estab-lished hypotheses are supported and they are positively related to each other. Ethical leadership has a significant effect on work engagement and its dimensions which are vigor, dedication and absorption. İn addition to these results, the relationship between some demographic variables and ethical leadership and work engagement is also investigated. Employees who keep their business both at work and out of work are more dedicated and employees who keep their business only at work are more absorptive. Employees who don’t have much experience at work are more absorptive. Employees who are at the middle age group have greater sense of perceived ethical leadership and work engagement, more vigorous and absorptive. Employees whose ages are less than 30 and between the ages of 30 and 40 are more dedicated.


Introduction
The word "aid" is defined as "make it easier or possible for (someone) to do something by offering them one's services or resources" and the word humanitarian is defined as "concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare" (Soanes & Stevenson, 2004). As a result of structural crises or all kinds of natural disasters and crises created by human beings such as war, conflict, exile, humanitarian aid concept includes activities aimed at ending the human suffering and reducing the negativity such as death, injury and material damage caused by these crises (İ� nan, 2012: 8). There are four core elements of humanitarian aid and these are the protection of the right to life, health, what is necessary to survive and the physical security (Darcy & Hofmann, 2003: 5). From this point of view, water and food aid, cash assistance, education and health facilities, physical improvement studies, raising awareness of natural disasters, planning and disaster risk can be considered as the main humanitarian activities (İ� nan, 2012: 9). The organizations taking part in various stages of humanitarian activities and which are specialized in the field are expressed as humanitarian aid organizations (İ� nan, 2012: 16). İn addition to these definitions humanitarian worker concept includes all employees employed by humanitarian aid organizations, either internationally or nationally, or recruited from among the individuals of the beneficiary community, either formally or informally, to carry out the activities of the organization (Bennett, 2002).
İt is important for all kind of organizations to create a sense of ethical leadership and strengthen work engagement of employees. Ethical leadership is thought to be important in the literature because it provides an effective communication and interaction between leaders and folllowers by displaying ethical behavious in the work environment. On the other hand work engagement is also an important phenomenon because that it is the driving force behind a company's competitiveness and success. Employees who are engaged have a willingness to show the top of the effort required on the job and to achieve the most appropriate performance required (Engelbrecht, Heine & Mahembe, 2014). Relationship between leaders and their followers is important and it can be considered as a predictor of work engagement.

Ethical leadership
Ethical leadership is a value-oriented leadership style that has an impact on followers' self-concept and beliefs which affect their motivation, attitudes, and behaviors by acting as role models. When we think how the leaders act as a role model it is empasized that ethical leaders show ethical behaviour and serve as a role models by taking into account ethical and moral values. They also take part in communication processes with followers and they amplify certain values and identities in them (Den Hartog & Belschak, 2012). Leaders are ethical role models in part by showing such behaviors that are evaluated by followers as normatively appropriate and after that they become attractive, credible, and legitimate. These behaviors include being honest, considering others and treating employees fairly (Brown, Treviño & Hartman, 2005: 120). Ethical leaders are the leaders who treat their employees fairly in an impartial and unbiased manner (Zhu, May & Avolio, 2004: 17). The main purpose of the leader behavior is to influence the activities of the members of the organization. Affecting the activities will ensure that the organization reaches its goals by reflecting on the behavior of the employees. The role behavior of the leader, the strategies and tactics he follows affect the values, beliefs and behaviors of the audience as well as the success of the organization and ensuring compliance. Leader's behavior and the strategies he follows make sense when he is perceived ethically by employees (Arslantaş & Dursun, 2008;Helvacı, 2010: 395). The basic characteristics of ethical leaders are indicated in the study of Resick, Hanges, Dickson, and Mitchelson in 2006. These are "character and integrity, ethical awareness, community/ people-orientation, motivating, encouraging and empowering, and managing ethical accountability" (Resick et al., 2006: 346). These characteristics are discussed shortly below.

·
Character and integrity: The term character symbolizes commitment to virtue in any case. Virtue means to keep the social interest above the personal interest. Leaders who has a good character keep the virtue above everything (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999: 196). The word integrity is suggested that it was an important component of leading ethically by Brown et al., 2005. (Brown et al., 2005. It is empashised that if the followers perceived that the leader has integrity then they would believe their leader is trustworthy (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002: 613). Characteristics like character and integrity form the basis of personality traits of leaders and they have a great importance in the beliefs, decisions and actions of the leader. Because they guide their thoughts, decisions and actions (Resick et al., 2006: 347 (Resick et al., 2006: 347).
· Community/people-orientation: Ethical leaders focus on how they can serve the greater good for organization and the community (Treviño et al., 2003: 19). Ethical leaders are also people-focused so that they care about, respect, support, and treat people fairly (Treviño et al., 2003: 14).
· Motivating: Motivating their followers for the ethical leaders is also an important factor. Because well-motivated employees keep the objectives of the organization above their goals (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999).
· Encouraging and empowering: Ethical leaders encourage and empower their followers to enable them to gain a sense of personal competence (Resick et al., 2006: 347) which is defined as "the ability to do something successfully or efficiently" (Soanes & Stevenson, 2004). Then the employees will be competent in their task (Resick et al., 2006: 347).
· Managing ethical accountability: Trevin˜o et al. (2003) found that ethical leaders set ethical behavior and expectation standards for their followers. Further, ethical leaders establish standards of ethical behaviors and use their reward and punishment systems to hold their subordinates accountable from them which are available (Treviño et al., 2003).
These characteristics discussed above are the ones ethical leaders should display while effecting their followers in the workplace. First of all, they should have a good character and integrity. İn this way, they can be virtuous and honest and influence their followers. Secondly ethical leaders should be aware of ethical issues and reflect them in their behaviors and decisions. Thirdly ethical leaders should display community/people-orientated attitudes to be understood respectful, fair and trustworthy by their followers. Fourthly motivation process is an important factor for followers and ethical leaders should motive them to achieving targeted objectives. Fifthly ethical leaders encourage and empower their followers to help them to gain a personal competence. Helping to gain a personal competent like any important personality skills, is important to build trust in their followers. Lastly setting ethical behavior and expectation standards for their followers is important for the ethical leaders. After this setting process they can use their reward and punishment systems and then their followers are going to be responsible from these standards.

Work engagement
A positive, satisfactory state of mind which is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption is called work engagement (Schaufeli et al., 2002: 74). İn addition, work engagment is expressed as a permanent and widespread emotional-cognitive situation that does not focus on a particular object, event, person or behavior. First dimension of work engagement is vigor and defined as an individual's high energy and flexible mind while working, making a great effort to do its job and showing patience even in the face of challenges. The second dimension is dedication and it is defined as a sense of signifi-cance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, enthusiasm, inspiration, and challenge. Third dimension is absorption which occurs when an employees is fully concentrated and happily engrossed in his/her work (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004: 295). İn other words employees who are engaged with their job have much energy, are enthusiastic about their work and are not be aware of how time passes while working (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008: 210). According to Kahn (1990) people who are engaged in their work express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally while performing their role (Kahn, 1990: 694). İn this way, employees work hard for their jobs because they are identified with their jobs (Bakker et al., 2008: 189). On the other hand Rothbard (2001) approached from a different perspective and defined as a a two-dimensional motivational construct which includes attention and absorption (Rothbard, 2001: 656 Bakker, et al., 2008. Most of the researchers are joined together at the same point that engagement has two dimensions which are called as an energy and an identification (Bakker, et al., 2008: 189).
Some of the particular human resource management strategies can improve and increase the employee engagement. For example, better job design, job rotation, changing jobs and some motivating potential of job resources can improve and increase the levels of employee engagement. Because these business-related changes increases employees' motivation and encourages learning and professional development (Schaufeli, 2012: 5).
Antecedents of work engagement are mentioned in most of the studies and it is generally categorized into two groups which are job resources and personal resources. Job resources are such resources that refer to the physical, social, or organizational aspects of the job. For instance leadership styles, organizational justice, supervisors' support to their followers, autonomy, opportunities for development, performance feedback are the examples of job resources (Schaufeli, 2012: 5). A meta-analysis done by Christian et al. (2011) proved that the job resources are the most important predictors of work engagement (Christian et al.,2011). Moreover, Bakker et al. (2007) collected the data from Finnish teachers who were working elementary, secondary, and vocational schools for their research. According to the data obtained from this other study it was revealed that job resources serve as a buffer in the relationship between students' unwanted behavior and work engagement. The job resources such as suport from the supervisor, innovativeness, appreciation, organizational climate help teachers while coping with the students misbehaviours (Bakker et al., 2007). İn addition, personal resources are the ones that are the positive self evaluation of individuals such as self-efficacy, self-esteem, optimism or an ability to regulate emotions. Studies have shown that job resources are personal resources have a positive impact on work engagemet (Schaufeli, 2012: 5).
There are possible consequences of work engagement and examples of these are positive attitudes and behaviors related to work and being healthy and well-being (Schaufeli, 2012: 5). Performance of employees who are engaged are higher because with the feeling of positive emotions they create new ideas and resources, they are more healthy and have a more energy while working and they spread their enagegement to work to other employees and this improves and increases the team performance (Bakker, 2009). Emloyees who are more engaged at their work are more committed to the organization, have less absenteeism, are less likely to leave the organization, feel positive emotions, are more active, are mentally and physically healthy and have a greater motivation while working (Schaufeli, 2012: 5). İn study of Schaufeli & Van Rhenen (2006), engaged and nonengaged managers were compared to each other and it was found that managers who were engaged were more energic, more cheerful, more willing, more enthusiastic and more inspiring than the managers who were nonengaged (Schaufeli & Van Rhenen, 2006). İn addition to this study Bakker and Xanthopoulou (2013) determined that engaged school principals at work were perceived more creative and charismatic by their teachers (Bakker & Xanthopoulou, 2013).

The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Work Engagement
Work engagement is evident in employees when they are comitted to work and enjoy while working. Engaged people can also go to an extra trouble for their work. Macey et al. (2009) claimed that the work engagement occurs after there is capacity, knowledge, freedom and motivation of employees. Besides work engagement, ethical leadership presents different characterstics of leaders and these characteristics can be an impact on work engagement of employees (Engelbrecht et al., 2014: 2). For example ethical leaders provide a social support, feedback on performances, autonomy, and learning opportunities which are included in job resources and these job resources help employees to concentrate on work while they are working. Because these resources provides employees a necessary assistance to be good at their work and play an intrinsic motivational role then they are positively associated with work engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). İf the employees feel motivated and treated with respect and perceived that they are valued by the organization then they will be engaged in their work. Also the work engagement results when an employee granted authority in desicion making processes and has the freedom on taking action without the need to consult the supervisor in every time. According to Macey et al (2009), employees who know what the strategic priorities of the organisation are and how they are going to help to reach the company's goals through their work they will be more engaged in their work (Macey et al., 2009 (Engelbrecht et al.2014, p.3). Sugianingra et al., 2014: 3) also found in their study that there is a positive and significant relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement which means that the the better the ethical leadership the higher feeling of work engagment.
As it is understood from the studies mentioned the strong sense of ethical leadership of employees can increase their engagement to work. The results from studies show that if a leader is fair, shares the desicion making process with his/her followers, expresses roles clearly, displays a community and people oriented behavior, has a sense of integrity, guides on ethical issues, and pays attention to sustainability then he/she will have the skills to increase work engagement and its dimensions of vigor, dedication and absorption (Sugianingra et al., 2017: 8).
From the above literature review on ethical leadership and work engagement the following hypotheses are set to be tested in this article: According to the hypothesises the conceptual model of the research is set up like in Figure 1.

Participants and Procedure
The universe of the research is composed of employees working in humanitarian aid organizations in Turkey. İn this phase a total of 1312 employees working in these organizations selected through simple unselected sampling method. The profile of the respondents is displayed in the Table 1 shown below.  (81%) were working in the institution less than 10 years, 203 workers (15%) were working in the institution between 11-20 years and 48 workers (4%) were working in the institution above 21 years. 243 workers (19%) were single whereas 1069 workers (81%) were married. 590 workers (45%) participated in this research kept their business out of work whereas 722 workers (55%) didn' t keep their business out of work. 789 workers (60%) had less than 10 years of work experience, 523 workers (40%) had 10 or more than 10 years work experience. 349 workers (27%) had no children, 275 workers (21%) had one child, 372 workers (28%) had two children, 316 workers (24%) had three children or more than three children. 209 workers (16%) had a female manager whereas 1103 workers (84%) had a male manager. 417 workers (36%) were a manager of someone whereas 841 (64%) were not a manager of someone. 841 workers (64%) were not a manager of someone, 309 workers (24%) were a manager of 1-10 people, 69 workers (5%) were a manager of 11-20 people, 93 workers (7%) were a manager of more than 20 people.

Measuring instruments
Two measuring instruments were used to measure the constructs of ethical leadership and work engagement.
Work engagement was measured by 17-item Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) which was developed by Schaufeli and Bakker in 2003. The scale includes three dimensions of work engagement and they are named as vigor, dedication and absorption. This scale was translated into Turkish in accordance with the other translations in the literature (Turgut, 2011: 165). The three scales are highly internally consistent with Cronbach's alphas exceeding 0.7 (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003).
The other scale used in the research is the Ethical Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ) developed by Brown, Trevino andHarrison in 2005 (Brown et al., 2005: 125). There are 10 items on this scale. The validity and reliability of this scale for Turkish use were analyzed by Tuna, Bircan and Yeşiltaş in 2012. As a result of this study, the scale is highly internally consistent with Cronbach's alphas exceeding 0.7. This scale is capable of measuring ethical leadership practices in Turkey and has been found to have adequate validity and reliability (Tuna, Bircan & Yeşiltaş, 2012: 152-153).

Reliability analysis
Reliability analysis was estimated by using SPSS, Version 21. At the end of the analysis it was determined that all the Cronbach's alpha values were bigger than 0,7 (see Table 2). As presented in Table 2, the results are considered to be very reliable.

Differential level of ethical leadership and work engagement based on various demographic variables
To understand if there is a difference between some of the demographic variables and the ethical leadership and work engagement, independent sample t-test and ANOVA test were performed.
First of all, it is analyzed if there was a difference between keeping business out of work variable and ethical leadership and work engagement variables (see Table 3). As Table 3 shows, there was no significant difference between keeping business out of work variable and ethical leadership, work engagement and vigor variables (p>0,05). From the analysis it is found that there was a significant difference between keeping business out of work variable and dedication and absorption (p<0,05). Employees who are keeping their business out of their work were much more dedicated into their job. On the other hand employees who are not continuing to keep their business out of their work were much more absorptive into their job. Then, we analyzed if there was a difference between total work experience variable and ethical leadership and work engagement variables. As Table 3 shows, there was no significant difference between total work experience variable and ethical leadership, work engagement, vigor and dedication variables (p>0,05). From the analysis it is found that there was a significant difference between total work experience variable and absorbtion (p<0,001). Employees whose total work experience is less than 10 years were more absorptive into their job than whose total work experience is 10 or more than 10 years. Furthermore, we analyzed if there was a difference between age variable and ethical leadership and work engagement variables. From the analysis in the Table 5 shown, it is found that there was a significant difference between age variable and the other variables (p<0,001). Post-Hoc analysis showed that ethical leadership, work engagement, vigor and absorption perceptions were more in employees who were 30-40 years old than who were less than 30 years old and more than 40 years old. İn dedication dimension there was only a difference in age groups <30 and 41 +; 30-40 and 41 +. Employees whose ages less than 30 and 30-40 is more dedicated than employees whose ages were 40 and above.  Table 6 represents descriptive statistics of ethical leadership, vigor, dedcation, absorption, work engagement and the correlations between these five variables. The means of these variables are above 4 and standard deviations are above 0.70 (see Table 6). As seen in Table 6, all variables are positively correlated with each other. Ethical leadership is significantly and positively associated with vigor (r= 0,666, p<0,01), dedication (r= 0,624, p<0,01), absorption (r=0,631, p<0,01) and work engagment (r=0,676, p<0,01). The model determining the effect of work engagement on ethical leadership is significant. İn this model dependent variable is work engagement whereas independent variable is ethical leadership and they are displayed in Table 7 (Adjusted R 2 = 0,456; F=1099,438; Sig(p)=, 000). As suggested in H1a, regression analysis indicated that ethical leadership had a significant impact on work engagement. So, H1a is supported. Secondly, it is searched the effect of vigor on ethical leadership and the model was found significant which is illustrated in Table 8 (Adjusted R 2 =0,443; F=1045,427; Sig(p)= 0,000). As suggested in H1b, regression analysis indicated that ethical leadership had a significant impact on vigor. So, H1b is supported. Further, we examined the effect of dedication on ethical leadership and it is seen from the Table 9 that ethical leadership had a positive effect on dedication (Adjusted R 2 =0,389; F=834,936; Sig(p)= 0,000). Hence, H1c is supported. Finally, it is determined that the effect of absorption on ethical leadership and the model was found significant which is shown in Table 10 (Adjusted R 2 =0,398; F=868,295; Sig(p)= 0,000). As suggested in H1d, regression analysis indicated that ethical leadership had a significant impact on absorption. According to the results, H1d is supported. Results of Regression Analyses are shown in Figure 2. As seen in the Figure 2, ethical leadership has a positive effect on work engagement explained by 67,6% (p=0,000); which means that if the ethical leadership behaviours increase than work engagement of employees also increases. İt is also displayed in the Figure 2 that ethical leadership has a positive effect on the dimensions of work engagement and vigor is explained by 66,6% (p=0,000) dedication is explained by 62,4% (p=0,000) and absorption is explained by 63,1% (p=0,000). These results show us that increasing ethical leadership behaviours means increasing vigor, dedication and absorption dimensions of work engagement.

Discussion and Suggestions
The main objective of this research is to investigate whether ethical leadership has an impact on work engagement and its dimensions. Based on the results of the regression analysis, the designed model was found to be significant and all hypotheses were supported. The results concluded in this study are similar to some results of older research in the literature. One of these research, which is done by Den Hartog and Belschak in 2012 stated that employees who perceived their leaders to behave ethically were more engaged in their work and they felt vigorous, dedicated and absorptive in higher level while working. Positive relationship between ethical leadership and work engagement is among the results of the study. This means when employees perceive ethical behaviors of the leaders, they tends to be more engaged to their work. Macey et al. (2009) stated that work engagement is the result of motivation of employees by their leaders in order to uncover their capacity and feel freedom and give all knowledge to the work. Ethical leaders are considered as honest and trustworthy. Beyond this, ethical leaders give impression that behave fairly to employees, give principle based decisions, and take into account employees and broader society in decisions (Brown & Trevino, 2006 İn this study also some significant differences were found in employees' demographic parameters. One of the demographic parameter is keeping their business out of work or not. Some employees keep their business both at work and out of work. These employees are more dedicated into their job than the others who only keep their business at work. However, employees who don't keep their business both at work and out of work but only at work are more absorptive in their job. İn short, if the employees are so much dedicated into their job then they are going to continue it out of their work. On the other hand, if they do not keep their job out of their work then they can consantrate on their job more easyly.
The other demographic variable is total work experiences of employees which is investigated in this study. Employees who don't have much experience at work are more absorptive, may be because of their enthusiasm while working.
After that age variable is investigated in this study. Age variable seperated into three groups. These are less than 30, between 30-40 and 41 and above. So, employees who are at the middle age group have greater sense of perceived ethical leadership and work engagement more vigorous and absorptive than the employees who are at the other age groups. Beyond this, employees whose ages are less than 30 and between the ages of 30 and 40 are more dedicated than whose ages are 41 and above 41. As this research shows middle age group generally is more engaged in their job and has more ethical leadership perceptions.
Taking into account the results of this research, other researchers may conduct similar research on other non-governmental organizations and compare the results with the results of this research. Furthermore, this research has been carried out on humanitarian aid institutions in Turkey and has a number of limitations. First of all, this research is identified the relationship between the concerned variables and the impact of ethical leadership on work engagement. There are of course the other variables which have an impact on work engagement. Future studies will be able to determine the variables that can affect the work engagement and and they could also find out other mediating and moderating variables which have an effect on work engagement (e.g. organizational citizenship behaviour, organizational trust, organization-al culture, organizational climate, organizational health, etc.). One of the other limitation is that the study is conducted on employees who are working in humanitarian aid organizations. Future studies could be conducted on the other employees working in other institutions.
This study differs from other studies in terms of the humanitarian aid organizations. Although people working in these organizations in Turkey work with great sacrifice, their personal income is very low. The main purpose of the enterprises which are not working as humanitarian aid organizations is to make a profit and make this profit permanent. All institutions and individuals in the economic environment are trying to maintain their lives according to this principle. Although the humanitarian aid organizations differ from other enterprises for their purposes, because they are working in the same economic environment and they should take into consideration the economic environment while doing their business. Also it should not be neglected that these organizations are accountable and have transparency features like other organizations. On the other hand, although it is based on volunteerism for the employees working in these institutions the behaviors and ethical leadership features of the managers are very important for their work engagmenet perceptions. This importance is more effective than the employees working in ordinary organizations. Because the behavior of executives in companies that are unethical or which are not approved for any other reason but which have a positive effect such as increasing the profitability of the company or increasing their market share are not seen or criticized within the company. On the other hand, adaptation to ethical values is very important in humanitarian aid organizations. The main purpose of people being here is a purely humanitarian purpose, and this purpose cannot be explained by the phrase that is "every means to the purpose is legal".
İn this study, it is emphasized that ethical leadership is effective on work engagement. İn conclusion, organizations should ensure that ethical leaders carry out administrative functions effectively. İn accordance to these factors, work engagement will be promoted amongst employees because employees who think that their leaders act ethically and fairly are goig to be engaged in their job. İn addition by being a role model and encouraging employees there will be positive outcomes like work engagement for the organizations.