Ethical leadership in hospitality managements the effect of perception on organizational commitment: The case of Bodrum

The quality of the workforce and the behavior of the employees are among the main issues that managers focus on, as the production and consumption of tourism services take place simultaneously and under the witness of guests in hospitality managements. Hospitality employees' positive perceptions about the organization is important because it contributes to the increase in guest satisfaction and thus the performance and competitiveness of the enterprise, as well as increasing motivation and job satisfaction of the employees. In this context, the organizational commitment of the employees is a significant factor in hospitality managements to achieve and maintain certain standards. An ethical leader is a leader who has a strong influence on his/her followers with his/her moral values and contributes to employees' achievement of their organizational goals. Therefore, ethical leadership behaviors can positively affect employees' perceptions and commitment to the organization. In this thesis, it is aimed to examine the perceptions of ethical leadership and organizational commitment of hospitality employees and to reveal the effects of ethical leadership perception on organizational commitment and its sub-dimensions, namely, emotional, continuance and normative commitment. In the study conducted with quantitative research methods, 375 data were collected from the hospitality employees via questionnaire technique. In the analysis of the research data descriptive analysis and difference tests were conducted. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to examine the validity of the research scales, and the relationships between variables were tested with the structural equation model. As a result of the research, it was revealed that ethical leadership and organizational commitment perceptions of the hospitality employees were above the average value. In addition, it was concluded that perception of ethical leadership has a positive effect on the continuance and normative commitment dimension of organizational commitment, but it does not have a statistically significant effect on the dimension of emotional commitment. Among the demographic characteristics examined within the scope of the study, it was determined that only education level made a difference on perception of ethical leadership. Key Words: Ethical Leadership, Organizational Commitment, Hospitality Management, Tourism, Bodrum