The effect of ethical leadership behaviors on employee adaptive performance in restaurant businesses

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between ethical leadership and adaptive performance in a sample of restaurant employees and to reveal the moderating role of working period in this relationship. As a result of the literature review, the developed research model was not studied in both the literatüre and the research universe. Revealing the effect of ethical leadership, determined as the independent variable of the research, on the dependent variable of the research, employee adaptive performance (emergency adaptation, interpersonal adaptation, creativity and training efforts) in a sample of restaurant employees can be valuable in terms of both its contribution to the literature and the sector. The universe of the research consists of food and beverage businesses located in the central district of Batman, and the sample consists of local restaurant employees in the region. The survey form was applied to the restaurant employees by the researchers using the convenience sampling method, one of the non-random sampling methods, and 400 valid surveys were evaluated as a result of the collected data. Various statistical analyses of the data obtained within the scope of the research were performed using SPPS 22.0 and the Process Macro. According to the analysis results, it was determined that the perception of ethical leadership of restaurant employees had a statistically positive effect on emergency adaptation (B=,588 p<0.000), on interpersonal adaptation (B=,467 p<0.000), on creativity (B=,527 p<0.000) and on training efforts (B=,158 p<0.000). However, it was determined that the moderating effect of working period on the effect of ethical leadership on creativity dimension (p=,010) was significant at 95% confidence interval. Although this research provides important implications on restaurant employees, it has some limitations that should be aware of for future studies. First, the sample consisted of employees of local restaurant businesses as part of the food and beverage sector. The research data were collected from only one city. Therefore, the generalizability of the results may be limited. For future studies, it is recommended to design a regional study including different types of restaurant businesses (e.g., fast food restaurants, ethnic restaurants) and test different types of leadership that will trigger employee compliance performance in the current model.