Grounding on social learning theory (Bandura and Hall, 2018), ethical leaders have an influence on their employees via observational learning, in which employees learn indirectly by seeing the activities and repercussions of ethical leaders’ actions (Bandura, 1979; Grusec, 1994; Brown et al., 2005). Similarly, we contend that ethical leaders have an effect on the behavior of their subordinates’ psychological wellbeing via the social learning process. With regard to social learning, “the psychological states of the receivers decide which external events to be considered, how they are interpreted and if they leave untouched what will be the consequences” (Bandura, 1979). A person’s ability to pay attention, analyze, and react to ethical leaders’ actions may be hindered by psychological conditions that produce cognitive dysfunction (Brown et al., 2005). More recent literature focuses on leadership and psychological ownership relationship mechanism and revealed that leadership is the main cause root of psychological ownership (Guarana and Avolio, 2022). Prior social learning theory research has paid little attention to followers’ psychological states (Bavik et al., 2018), particularly within the EL framework. We looked at psychological ownership in order to better understand the role of psychological states that emerged during the social learning process (Wright and Cropanzano, 1998) and argued that it is likely to enhance the connection between EL and KS behavior. In other words, the study’s second goal is to determine whether employee professional commitment acts as a buffer between EL and knowledge-sharing in the social learning process (see Figure 1).

In an organization, KS does not cause automatically; it requires a certain set of circumstances and ongoing assistance. Information sharing is likely to be significantly influenced by leaders’ actions (Ali et al., 2018). Leader support is critical for fostering a culture of knowledge sharing among company workers (Tang et al., 2015). EL is considered an effective leadership style (Bedi and Wordley, 2019), and is linked to KS behaviors (Su et al., 2021). As part of knowledge management, the goal is to establish an environment that encourages individuals to share information and build a shared understanding of the company’s mission. EL significantly influences individual participation and attitudes toward information sharing (Koay and Lim, 2021).

Leadership has been found to have a substantial influence on the interpersonal process of knowledge exchange within organizations (Xue et al., 2011; Rahman et al., 2019). The psychological impact of KS leads to the belief that ethical leader behavior is an important predictor. Fairness, transparency, and trustworthiness are essential components of effective EL that needs for learning culture (Bhatti et al., 2021). Ethical leaders can motivate followers to share their expertise (Wu and Lee, 2017; Men et al., 2020). As a first step, ethical leaders help to reduce the physical barriers that prevent employees from sharing resources by incorporating processes and controls that encourage employees psychologically (e.g., code of ethics, standards for making ethical decisions, open two-way communication, and a fair incentive system) are all important components of an ethical workplace. Second, when ethical leaders exemplify the values and standards of their respective organizations by behaving in line with these values and standards, they demonstrate their values and norms (such as trustworthiness, kindness, and concern for the needs of others; Banks et al., 2021). Based on these considerations, EL encourages employee KS by eliminating organizational obstacles, cultivating trustworthy workplace connections, and fostering workers’ expectations of fair compensation for their contributions and resource sharing (Castellani et al., 2021). The knowledge management literature has demonstrated the importance of leadership in establishing rules and directions that encourage KS (Lin et al., 2020). Several studies have indicated that ethical leaders motivate their followers to participate in pro-social activities, such as sharing knowledge and assisting others to gain knowledge (Gerpott et al., 2020; He et al., 2021), while reducing deviance (Evans et al., 2021; Khan et al., 2022).

Employees’ psychological ownership and EL are intertwined in the same way through social norms (Kim and Beehr, 2017). By highlighting key principles and norms that are connected to psychological ownership, ethical leaders are likely to impact the behavioral norms of the organizations (Ali et al., 2021). A growing number of moral leaders are particularly concerned about protecting the rights of their workers and obligations when it comes to the first value for equality. There is a strong feeling of commitment to job duties, as well as a strong sense of right to influence the outcomes of work when one takes an ownership perspective on things (Adil and Kamal, 2018; Xiao and Cooke, 2019). Employee ownership was eliminated if the rights were violated. However, because they expressly seek justice, ethical leaders are less likely to violate the supposed rights, equality, and compassion (Brown et al., 2005; Gul et al., 2021). In other words, if an employee has a significant stake in a project, the ethical leader is inclined to remain on the board. However, unethical leaders are less inclined to do this. Ethics-based leadership is more likely to demonstrate and foster responsibility among followers, ensuring that employees’ rights are protected. Brown et al. (2005) stated that ethical leaders penalize workers who break ethical norms and hold employees responsible for their work performance. According to the social learning theory, ethical leaders produce positive and productive results through social learning and two-way communication (Bandura, 1979). According to Bandura and Hall (2018), direct and indirect interactions can help employees develop a sense of accountability, such as seeing ethical leaders holding individuals responsible for their accomplishments as well as the method by which those successes were obtained. The norms for social conduct in the organization were established based on observations and interactions between employees (Cheng et al., 2021). In addition, employees are held responsible for their own actions (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Employees who work with morally conscientious bosses are likely to have psychological control over their actions. Ethical leaders create a sense of belonging in the workplace and instill a sense of psychological ownership in their subordinates. Ethical leaders should focus on their workers by listening to them and giving them a voice in the workplace (Brown et al., 2005). Employees who are given the opportunity to voice their opinions and have a voice in the design of their workplace are more likely to feel like part of the team as a whole and are more willing to share their knowledge and experience, as suggested by the job characteristics model and supported by Pittino et al., (2018) and Spreitzer (1995). As a result of being neglected, workers might become emotionally disengaged and feel that they do not belong to the organization, and they are more inclined to keep their knowledge hidden from the rest of the organization (Arain et al., 2020). When ethical leaders place their followers’ interests first and listen to their concerns, they experience a feeling of belonging in the workplace, which is a key component of psychological ownership that encourages them to share their knowledge (Men et al., 2020). The link between psychological ownership and KS entails the conversion of human perceptions and sentiments into an organizational stance. As previously stated, the formation of stewardship culture inside a company may facilitate KS (Pittino et al., 2018). Psychological ownership may motivate individuals to share knowledge, encourage others to learn, work together to solve issues, accept and propagate organizational values and ideas, and accept and disseminate organizational values and ideas (Gupta et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2021). A similar study by Hameed et al. (2019) argued those employees who have high level of psychological ownership shows altruistic spirit and enhance KS and it is considered one of the crucial antecedents of knowledge sharing.

Previous studies have identified a substantial correlation between a person’s commitment to their profession and willingness to share their expertise (Chen et al., 2020; Zada et al., 2021). Additionally, KS may be nurtured and developed if employees have developed favorable attitudes and gestures toward an organization, which requires a lot of internal desire (Khan and Ali, 2019; Tahir et al., 2019). Ethical leaders play an important role in shaping and assisting the professional lives of their workers so that they can participate in KS behavior (Kuenzi et al., 2019). According to Bavik et al. (2018), despite the fact that EL conduct affects workers’ attitudes toward KS, there have been few studies on the psychological effects of such activities.

Previous research has shown that leaders are substantially connected with KS behaviors and have pivotal responsibilities in the success of the business by psychologically influencing workers to spread information (Wu and Lee, 2017). Individuals who are supported by ethical leaders are more likely to promote and share their expertise with others, therefore, broadening the breadth of KS, according to our research. Developing a knowledge-sharing culture requires a strong commitment from workers (Lei et al., 2019) to share and receive information (Le and Lei, 2018). Knowledge exchange and professional commitment are typically assumed to be linked. According to Bavik et al. (2018), greater dedication encourages employees to share new ideas. According to Han et al. (2010), are more willing to share their knowledge and experience with their colleagues. Based on the study by Alrawi et al. (2016), KS is more effective when several workers are involved. Lin (2007) also identified a correlation between professional dedication and tacit KS was also identified by Lin (2007), which is in line with earlier studies.

To meet the study aims, a survey technique was used to obtain quantitative data from the participants. The intended audience consisted of individuals who worked in publicly listed yarn production sector companies in Pakistan. The reason behind to select this company as one of our team members working in administrative post and there was easy to collect data from these organizations. They must, however, satisfy certain requirements in order to be considered for participation in our survey. First, they must have at least one direct supervisor to whom they must report to function properly. Second, each supervisor must provide feedback of four subordinates. This is due to the fact that our target populations were asked to assess ethical support received from their line managers as part of their job roles. It is difficult to succeed without reporting to a direct supervisor or a leader. Preliminary testing of the survey questions on three academic experts was conducted before they were sent to the real target population to confirm that all of the scales under investigation had positive face validity. Two academic experts were from specific field of management sciences and one from statistics field in order to verify the scale. All constructions have Cronbach’s α values higher than 0.7, which indicates that all scales are reliable according to preliminary data of 28 respondents collected for piloting testing (Iacobucci and Duhachek, 2003). After clarifications were made regarding the questionnaire, every public listed company in Pakistan that was approached through personal contact received a link to the online survey. We asked the person in charge of the distribution to pass the link with the employees. However, we clarified to the representative that to be considered for our target responders, workers had to meet the criteria listed above. The data collection period was split into two periods separated by 15 days in accordance with the suggestions of Podsakoff et al. (2003) to help in the reduction of common method bias, which was followed. First, we gathered information from independent and mediating variables and demographic characteristics, in the second phase, we gathered information from dependent and moderating variables. In the first phase, 420 employees were contacted and 364 questionnaires were received (86.66%). In the second phase, we received 316 questionnaires out of 364 questionnaires (86.81%). After thoroughly studying the questionnaires, we excluded nine questionnaires due to missing data. In total, 307 completed data were collected. The respondents included 264 men (85.99%) and 43 women (14%) females. In terms of age group, 37 (12.05%) were between 25 and 29 years old, 137 (44.62%) were 30 and 35, 98 (31.92%) were 36 and 40, and 35 (11.40%) were 40 and above. Education statistics showed that 12 (3.90%) had completed HSSC, 72 (23.45%) had a bachelor’s degree, 192 (62.54%) had a master’s degree, 27 (8.79%) had an MS/Phil qualification, and 4 (1.30%) had a doctorate. The full demographic profile of the respondents is presented in Table 1.

In survey-based investigations, common method variance (CMV) should be investigated, particularly when data for independent and dependent variables are obtained simultaneously using the same technique at the same time. As advised by MacKenzie and Podsakoff (2012), we used procedural remedies that they suggested to overcome CMV, such as incorporating a well-written cover letter and ensuring that the respondents’ privacy was protected. This study also included several statistical tests to measure the severity of CMV. Upon closer examination of Table 2, it becomes clear that there is no significant link between the two variables above 0.9, suggesting that the CMV is not a reason for concern. Second, we used Kock (2015) full collinearity test, which was modified significantly. As shown in Table 3, all variance inflation factor values in this investigation were less than 3.3, indicating that CMV risk was not found in this study.

In the assessment criteria presented by Hair et al. (2017) internal consistency, reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity are all reviewed as part of the evaluation process. As shown in Table 4, all constructs had Cronbach’s α values more than 0.7, and the composite reliability values in Table 3 were greater than 0.7, showing that variables had excellent internal consistency. Additionally, since the factor loadings were larger than 0.7 and the average variance extracted (AVE) values of all reflective components were greater than 0.5, convergent validity was established. To establish discriminant validity, the Fornell–Larcker criteria and the Heterotrait–Monotrait ratio (HTMT) criterion were utilized. We found that AVE’s square root was greater than the correlation values in the rows and columns to fulfill the Fornell–Larcker criterion (Table 3). The HTMT number should not exceed 0.85 in terms of the HTMT criterion (Henseler et al., 2015). Table 4 shows that all of the HTMT values in this study were less than 0.85, indicating that discriminant validity was not a major problem.

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to assess the factor structure of the EL, KS, psychological ownership, and professional commitment scales. Different confirmatory factor analyses were performed through AMOS 22. The resulting 4 factor model demonstrated excellent fit, χ2/df = 2.23, RMR = 0.03, GFI = 0.88, CFI = 0.90, and RMSEA = 0.02. See Table 2 for the series of CFA and see Table 3 for the factor loadings.

Table 3 displays the means, standard deviations, correlations, and scale reliability of the data. The research variables’ correlations were in the predicted directions, and all of the study variables had an acceptable degree of internal consistency, as shown in Table 1. Employees’ KS behavior was positively related to EL (r = 0.668, p < 0.01). Furthermore, EL was positively related to both PO and PC (r = 0.572, p < 0.01; r = 0.556, p < 0.01). The Variance Inflation Factor was used to assess for multicollinearity in this study (VIF). The VIF values in Table 4 varied from 1.335 to 1.627, which is less than 2 and deemed to be within acceptable bounds (Hair et al., 1998).

Several variables were kept under control. Individual demographics (such as age, gender, and educational level) have been found to impact employees’ knowledge behaviors in the past (Scholz and Schöner, 1999; Spector and Brannick, 2011; Connelly et al., 2012). As a result, these factors were brought under control in this study. We used four answer choices to control for individual employees’ educational level (1 = HSSC; 2 = bachelor’s; 3 = master’s; 4 = MS/Phil; 5 = PhD). The gender of the participants was dummy coded, with females being tagged as 1 and males being coded as 2. In addition, the size of the teams in our research was kept under control. According to previous studies, a bigger team size reduces a leader’s capacity to influence individual employee behavior as well as KS within workgroups (Zhao et al., 2016).

Table 5 shows the impact of EL on employees’ KS. In Table 5, the R² value of 0.35 revealed that EL explained 35% of the variation in KS behavior with F(1, 305) =165.70, p < 0.001. The findings revealed that EL was positively related to KS behavior (β = 0.55, p < 0.001). In Table 6, Hayes’ PROCESS (5000bootstrappingwasspecified) was used to test Hypotheses 2, EL was found to have a positive indirect (PO) relationship with KS via psychological ownership (B = 0.42, Lower limit = 0.3432, and Upper limit = 0.5102), showing that Hypothesis 2 was also accepted.

The moderating effect of PC in the relationship between EL and KS was investigated using Hayes (2017) (model 1). As a consequence of the findings (Table 7), it was found that the interaction term had a statistically significant effect on employees’ KS behavior (β = −0.1046^*), indicating that PC moderated the positive relationship between EL and employees’ KS behavior. In Figure 2, the interactions between EL and KS and are shown at ± standard deviation from the mean of PO. A simple slope test was used to determine the strength of the positive associations between EL and employees’ KS behaviors at high and low levels of PC. The simple slope test showed a significant positive relationship (β = 0.1771, p = 0.0007) for employees with high PO, Thus, Hypothesis 3 is verified.

First, this study examines the effect of EL on employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior using a psychological perspective. In spite of previous research indicating that EL has a significant impact on employees’ risk-taking and pro-social behavior, such as employee voice, creativity and organizational citizenship, there is surprisingly little research on the impact of EL on employees’ KS (Lei et al., 2019; Men et al., 2020). Sharing one’s knowledge is primarily a risk-taking and pro-social behavior with a psychological component, as it implies that one’s willingness to share knowledge with others will be reduced if one’s ownership of one’s expertise is lost (Spender and Grant, 1996). Our findings show that EL is important for encouraging employees to share their knowledge. This finding adds to the growing body of evidence that information sharing has psychological significance. Future studies could examine additional potential antecedents of information sharing at work from a psychological standpoint. Second, most previous studies on EL have relied on theoretical perspectives, such as social exchange theory (Garba et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2019; Eva et al., 2020) and social identity theory (De Roeck and Farooq, 2018; Yang and Wei, 2018; Gerpott et al., 2019). We investigated the impact of EL on KS among workers using the social learning theory to explain the influence of EL on employee behavior. Our research sheds light on the mediating mechanisms of psychological ownership as well as the moderating variable of professional commitment by demonstrating that employees engage in pro-social and psychological behavior under the guidance and supervision of EL to share knowledge. According to Garba et al. (2018), as a manager and as a role model, an ethical leader actively enhances the external events of the organization while also transforming the self-Concept of their employees. This finding supports the theoretical concepts. When it comes to psychologically strong employees and management traits, our study provides a more complete picture of how these two aspects interact to influence employee behavior in a more comprehensive manner. Using this approach, we can provide empirical evidence to support our theoretical understanding of EL by demonstrating that a leader’s twin functions as a psychological person and psychological manager are crucial in encouraging colleagues to act in a professional manner (Adil and Kamal, 2018; Xiao and Cooke, 2019). Third, as a result of our research, we found that employee professional dedication and KS among colleagues are both critical variables in encouraging information sharing among colleagues. According to the results, EL is a value-based leadership style generally acknowledged in the development of workers’ professional skills and abilities (Den Hartog, 2015). In the case of an ethical leader who is a real ethical role model, the values of that leader are recognized and reflected by their followers’ behaviors.

Our findings also demonstrate that professional commitment is associated with an explanatory power that is comparable to psychological ownership in the EL- employee KS relationship. As Ryan and Deci (2002) argue, external aims are not necessarily inferior to internal driving factors when it comes to motivating people’s behavior (Eva et al., 2020). Our findings corroborate the efficacy of the twin processes (psychological ownership and professional commitment) predicted by the EL paradigm is significant affects followers’ attitudes and conduct to a great degree. Our theoretical model meaningfully connects the literature on leadership, knowledge management, psychological ownership, and professional commitment, and more research is needed to fully understand the impact of EL on the psychological wellbeing of others around them, as this study demonstrates.

Our research provides insight into how organizations might encourage their employees to share their knowledge in ways that are beneficial to the company as a whole, rather than just to themselves. First, according to our findings, ethical leaders are actively involved in stimulating information sharing among their staff. Employees who desire to boost KS at work may want to be mentally robust and to participate in professional development programs that encourage ethical conduct. Second, organizations could encourage EL by offering training programs for leaders, stressing the relevance of psychological concepts, and presenting examples of ethical behavior that leaders should demonstrate in their everyday behavior and management practices. Third, when it comes to encouraging information sharing within an organization, it is critical that employees understand the significance of both internal and external regulations. Consequently, organizations must regularly implement mental health programs to prevent interruptions in the flow of information among their employees.