Adeshipo, Adebowale ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2276-6683 (2021) ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR: A STUDY OF NIGERIA. Doctoral thesis, University of the West of Scotland.

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Abstract

The challenges and the growing issues of ethical scandals in respect to leadership in diverse organisations (public, private and hybrid sectors) has driven the growing demand for ethics as a core pillar of leadership. This has driven the necessity for critical research works in the field of ethical leadership as a solution to these ethical challenges. The adoption of the concept of ethical leadership in recent years as a countermeasure towards the surge of ethical scandals involving leaders in organisations. Ethical leadership is not a relatively new paradigm within the leadership construct. Research studies have shown progress in understanding the constituent of ethics as a core component of leadership within the last three decades. While achieving a nascent state with regards to understanding and inculcating it within the field, there exists a fragmentation about the conceptualisation of ethical leadership and gaps in knowledge within the field especially with regards to skills.
This research study explored the concept of ethical leadership within the Nigeria public sector, with a core emphasis on the ethic-based challenges and the development of a skills framework to foster ethical leadership in the sector to improve their effectiveness and performance. Whilst there are studies on the development and behaviours of ethical leaders, this study contributes to the literature by providing a skills-based understanding of ethical leadership. This study addressed the gap through the exploration of Nigerian public sector leaders.
An interpretivist philosophy underpinned this study, which utilised an inductive approach to provide a medium for understanding and drawing information to garner a better picture of the phenomenon. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were adopted to acquire rich data and insight into public sector leader’s perspective. A thematic analysis was adopted to identify themes of ethical leadership in the Nigerian public sector.
Findings from this study allowed for several contributions to the body of knowledge in the field of ethical leadership. An adoption of a systematic review process was done to critic current literature of ethical leadership and implements a series of set questions to explore and provide a basis for future study. An empirical skills-based framework of ethical leadership was constructed from the findings of this study’s field research. This framework identifies the ethic-based challenges and the skills essential for an ethical leader. Furthermore, future avenues for research were derived.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Status:	Submitted
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
School/Department:	London Campus
URI:	https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/10021

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