Influence of ethical leadership in managing human resources in construction companies

Construction companies are often notorious for high employee turnover and antisocial behavior. In a hazardous work environment, arduous scheduling tasks, unethical supervision, and working with multiple team members put higher stress on employees to reflect antisocial behavior and lead to turnover intention. Therefore, this article attempts to investigate the association between ethical leadership and turnover intention and antisocial behavior through trust in the leader and procedural justice in the construction industry. From the perspective of resource conservation theory, this article assumes that the moderating influence of job embeddedness plays a role in the association between mediators (trust in leaders and procedural justice) and outcome variables (turnover intention and antisocial behavior). This article uses data collected from 275 employees of Hong Kong construction companies. The results indicated a negative association between ethical leadership and employee turnover intention in the construction industry. The results revealed that job embeddedness moderated the link between trust in leader and turnover intention, and the link between procedural justice and turnover intention. Moreover, the influence of job embeddedness was found nonsignificant in the case of antisocial behavior. This article provides useful insights for policy and decision-making authorities, especially site managers, on how ethical leadership can retain employees by strengthening trust and procedural justice in construction companies.