Ethical leadership as workplace innovation and enabler for employee commitment and innovative work behaviours in Vietnam

Organised work across Vietnam is undergoing a major disruptive transition to enable Vietnam’s economy to sustain high productivity. Our chapter follows an organisational behaviour perspective proposing ethical leadership as a part of workplace innovation and unpacks the impact of ethical leadership on employee affective commitment and innovative work behaviours in Vietnam. We propose a research framework and test three hypotheses exploring the relationships among ethical leadership, employee affective commitment and innovative work behaviours in Vietnam. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership positively and significantly influenced both employee commitment and innovative work behaviour in Vietnam. We explain our findings by suggesting theoretical and practical implications and then propose future research directions for workplace innovation. Finally, we propose ways in which organisations in Vietnam and similar Asian contexts could navigate the uncertainties arising from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by crafting relevant policies that lead to sustainable success.