Coaching Ethical Values: An Empirical Investigation in Mentoring Dyads of the Relation Between Engaging Leadership and Ethical Organizational Values

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the well written paper. The title effectively conveys the study's focus on the relationship between engaging leadership and ethical organizational values. It suggests an empirical approach to understanding dyadic interactions, which is a promising avenue for research on ethics and leadership. The abstract aligns with this and provides a clear summary of the research question, methodology, key findings, and implications.

In the introduction in the first sentence the reader expects a reference in parenthesis but we are faced with an acronym (EOC). This acronym is also used and explained in the abstract so we can get rid of it here and place an appropriate reference instead. 

In hypothesis 1 on line 131 page 3 what is the engaging leadership positively correlated with? This sentence is not clear. 

For example in H3 engaging leadership is positively correlated with strength of EoC is clearly stated but in H1 and H2 I cannot understand what two constructs are positively correlated. It seems here that the authors should go over and revise all their hypotheses the main reason that ı will be giving major revise. 

In figure 1 Mentee is capitalized. Is there a reason for this if there is one it should be so throughout the text. 

Lines 313 to 316 some words are used in parenthesis such as "41 (full work) days" why do you need this just state 41 full work days and what is the significance of a full work day versus a half working day for example? It seems that this issue is important. 

Very important point is that you report using 20 dyads do you have a reference for stating that for the particular analysis you used this is enough?

Author Response

Overall answer:

Thank you very much for the constructive and appreciative remarks on our paper. We have added more recent literature to support the theoretical model and our hypotheses. We also provide more details on the data collection process. We added the hypotheses in the theoretical model in order to improve clarity. We added the hypotheses in the theoretical model in order to improve clarity and we also specify in H1 and H2 that these hypotheses refer to the interdependence within dyads of mentor and mentees evaluations of engaging leadership and EOC.  This is also specified in the revised figure with the overall model. We have corrected the typos in the figure and the remaining ones in the text (thank you for pointing this out). We have revised the methods to provide more details on data collection processes and we now specify that the time spent on the mentoring program was the equivalent of 41 work days – this detail is needed in order to contextualize the nature of the mentoring program. Most of the instruments used are established measures and we provided details on their source. We now report the small sample size as a limitation of our research. We have revised the practical implications and the conclusion sections. We also revised the discussion section in order to provide more clarity in the theoretical contributions of our research and also point out future research directions. We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence and we thank you for your constructive remarks. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your manuscript, whose aim is to investigate the link between engaging leadership and the strength of an ethical organizational culture in leader-follower mentoring dyads by using a sample of 20 dyads and the application of Actor Partner Interdependence Model. The manuscript is easy to read, the structure of the manuscript is appropriate, and the consistency of the individual parts is maintained throughout the manuscript. However, the paper requires revisions, including clarifying the gap of current state of knowledge, providing a more grounded theoretical framework, providing a more detailed methodological description, and refining the clarity of the research contributions to ensure that the manuscript meets the academic standards.

 

The detailed comments are as follows:

1.   The presented introduction section does not follow any specific logic, does not place the study in a broad context, and does not highlight why it is important. The introduction should contain (1) what gap of current state of knowledge is addressed – meaning what was done by other researchers and yet remains unsolved; (2) the need for this particular study and what issues (theoretical and practical) it addresses. The authors argue that “Our article presents one of the first empirical attempts to examine the role of shared perceptions of engaging leadership emerging in mentoring programs implemented in leader-follower dyads.” (Lines 55-57). However, I suggest that the authors provide a more detailed review of the literature to clearly position their study within the existing body of research. This can help to further substantiate their claim and highlight the novelty of their work.

2.   Authors claim: “[this study] provides a novel framework that highlights the unique role of mentoring programs in fostering the strength of EOC” (Lines 57-58). However, to substantiate this claim, the study should include a conceptual mode, a visual diagram showing relationships between engaging leadership, mentoring programs, relational variables, and EOC, linking it to a theoretical foundation, operational definitions, and a clear use of this framework for both practical and theoretical implications.

3.   The literature review appears to lack recent studies, which is a significant oversight. Engaging leadership and mentoring programs have been the focus of numerous recent empirical studies. Including newer sources would provide a more comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the field. This would also help to contextualise the study's theoretical contributions which is now missing.

4.   The authors provided "Figure 1. The overall theoretical model." However, the figure could be improved by supplementing it with visual representations of the hypotheses. Currently, only lines between variables are shown, making it unclear which hypothesis corresponds to each line.

5.   The authors' description of their data collection context and the specific conditions under which the study was conducted is quite limited. They mention that data were collected from a mentoring program in a large organization where senior managers mentored junior employees. However, this brief description lacks specific details about the organizational context, the nature of the mentoring program, and the characteristics of the participants.

6.   The authors' description of their data collection process lacks sufficient detail and clarity, which is crucial to meeting higher academic standards. They mention contacting 81 participants in 41 dyads and obtaining complete data from 20 dyads, but do not provide specifics on the selection criteria, recruitment process, or potential biases. A thorough discussion of potential biases and ethical considerations is needed to enhance transparency, credibility, and generalizability of the findings.

7.   Section “Measures” (Lines 324-365). This is a crucial part of the manuscript, and I recommend including the appendix with the complete construct of each variable with references along with Cronbach's alpha for each construct.

8.   Authors should provide a more detailed explanations of APIM approach, including how they handled potential confounding variables and the specific steps taken to ensure the robustness of their mediation analysis.

9.   The Results section is quite limited. I recommend the inclusion of visual aids, such as path diagrams, to illustrate the mediation pathways and the interdependence between dyad members.

10.Although Section 5 is called ‘Discussion’, the authors did not discuss the findings in the context of similar studies and the discussion section is quite limited, citing only two studies from the last five years (2019 and 2020) and three older studies (2000, 2004, 2009). As a general rule, the discussion should be organised in such a way as to allow the author to summarise the results and compare with those from previous research. All hypotheses should be addressed in the context of similar studies.

11.Although the authors acknowledge the limitation of generalisability, this does not adequately address how the findings can be valuable primarily within the specific context and field studied. The results are derived from a small sample size within a single organization, which limits their broader applicability. Therefore, it is crucial to clearly delineate the specific conditions and organizational context under which the study was conducted and the level to which these findings are generalised.

12.Section “Practical implication” (Line 497) mostly presents template-based recommendations with no actual value to practitioners, for example: “Leaders should actively work to develop engaging leadership (skills) and practices” (Lines 499-500).

13.The authors did not provide any theoretical discussion or theoretical implications. While the focus of engaging leadership and the strength of an ethical organisational culture is leaning towards practical problem solving, the theoretical contribution cannot be neglected, and improving or extending the existing knowledge is mandatory, but it seems rather that the readers are supposed to conclude the lessons learnt by themselves.

14.The Conclusions section appears to be largely a copy-paste from the abstract. It would benefit from a more detailed synthesis of the study's findings, implications, and suggestions for future research, providing a distinct summary that goes beyond the abstract.

15.Please, be consistent with using abbreviations or not EOC was used with full explanation and abbreviation very often, which is not necessary. In addition, the Abbreviations list (Line 532) lacks abbreviations that were used in this manuscript.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your manuscript, whose aim is to investigate the link between engaging leadership and the strength of an ethical organizational culture in leader-follower mentoring dyads by using a sample of 20 dyads and the application of Actor Partner Interdependence Model. The manuscript is easy to read, the structure of the manuscript is appropriate, and the consistency of the individual parts is maintained throughout the manuscript. However, the paper requires revisions, including clarifying the gap of current state of knowledge, providing a more grounded theoretical framework, providing a more detailed methodological description, and refining the clarity of the research contributions to ensure that the manuscript meets the academic standards.

Answer: thank you very much for the constructive and appreciative remarks on our paper. We have added more recent literature to support the theoretical model and our hypotheses and to more clearly emphasize the gap in the literature. We also provide more details on the data collection process. We added the hypotheses in the theoretical model in order to improve clarity. We have further revised the theoretical and practical implications of our findings and further developed this section. The gap in the literature is specified in the revised version of the paper: ““In particular, literature to date did not explore how relational mechanisms emerging in leader-follower dyads such as psychological safety, knowledge sharing, distrust and organizational identification, influence the emergence of EOC perceptions in these dyads”. We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence. 

 

The detailed comments are as follows:

1. The presented introduction section does not follow any specific logic, does not place the study in a broad context, and does not highlight why it is important. The introduction should contain (1) what gap of current state of knowledge is addressed – meaning what was done by other researchers and yet remains unsolved; (2) the need for this particular study and what issues (theoretical and practical) it addresses. The authors argue that “Our article presents one of the first empirical attempts to examine the role of shared perceptions of engaging leadership emerging in mentoring programs implemented in leader-follower dyads.” (Lines 55-57). However, I suggest that the authors provide a more detailed review of the literature to clearly position their study within the existing body of research. This can help to further substantiate their claim and highlight the novelty of their work.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. We revised the paper and included several recent sources, including sources from Administrative Sciences to better develop our theoretical framework (see below a list with the recent titles from Administrative Sciences used in the paper). Moreover, in the Introduction we clearly emphasize the gap in the literature: “In particular, literature to date did not explore how relational mechanisms emerging in leader-follower dyads such as psychological safety, knowledge sharing, distrust and organizational identification, influence the emergence of EOC perceptions in these dyads.”

Abuzaid, A. N., Ghadi, M. Y., Madadha, S.-a. M., & Alateeq, M. M. (2024). The Effect of Ethical Leadership on Innovative Work Behaviors: A Mediating–Moderating Model of Psychological Empowerment, Job Crafting, Proactive Personality, and Person–Organization Fit. Administrative Sciences, 14(9), 191. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090191

Argyropoulou, E., & Lintzerakou, E. E. (2025). Contextual Factors and Their Impact on Ethical Leadership in Educational Settings. Administrative Sciences, 15(1), 23

Fatoki, O. (2024). Inclusive Leadership and Employee Voice Behaviour: Serial Mediating Effects of Psychological Safety and Affective Commitment. Administrative Sciences, 14(9), 199. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090199

Manole E. C., Curșeu, P.L., Olar, N.I. & Fodor, O. C. (2024) Believing in change: Predicting identification, performance, and ethical culture in an organizational acquisition case in Romania. Administrative Sciences, 14, 10:234. doi: 10.3390/admsci14100234

Santarpia, F. P., Borgogni, L., Cantonetti, G., & Brecciaroli, S. (2025). Sculpting Leadership on Employees’ Craft: The Conceptual Framework and Measure of Crafting Leadership. Administrative Sciences, 15(1), 8. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci15010008

Santiago-Torner, C., González-Carrasco, M., & Miranda Ayala, R. A. (2024). Ethical Leadership and Emotional Exhaustion: The Impact of Moral Intensity and Affective Commitment. Administrative Sciences, 14(9), 233. https://doi.org/10.3390/admsci14090233

 

2. Authors claim: “[this study] provides a novel framework that highlights the unique role of mentoring programs in fostering the strength of EOC” (Lines 57-58). However, to substantiate this claim, the study should include a conceptual mode, a visual diagram showing relationships between engaging leadership, mentoring programs, relational variables, and EOC, linking it to a theoretical foundation, operational definitions, and a clear use of this framework for both practical and theoretical implications.

Answer: we have revised this section. It is not our aim to develop a conceptual model along the lines you suggest. Our conceptual model is depicted in Figure 1 and in line with your suggestions we amended this figure to mention the specific hypotheses as well. We have revised the section you mentioned (lines 57-58) to emphasize the role of dyadic exploration as a novel methodological  approach, rather than a novel conceptual framework.

3. The literature review appears to lack recent studies, which is a significant oversight. Engaging leadership and mentoring programs have been the focus of numerous recent empirical studies. Including newer sources would provide a more comprehensive and up-to-date understanding of the field. This would also help to contextualise the study's theoretical contributions which is now missing.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. As we mentioned in our earlier reply, we revised the paper and included several recent sources, including sources from Administrative Sciences to better develop our theoretical framework. Moreover, in the theoretical framework we also included some more recent sources on mentorship in organizations

Ivey, G. W., & Dupré, K. E. (2022). Workplace mentorship: A critical review. Journal of Career Development, 49(3), 714-729.

Johnson, W. B., Long, S., Smith, D. G., & Griffin, K. A. (2023). Creating a mentoring culture in graduate training programs. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 17(1), 63.

Grocutt, A., Gulseren, D., Weatherhead, J. G., & Turner, N. (2022). Can mentoring programmes develop leadership?. Human Resource Development International, 25(4), 404-414.

Roy, A., Newman, A., Round, H., & Bhattacharya, S. (2024). Ethical culture in organizations: A review and agenda for future research. Business Ethics Quarterly, 34(1), 97-138.

 

4. The authors provided "Figure 1. The overall theoretical model." However, the figure could be improved by supplementing it with visual representations of the hypotheses. Currently, only lines between variables are shown, making it unclear which hypothesis corresponds to each line.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. We now placed the tags with the hypotheses in Figure 1.

5. The authors' description of their data collection context and the specific conditions under which the study was conducted is quite limited. They mention that data were collected from a mentoring program in a large organization where senior managers mentored junior employees. However, this brief description lacks specific details about the organizational context, the nature of the mentoring program, and the characteristics of the participants.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. We provide more details on the mentoring program in the revised Methods section.

6. The authors' description of their data collection process lacks sufficient detail and clarity, which is crucial to meeting higher academic standards. They mention contacting 81 participants in 41 dyads and obtaining complete data from 20 dyads, but do not provide specifics on the selection criteria, recruitment process, or potential biases. A thorough discussion of potential biases and ethical considerations is needed to enhance transparency, credibility, and generalizability of the findings.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out, we now clarified that 81 employees participated in the mentoring program, 64 agreed to participate in the study and in the end we received complete usable data from 20 dyads (this would make for a response rate above 50%, which is good given the nature of the study). We mentioned that we did not collect personal data and the dyads provided an anonymized code that was used for matching participants in a dyad. The study was approved by a formal Ethical Review Board and this is mentioned in the Methods.

7. Section “Measures” (Lines 324-365). This is a crucial part of the manuscript, and I recommend including the appendix with the complete construct of each variable with references along with Cronbach's alpha for each construct.

Answer: The scales are lengthy, especially the CEVMS scale and we cannot reproduce the whole content of the scales. In addition, we do not want to generate any copyright infringements in relation to the original sources by reporting their whole measures. We mention however the source for each of our measures and give examples of items as it is customary in scientific research. We do provide all items for the distrust scale. Cronbach’s alpha are presented in the text for each of the scales used in our research. 

8. Authors should provide a more detailed explanations of APIM approach, including how they handled potential confounding variables and the specific steps taken to ensure the robustness of their mediation analysis.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out, we provide more details on the MEDYAD approach in the Results section.

9. The Results section is quite limited. I recommend the inclusion of visual aids, such as path diagrams, to illustrate the mediation pathways and the interdependence between dyad members.

Answer: we understand the value of visualizing the results in a path diagram, yet having so many mediators, we would need to add more figures to depict the results that are more parsimoniously presented in Table 2. A single figure would not add much to the clarity due to the number of paths present in a dyadic model.

10.Although Section 5 is called ‘Discussion’, the authors did not discuss the findings in the context of similar studies and the discussion section is quite limited, citing only two studies from the last five years (2019 and 2020) and three older studies (2000, 2004, 2009). As a general rule, the discussion should be organised in such a way as to allow the author to summarise the results and compare with those from previous research. All hypotheses should be addressed in the context of similar studies.

Answer: we understand your remark concerning the discussion section. We could not find data on engaging leadership and EOC in leader-follower dyads in previous studies. It is therefore difficult to address the discussion section in the way you mentioned here. We did link the discussion to the previous literature on leader-follower dyads by emphasizing the role of coaching as a vehicle of social influence in such dyads. Moreover, in each of the sections of the discussion we position the main effects in the context of previous studies and we emphasized better the theoretical contributions of our research. We strengthened the discussions part in the revision and we hope we clarified the implications of our results.

 

11.Although the authors acknowledge the limitation of generalisability, this does not adequately address how the findings can be valuable primarily within the specific context and field studied. The results are derived from a small sample size within a single organization, which limits their broader applicability. Therefore, it is crucial to clearly delineate the specific conditions and organizational context under which the study was conducted and the level to which these findings are generalised.

Answer: it is indeed a limitation that our study was carried out in a single organization and we refer to this aspect in the limitations section. We provided more details on the mentoring program and we hope this helps further the contextualization of our results. We also provided data on the type of organization, but we cannot provide more details as we would not like the organization to be identified in the text. I hope we addressed this particular concern and you understand the restrictions related to providing more details on the organizational context.

12.Section “Practical implication” (Line 497) mostly presents template-based recommendations with no actual value to practitioners, for example: “Leaders should actively work to develop engaging leadership (skills) and practices” (Lines 499-500).

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. We have revised the practical implications to emphasize more clearly the key practical and policy implications of our study.

13.The authors did not provide any theoretical discussion or theoretical implications. While the focus of engaging leadership and the strength of an ethical organisational culture is leaning towards practical problem solving, the theoretical contribution cannot be neglected, and improving or extending the existing knowledge is mandatory, but it seems rather that the readers are supposed to conclude the lessons learnt by themselves.

Answer: we have revised the discussion section to emphasize the theoretical implications of our results, especially with respect to the relational approaches that are needed to understand the link between leadership and EOC.

14.The Conclusions section appears to be largely a copy-paste from the abstract. It would benefit from a more detailed synthesis of the study's findings, implications, and suggestions for future research, providing a distinct summary that goes beyond the abstract.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out, we have revised this section as well.

15.Please, be consistent with using abbreviations or not EOC was used with full explanation and abbreviation very often, which is not necessary. In addition, the Abbreviations list (Line 532) lacks abbreviations that were used in this manuscript.

Answer: thank you for pointing this out. We added the abbreviations to the list and amended the manuscript accordingly. We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence and we thank you for your constructive remarks

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper explores the relationship between engaging leadership and the strength of the EOC in the mentor-mentee dyads. The authors adopt the APIM model on a sample of 20 dyads to analyse the mediation role of the relational variables such as psychology, distrust, knowledge sharing and organisational identification. The results show that the perception of the mentee engaging in leadership is positively correlated to the ethical culture and psychological security and negatively correlated to mistrust. The paper highlights the importance of engaging leadership to reinforce trust and organisational identification by emphasising the importance and value of adopting mentoring programmes to promote an ethical environment in organisations.

Strengths: the paper is well-organised, and all the sections are well-developed. First, focusing on the interpersonal/relational variables is essential to understanding trust dynamics and mutual influence. Second, the paper provides new empirical evidence on how the link between engaging leadership and ethical culture develops in mentoring relationships, extending knowledge in the ethical leadership field of research. Third, it highlights the critical role of consistency between leadership and ethical values in building a work environment based on trust and psychological safety. Fourth, the authors also provide practical suggestions to reinforce the ethical culture, providing managerial guidelines to develop an engaging leadership to improve the business environment.

Weaknesses are mainly those already underlined by authors: a) the reduced sample dimension that can affect the results’ generalisability and influence the statistical relationship hypothesised; b) data collection based only on participants’ self-reports can be a source of bias.

However, the methodological rigour adopted in this study, in my view, supports its replicability in larger samples in future research, which could also address these aspects.

Some (very) minor aspects to take care of: 1) quick check on some mistakes (for instance, pag. 1 line 33: “the this interplay”). 2) The conclusion section could be improved by better summarising the overall content of the paper.

Author Response

Overall answer:

Thank you very much for the constructive and appreciative remarks on our paper. We have revised the paper to improve clarity and we have corrected the mistakes you have identified as well as other remaining issues. We added more recent literature to support the theoretical model and our hypotheses. We also provide more details on the data collection process. We added the hypotheses in the theoretical model in order to improve clarity. We have further revised the practical implications of our findings and further developed this section. Moreover, we emphasize the small sample size as a clear limitation of our study. We acknowledge the limitations of using self-report, yet this method of data collection was considered the most suitable to capture the engaging leadership as well as the strength of the EOC. Moreover, by using APIM as an analytical framework we alleviate the concerns with the common method bias. We also mention these aspects in the limitations section of our paper. We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence. We have also revised the concluding section in order to summarize better the main contributions of our paper.  We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence and we thank you for your constructive remarks

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

Thank you for allowing me to read and review your work.

Here are some of my observations:

-the introduction establishes the context of engaging leadership and ethical organizational culture, highlighting significant prior research. However, please consider adding more recent studies to enrich the background.

-an actor-partner interdependence model is a robust approach for examining the dyadic relationships in mentor-mentee dynamics. The selected sample size is appropriate for the study's scope.

-Although the methods section outlines the data collection process and instruments, further details on the specific measures and their development could enhance clarity.

-the results are well-organized and communicated effectively using descriptive statistics and correlation analyses. To enhance understanding, consider adding visual representations of key findings.

-the conclusions follow the results presented, but I consider that a stronger connection between the empirical findings and the broader implications for practice could be beneficial.

Author Response

Overall answer:

Thank you very much for the constructive and appreciative remarks on our paper. We have added more recent literature to support the theoretical model and our hypotheses and we have added a reference to the first sentence of the introduction as you mentioned. We also provide more details on the data collection process. We have further revised the practical implications of our findings and further developed this section. We understand the value of visualizing the results in a path diagram, yet having so many mediators, we would need to add more figures to depict the results that are more parsimoniously presented in Table 2. A single figure would not add much to the clarity due to the number of paths present in a dyadic model. We believe the revised paper improved in clarity and coherence and we thank you for your constructive remarks. 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thanks for the revisions could be accepted. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have reviewed the manuscript following the proofreading process. The authors have duly considered the primary comments and have made the necessary corrections to the manuscript.