Western societies tend to rely on societal norms to guide decision making. However, decisions based solely on societal norms may fluctuate between acceptable/unacceptable. As a result, leaders are paying heavy fines, asked to resign and in some cases found guilty in courts due to these fluctuations. This has become problematic for ethical leadership decision-making. This study introduces the foundational leadership theory which builds on ethic position theory by applying leader-member exchange concepts. Research confirmed that foundational leadership-integrity, assurance and pragmatism significantly predict organization commitment. Therefore, foundational leadership theory establishes employees' ethical perception of their leader and influences organizational commitment. CEOs, leaders, managers and supervisors should apply this foundational leadership model to evaluate ethical decision-making.

Diversity and inclusion concepts remain unclear, which has generated an explosion of new viewpoints to pursue distributive justice. These variations suggest the need for a criterion to recognize partiality or prejudices in diversity and inclusion practices. This study applies the social identity approach to investigate the impact of diversity and inclusion distributive injustices on an employee’s organizational identity. Research on perceived employee distributive injustice (PEDI) suggests organizations that favor a person's social categorization or identity may more likely create unfair compensations and incentive biases. This study hypothesizes that distributive injustices can recognize diversity and inclusion practices that negatively affect an employee’s organizational identity. The study consists of 451 full-time US employees. A Cronbach's alpha coefficient for distributive injustice is .94, and organizational identity is .92. The findings confirm that leaders and HR professionals who implement diversity and inclusion practices that favor a social characteristic or identity will erode organizational identity.

Social-political legitimacy requires leaders to do things right (normative legitimacy) and correctly (regulatory legitimacy). However, it is more challenging to manage normative legitimacy in diverse organizations. Leaders use normative legitimacy to help align organizational values to the social environment in which it operates. The ability to manage normative behaviors is an ethical virtue and may establish a link with organizational identity. This research applies the leadership ethics and decision-making (LEAD) model. The LEAD model suggests that employee perception of ethics requires leaders to conduct an outward examination of their decisions using integrity, assurance, and pragmatism. Previous research suggests that the LEAD model may act as an ethical guide to "doing things right" and potentially fill the gap in managing normative legitimacy by influencing organizational identity. The results conclude that outward examinations account for employee perceptions and that the LEAD model is a suitable ethical leadership concept. Integrity, assurance, and pragmatism have significant positive relationships with and predict organizational identity. The findings reveal that the LEAD model discerns ethical leadership behavior, appropriately manages normative legitimacy, and creates a purpose-driven workforce by developing organizational identity.

Despite leaders' investment in knowledge management practices, 76% of U.S. employees are hesitant to share tacit knowledge with co-workers. Researchers have suggested that willingness to share hinders the tacit knowledge transfer process. Employees become unwilling to share tacit knowledge with others due to cooperation and competition. The aim of this research is to understand the role of peer-to-peer cooperation on willingness to share tacit knowledge (WSTK). A total of 250 U.S. employees were sampled to measure knowledge-based trust (KBT) on WSTK. Pearson correlation and linear regression were used to investigate KBT and WSTK. Results indicated that KBT significantly predicted WSTK. Employee age and same-gender interactions did not influence the KBT-WSTK relationship. It was concluded that leaders and managers who promote KBT relationships are likely to encourage WSTK and create advantages over competitors.

The social norm theory suggests that leaders who rely on perceived norms (misperceptions) rather than actual norms may produce unfair work advantages. Furthermore, social norms alter ethical leadership behaviors. However, leadership adheres to social norms due to society's implied compliance in the absence of distributive injustice measurements. Therefore, distributive injustice may be a more salient predictor than distributive justice on affective organizational commitment. The aim of this study was to fill gaps in literature on distributive injustice and investigate negative influences on employees’ affective commitment. A distributive injustice scale was designed using employee perceptions of policies that create unfair advantages and meritless rewards. The distributive injustice scale consisted of 14 items. A survey was sent to 481 full-time employees in various industries throughout the U.S. Correlation and regression model output indicated that unfair advantages and meritless rewards had a negative relationship and influence on employees’ affective commitment. Social norm policies that create unfair advantages and meritless rewards can be perceived as a divisionary tacit that negatively impacts affective commitment.

Knowledge hiding is a destructive behavior that degrades organizational success. Knowledge hiding is the intentional withholding of information from another employee. It has been reported that 76% of U.S. employees hide knowledge from each other. The displaced aggression theory suggests that employees are more likely to hide knowledge from others in the presence of mistreatment by a leader. Therefore, there was a need to investigate new ethical theories that have been shown to influence organizational commitment and potentially decrease knowledge-hiding practices among employees. This research used foundational leadership theory (FLT) developed by Fuller in 2021 to examine the overall influence on knowledge hiding. The sample consisted of 306 full-time employees across various industries throughout the United States. The results indicated that FLT had a significant negative relationship (-0.64); regression analysis indicated that, as FLT increased, knowledge hiding decreased by 0.57. Therefore, leadership training programs that teach ethical leaders based on integrity, assurance, and pragmatism will likely reduce knowledge hiding tactics among employees and create a strategic advantage among competitors.

Organizational commitment has a significant positive association with employee work engagement. Comparatively, organizational leaders recognize the value and competitive advantage of inspiring employee work engagement for sustainability in their industry. Numerous studies confirm that ethical leadership predicts organizational commitment. However, as of 2019, research suggested that alternative ethical leadership theories were needed to explain the influence on work engagement better. This study aimed to investigate the predictive power of Foundational Leadership Theory (FLT) developed by Fuller in 2021. FLT is an inward (internal) and outward (employee perceived) examination of ethical decisions based on integrity, assurance, and pragmatism. The findings were based on responses from 248 full-time employees across various industries in the United States of America. Pearson correlation and regression analysis revealed that integrity, assurance, and pragmatism predicted positive employee work engagement. FLT is a new theory and advances our understanding of employee commitment and work engagement in an organization. Human resource managers (HRM) recognized that employee enthusiasm is reflected in their work engagement. Therefore, leaders who rely on FLT are more likely to maintain a competitive advantage by creating or improving employee enthusiasm and engagement on the job.

Organizational leaders set the example for "what is acceptable" ethical behavior and encourage organizational citizenship behavior among employees. Organizational citizenship behavior is the willingness to go above and beyond regular duties and responsibilities without using formal reward systems. However, employees who use social comparisons or repeatedly witness leaders who tolerate deviant behaviors are more likely to morally disengage from the positive attributes associated with organizational citizenship behavior. This research aims to determine ethical leadership attributes that resist the negative impact of perceived deviance tolerance on employee organizational citizenship behavior. The Leadership Ethic and Decision-making (LEAD) model is grounded in the foundational leadership theory which suggests that leaders should conduct an inward examination using integrity and assurance with an outward examination based on pragmatism to improve employee perception of ethical decision-making. The result of this study is based on responses from 378 full-time employees in the United States. The findings reveal that LEAD is a reliable, ethical leadership model and pragmatism is resistant to negative moderation of perceived tolerance of deviant behavior on employee contributions in the workplace. Therefore, leaders, managers, and HR professionals who apply the LEAD model will influence organizational citizenship behavior while reducing the deviant behaviors associated with the perceived tolerance of deviance.