The impact of ethical leadership on project success with trust and knowledge sharing as mediators

Abstract

IT is the leading industry of 21st century, with the emergence of IT industry in Pakistan number of complex projects are increasing day by day across many industries under the domain of IT industry and challenges associated with this industry are substantial. According to a study conducted in 2013 only 15% of government IT project were successful in Pakistan. This has gathered everyone’s attention to probe into the reasons of failure. In the following study researchers have conducted this research to understand how ethical leadership of project managers contributes in the success of project. Here researchers have proposed and tested a model linking ethical leadership of project managers to project success and also by examining the mediating effect of trust and knowledge sharing on project success. Based on the data collected from 175 project managers and team members of IT industry including software houses of twin cities of Pakistan Islamabad and Rawalpindi. These results were then analyzed by using SPSS and model was checked by smart PLS. The results indicate that project manager’s ethical leadership have a positive impact on the success of project, with meditation of trust and knowledge sharing. Further, researchers have found evidence that trust and knowledge sharing strongly mediates the relationship between said variables. The findings of this study suggest that management while assigning a project to project manager or hiring a new project manager should gauge project manager on his leadership skills most appropriately his leading style and the way he develops of trust and promotes knowledge sharing within organization. As such kind of performance can both serve to boost project success in complex and difficult project situations