THE MEDIATING ROLE OF MERITOCRACY AND THE MODERATING EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON THE IMPACT OF ETHICAL LEADERSHIP ON PERCIVED NEPOTISM

The general purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between nepotism, which is one of the undesirable practices in the organization, and ethical leadership, and at the same time, whether meritocracy, which is called merit-based management, plays a tool and organizational culture plays a regulatory role in this relationship. The theoretical foundations of the study are based on different foundations such as leader-member interaction, human capital theory, social learning and social change theories. The study is a quantitative study based on inter-variable interaction, mediation and regulation model tests. Questionnaire form technique was preferred in the data collection method, which was initiated after the ethics committee approval was obtained. The research data were obtained from those working in family businesses in Malatya OIZ. SPSS 26 and Process Macro 4.1 programs were used in data analysis and model hypotheses were interpreted by correlation, regression, mediator and regulatory effect analyses. The findings of the research indicate that there will be a positive relationship between ethical leadership and meritocracy and organizational culture, but a negative relationship will emerge between nepotism and ethical leadership. In addition, it has been shown that the perception of ethical leadership has an effect on the perception of nepotism and the tool of meritocracy on this effect; It is also possible to say that organizational culture plays a regulatory role.