Contextual Ethical Leadership as a Lever for Integrating and Engaging Expatriates

ABSTRACT In a globalized world marked by ethical controversies across sectors, understanding how leaders navigate complex contexts has become crucial to ensuring responsible and legitimate governance. These controversies highlight the need for ethical leadership that is responsive to cultural and contextual complexities. This study aims to identify the characteristics of ethical leadership in multicultural settings involving expatriate workers. A total of 611 expatriates provided insights through a combination of open‐ and closed‐ended survey questions. Using an inductive qualitative approach, the analyses revealed six traits associated with ethically perceived leadership: role‐model behavior, openness to cultural diversity, transparency, supportive management practices, encouragement of autonomy, and team‐based ethics. The findings suggest that ethics cannot be separated from the context in which leadership occurs. This research offers a deeper understanding of how leaders can adapt their practices to address the ethical challenges of managing diverse, international teams.