Organizational Commitment, Organizational Culture, and Employee Integrity at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise: The Mediating Role of Ethical Leadership

Repeated corruption cases at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC) show that high institutional integrity scores do not guarantee that employees act with integrity. This study tests social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) and social exchange theory (Blau, 1964) by examining how organizational commitment and organizational culture affect employee integrity, both directly and through ethical leadership as a mediator. The novelty lies in treating integrity as the final outcome rather than a predictor of performance, testing the path from culture and commitment toward ethical leadership (the reverse of the usual direction), and applying the model to a customs institution with high discretionary authority. This explanatory quantitative study used a 1–5 Likert questionnaire completed by 209 employees across 13 directorate-level units at the DJBC Head Office (proportionate stratified random sampling) and analyzed with PLS-SEM in SmartPLS 4. All seven hypotheses were supported. Organizational culture was the strongest factor, both for ethical leadership (β = 0.692) and for employee integrity (β = 0.283), while organizational commitment had smaller effects (β = 0.113 and β = 0.146). Ethical leadership affected employee integrity (β = 0.299) and partially mediated the effect of culture (VAF = 42.20%); mediation through commitment was significant but very weak (VAF = 18.69%). The model explained 57.8% of the variance in ethical leadership and 40.7% in employee integrity. The findings support social learning theory and offer limited support for social exchange theory. Integrity efforts at DJBC should prioritize work culture and leaders’ ethical example alongside formal rules.