ABSTRACT Ethical leaders can influence followers’ ethical behaviors by establishing an ethical climate. However, followers’ responses to an ethical climate may also differ according to the amount of attention they devote to moral questions. This study analyzes whether moral attentiveness augments the positive effect of an ethical climate on employees’ ethical behaviors, as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employee ethical behavior through an ethical climate. Data from 270 employees in the Malaysian manufacturing industry indicate that the (...) positive impact of an ethical climate on ethical behavior is greater among employees who exhibit high rather than low moral attentiveness; this moderating role also applies to the relationship between ethical leadership and employee ethical behavior through the ethical climate. This study thus sheds new light on the notable role of moral attentiveness in ensuring that ethical leadership and ethical climate enhance ethical behavior in the workplace. (shrink)

Ethical leaders can influence followers’ ethical behaviors by establishing an ethical climate. However, followers’ responses to an ethical climate may also differ according to the amount of attention they devote to moral questions. This study analyzes whether moral attentiveness augments the positive effect of an ethical climate on employees’ ethical behaviors, as well as the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employee ethical behavior through an ethical climate. Data from 270 employees in the Malaysian manufacturing industry indicate that the positive (...) impact of an ethical climate on ethical behavior is greater among employees who exhibit high rather than low moral attentiveness; this moderating role also applies to the relationship between ethical leadership and employee ethical behavior through the ethical climate. This study thus sheds new light on the notable role of moral attentiveness in ensuring that ethical leadership and ethical climate enhance ethical behavior in the workplace. (shrink)

Persistent and pervasive rudeness and lack of respect are unfortunately common in workplaces today. The deleterious effects of this incivility at work may be even worse than previously demonstrated, impacting not only employee victims but also trickling down to those who employees contact. However, we propose that leaders who prioritize their followers’ needs above their own, also known as servant leaders, may be a critical preventative mechanism to reduce group-level incivility through promoting a virtuous climate. Applying social learning theory and (...) social information processing theory, we argue that servant leaders role model virtuous character that contributes to a virtuous climate that influences group members to reduce incivility and, in turn, treat others well. We utilize the healthcare setting to support this hypothesized process across multi-source measures of incivility from coworkers and team supervisors and three indicators of quality of patient care. Specific findings and implications for managers in healthcare settings and beyond are discussed. (shrink)

In this study, we used the framework of institutional anomie theory The future of anomie theory, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1997) to examine the relationship between supervisors’ ethics and their personal value orientation, including achievement and pecuniary materialism. We further investigated whether these individual-level associations were moderated by societal factors consisting of income inequality, government efficiency, foreign competition, and technological advancement. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze data of 16,464 supervisors from 42 nations obtained from the 2010–2014 wave of (...) the World Values Survey. Results showed that strong achievement value orientation was positively related to willingness to justify ethically suspect behaviors; government efficiency and technological advancement, respectively, had negative and positive moderating effects on this relationship. On the other hand, foreign competition had a positive moderating effect on the association between pecuniary materialism and ethicality. (shrink)

This study extends earlier findings on ethical leadership by testing the relationship of the seven dimensions of ethical leadership with job satisfaction, organization commitment, job embeddedness, and cynicism. It uses time-lagged data from 585 employees in Pakistan. Using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, the study supports the concept of multidimensional ethical leadership in the Eastern setting and indicates that the dimensions of people orientation, fairness, power sharing, ethical guidance, and role clarification are associated with the majority of outcomes, (...) as suggested by social exchange theory. However, the concern for sustainability and integrity dimensions had a limited effect. (shrink)

Based on ideology-infused psychological contract theory and cognitive evaluation theory, this study investigated the curvilinear relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. A curvilinear mediation model was proposed to explain the impact of ethical leadership on creativity, using employee intrinsic motivation as the mediator. Applying a two wave sampling design that consist 258 employees and their leaders, we found that employee creativity improved as ethical leadership increased from low to moderate levels. However, the employee creativity improvement was attenuated when ethical (...) leadership increased from moderate to high levels. Furthermore, the study also revealed that employee intrinsic motivation partially mediated this curvilinear relationship. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

Drawing on social exchange theory, the present study seeks to understand how ethical leaders channel followers’ responses to positive treatment from the organization into a dutiful mindset, resulting in in-role and extra-role performance. Specifically, it examines the influence of perceived organizational support on both followers’ job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, and the mediating effects of duty orientation on such relationships. In addition, it examines whether the mediated effects are contingent on the ethical leadership exhibited by the team leader. Based (...) on multi-source, multi-level data obtained from 233 employees in 60 teams from the Chinese public sector, we found that ethical leadership moderated the mediated relationship between perceived organizational support and follower work behaviors through duty orientation, such that this relationship was stronger in the presence of higher ethical leadership. (shrink)

Emotion management in the workplace is drawing increasing attention from researchers. However, they still know little about how positive leadership affects employees’ emotional labor. Building on social information-processing theory, we examine whether and how a servant leadership style influences employees’ emotional labor. Using a sample of 305 employees in 81 work units of 25 subcorporations at a food company in China, we find that servant leadership relates negatively to surface acting but relates positively to deep acting at work. We also (...) find that the indirect effect of servant leadership on surface/deep acting via affective trust is stronger than the indirect effect via cognitive trust. Our research reveals that servant leadership influences employees’ emotional labor more through affective trust than cognitive trust. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings. (shrink)

Over the past decade, ethical leadership has increasingly become one of the most popular topics in the areas of leadership and business ethics. As a result, there now exists a substantial body of empirical research addressing ethical leadership issues, but the findings reported by this body of research are highly fragmented. The topic has advanced to the stage where a review and synthesis of existing literature can provide great value and help move the scholarly conversation forward. The primary purposes of (...) this article are to review empirical findings from the ethical leadership literature utilizing a framework consisting of the antecedents, mediators, moderators and outcomes of ethical leadership, and suggest a set of interesting research opportunities, thereby facilitating future investigation. We base our synthesis on a review of 62 empirical studies on ethical leadership that were published between 2005 and mid-2015. (shrink)

Although a growing body of research has shown the positive impact of ethical leadership on workplace deviance, questions remain as to whether its benefits are consistent across all situations. In this investigation, we explore an important boundary condition of ethical leadership by exploring how employees’ moral awareness may lessen the need for ethical leadership. Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, we suggest that when individuals already possess a heightened level of moral awareness, ethical leadership’s role in reducing deviant actions may (...) be reduced. However, when individuals lack this strong moral disposition, ethical leadership may be instrumental in inspiring them to reduce their deviant actions. To enhance the external validity and generalizability of our findings, the current research used two large field samples of working professionals in both Turkey and the USA. Results suggest that ethical leadership’s positive influence on workplace deviance is dependent upon the individual’s moral awareness—helpful for those employees whose moral awareness is low, but not high. Thus, our investigation helps to build theory around the contingencies of ethical leadership and the specific audience for whom it may be more influential. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:In the expanding field of ethical leadership research, little attention has been paid to the association between ethical leaders’ ethical characteristics and perceived ethical leadership, and, more importantly, the potential influence of ethical leadership on followers’ ethical characteristics. In this study, we tested a theoretical model based upon social cognitive theory to examine leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership, and follower moral identity and moral attentiveness as outcomes of ethical leadership. Based upon data from (...) 89 leaders and 460 followers in China, collected at two points in time, we found that leaders’ moral identity and moral attentiveness are associated with follower’s perceptions of ethical leadership. Ethical leadership is, in turn, associated with their followers’ moral identity and moral attentiveness. We found furthermore that ethical leadership mediates the effect of leaders’ moral identity on followers’ moral identity, but not the effect of leaders’ moral attentiveness on followers’ moral attentiveness. We discuss the findings, theoretical contributions, practical implications, and future research. (shrink)

This study examines the relation of ethical leadership with loyalty to supervisor, as well as mediating and moderating variables of this relation by proposing a moderated mediation model. Specifically, we employed time-lagged research design to collect two waves of data from 395 supervisor-subordinate dyads in 74 teams, and used multilevel structural equation modeling to test the moderated mediation model. Results indicated that ethical leadership was positively related to loyalty to supervisor, interactional justice mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and loyalty (...) to supervisor, and collectivistic orientation moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and interactional justice. Moreover, collectivistic orientation moderated the strength of the indirect effect of ethical leadership on loyalty to supervisor, and the mediated relationship was stronger for high collectivistic subordinates than for low collectivistic subordinates. Theoretical and practical implications and future research directions were discussed. (shrink)

The interest in ethical leadership has grown in the past few years, with an emphasis on the mechanisms through which it affects organizational life. However, research on the boundary conditions that limit and/or enhance its effectiveness is still scarce, especially concerning one of the main misconceptions about ethical leadership, its incompatibility with effectiveness . Thus, the present study examines the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational deviance via affective commitment to the organization, as a reflection of the quality of the (...) employee–organization relationship and proposes this relationship is conditional on the supervisor’s personal reputation for performance . Using a sample of 224 employees and their respective supervisors from 18 organizations, we confirmed our hypotheses . Our findings suggest that ethical leadership is positively related to employees’ affective commitment to the organization, particularly when supervisor’s reputation for performance is high, which in turn is associated with decreased organizational deviance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings conclude the paper. (shrink)

In the present article, we argue that the constant pressure that leaders face may limit the willpower required to behave according to ethical norms and standards and may therefore lead to unethical behavior. Drawing upon the ego depletion and moral self-regulation literatures, we examined whether self-regulatory depletion that is contingent upon the moral identity of leaders may promote unethical leadership behavior. A laboratory experiment and a multisource field study revealed that regulatory resource depletion promotes unethical leader behaviors among leaders who (...) are low in moral identity. No such effect was found among leaders with a high moral identity. This study extends our knowledge on why organizational leaders do not always conform to organizational goals. Specifically, we argue that the hectic and fragmented workdays of leaders may increase the likelihood that they violate ethical norms. This highlights the necessity to carefully schedule tasks that may have ethical implications. Similarly, organizations should be aware that overloading their managers with work may increase the likelihood of their leaders transgressing ethical norms. (shrink)

A two stage model was developed and tested to explain how ethical leadership relates to followers’ ethical judgment in an organizational context. Drawing on social learning theory, ethical leadership was hypothesized to promote followers’ self-leadership focused on ethics. It was found that followers’ perceived accountability fully accounts for this relationship. In stage two, the relationship between self-leadership focused on ethics and moral judgment in a dual decision-making system was described and tested. Self-leadership focused on ethics was only related to moral (...) judgment when followers use active judgment as opposed to their intuition. This provides support that a deliberate application of self-leadership focused on ethics leads to higher moral judgment. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research opportunities are discussed. (shrink)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

The criticality of ethical practices in B2B service delivery is increasingly recognised for its substantial impact on firm performance. However, there remains a gap in understanding how ethicality at managerial and staff levels translates into tangible business outcomes in B2B contexts. This study aims to bridge this gap, focusing on the impact of ethicality on perceived service delivery performance and firm performance, mainly through ethical leadership and climate lenses. The research objectives include unravelling the dynamics between staff-level ethical perceptions and (...) managerial-level ethical practices and their collective impact on service delivery and firm performance. Employing a multilevel data collection and analytical framework, the study collected data from 5500 employees and 110 managers, providing a comprehensive view of ethical influences across different organisational strata. This approach facilitated a nuanced examination of how ethical perceptions and behaviours permeate through the organisational hierarchy. Major findings reveal that individual-level ethical perceptions enhance service delivery through positive citizenship behaviour of the employees and reduced opportunism. A culture of shared ethical values, reinforced by robust ethical leadership and a supportive climate, significantly bolstered firm performance at the organisational level. These insights contribute significantly to B2B theory by elucidating the mechanisms through which ethicality at various levels influences firm outcomes. The study underscores the importance of fostering an ethical culture at the individual level and holistically across the organisation to enhance service delivery and achieve superior firm performance. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organizational behavior is one of the core factors that affect organizational development. Although enterprises and researchers have done a lot of work, a quantitative and systematic assessment of unethical pro-organizational behavior research is still lacking, this review conducts a bibliometric analysis to describe the characteristics and trends of unethical pro-organizational behavior research in business and management, such as publication trend analysis, co-citation analysis, keywords co-occurrence analysis, and citation burst analysis. The results show that 89 articles and 4,523 references from (...) 49 journals contributed by 254 authors are identified. The number of publications has increased significantly since 2019. The China and United States are the most productive country. Umphress E and Yam C are the most influential authors. “Journal of Business Ethics and Frontiers in Psychology” are the most influential journal, 26 words in 516 keywords constitute the strongest set of terms available, Keyword co-occurrence analysis found ethical decision-making, the measurement, and impact of unethical pro-organizational behavior, the antecedents of ethical leadership are worthy and prospective potential trends. These findings provide a systematically, transparently, and visually reviewed the landscape and development process of unethical pro-organizational behavior research, which may help researchers and practitioners to understand unethical pro-organizational behavior in business management and provide a new perspective for future research. (shrink)

Significant research attention has been devoted to understanding the ethical behavior of leaders (i.e., the moral person) and how leaders’ expectations influence their followers’ ethical behavior (...

The aim of this article is to undertake a systematic literature review (SLR) of empirical research that uses multi‐source methods for collecting data about Ethical Leadership (EL). Research on this sensitive subject benefits from the inclusion of data from more than one source, in order to be better supported, and thus contribute to a deeper understanding of leadership and business ethics issues. The search strategy retrieved a total of 50 multi‐source empirical studies on the topic of EL, published until December (...) 2017. This SLR shows that (a) research on EL has focused mostly on the perceptions of followers, possibly because they are the most accessible target of its outcomes, thus restricting the scope of this body of research; (b) EL is studied mainly through consideration of its consequences, a restriction that hinders explanation of the causal processes involved in ethical leadership, which remains a research arena in need of development. The systematic inclusion of other stakeholders in multi‐source methods is advanced as a way to further develop the field. (shrink)

This article explores the link between CEOs’ language and hubristic leadership. It is based on the precepts that leaders’ linguistic utterances provide insights into their personality and behaviours; hubris is associated with unethical and potentially destructive leadership behaviours; if it is possible to identify linguistic markers of CEO hubris then these could serve as early warnings sign and help to mitigate the associated risks. Using computational linguistics, we analysed spoken utterances from a sample of hubristic CEOs and compared them with (...) non-hubristic CEOs. We found that hubristic CEOs’ linguistic utterances show systematic and consistent differences from the linguistic utterances of non-hubristic CEOs. Demonstrating how hubristic leadership manifests in CEO language contributes to wider research regarding the diagnosis and prevention of the unethical and potentially destructive effects of hubristic leadership. This research contributes to the wider study of hubris and unethical leadership by applying a novel method for identifying linguistic markers and offers a way of militating against the risk of unethical and destructive CEO behaviours induced or aggravated by hubristic leadership. (shrink)

Management literature has repeatedly shown that an absence of voice can have serious negative influences on team and organization performance. However, employees often withhold suggestions or advices when they have ideas, concerns, or opinions. The present study proposes leader behavioral integrity as a key antecedent of employee voice, and investigates how and when leader behavioral integrity influences employee voice. Specifically, we argue that leader behavioral integrity affects employee voice via team independence climate. In addition, we propose a moderating effect of (...) corporate ethical values. The results from a study of 134 managers and 408 employees provide support for this moderated mediation model. Leader behavioral integrity positively affects employee voice via team independence climate, but only when ethical values are emphasized in organizations. These results suggest that leader behavioral integrity, along with team independence climate and corporate ethical values, is very important for fostering employee voice. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:While tone at the top is widely regarded as an important predictor of ethical behavior in organizations, we argue that recent research overlooks the various conflicting ethical tones present in many multi-organizational work settings. Further, we propose that the resolution processes promulgated in many firms and professional associations to reconcile this conflict reinforce the tone at the bottom or a tone at the top of the employee’s organization, and that both of these approaches can conflict with the tone at the (...) top of other important organizations such as professional and regulatory organizations. Here we adapt Integrative Social Contract Theory’s priority rules to propose a multi-tone reconciliation process which prioritizes conflicting ethical tones based upon features of the organization and the effects on society. Using three contextualizations, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the multi-tone reconciliation process over current processes. We conclude with recommendations for future research and implications for practice. (shrink)

Current literature on ethical leadership and unethical leadership reflects a Western-based private sector perspective, pointing toward a compliance-oriented understanding of ethical and unethical leadership. As today’s executives increasingly have to ethically lead across different cultures and sectors, it becomes vitally important to develop a more holistic picture how ethical and unethical leadership is perceived in the Western and Eastern cultural cluster and the private and the public/social sector. Addressing this issue, the present study aims to identify cross-cultural and cross-sectoral commonalities (...) and differences in international executives’ perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership. Findings from in-depth interviews (N = 36) with executives from Western and Eastern cultures working in the private or the public/social sector reveal collectively held perceptions of ethical leadership (including leader honesty, integrity, concern for responsibility/sustainability, and people orientation) and of unethical leadership (referring to leader dishonesty, corruption, egocentrism, and manipulation). Results indicate limited support for a compliance-oriented perspective on ethical and unethical leadership but yield a much greater trend toward a value-oriented perspective. Concrete practice examples illustrate these different perspectives. Cultural and sectoral particularities of executive perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership are discussed. (shrink)

Although the literature on organizational justice enactment is becoming richer, our understanding of the role of the deontic justice motive remains limited. In this article, we review and discuss theoretical approaches to and evidence of the deontic justice motive and deontic justice enactment. While the prevalent understanding of deontic justice enactment focuses on compliance, we argue that this conceptualization is insufficient to explain behaviors that go beyond the call of duty. We thus consider two further forms of deontic behavior: humanistic (...) and supererogatory behavior. Drawing on the concepts of situation strength and person strength, we further argue that the reduced variance in behavior across morally challenging situations makes deontic justice enactment visible. We thus observe deontic justice enactment when an actor’s deontic justice motive collides with strong situational cues or constraints that guide the actor to behave differently. We formulate propositions and develop a theoretical model that links the deontic justice motive to moral maturation and deontic justice enactment. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated a strong relationship between team performance and team members’ team efficacy beliefs and perceptions of social integration. Performing well increases the feelings of collective ability that comprise team efficacy and the feelings of psychological connectedness that make up social integration, while performing poorly erodes them. In this article, we draw from the social cognitive base of ethical leadership theory to argue that ethical leadership moderates the relationship between team performance and team efficacy beliefs, and between team (...) performance and social integration, such that these important team attitudes are buffered against the negative effects of poor performance when leaders act ethically. Alternatively, when leaders act less ethically, team efficacy and social integration break down following poor performance. We test our hypotheses in a field study of U.S. military teams actively engaged in competition. The data support our arguments. We find that ethical leadership weakens the relationships among team performance and team efficacy and social integration, respectively, such that ethical leaders preserve team efficacy and social integration when their teams do not perform well. (shrink)

Drawing on theoretical arguments from the psychology discipline, we investigate the implications of employee entitlement in organizational settings. Specifically, we utilize workplace engagement theory to suggest that due to their skewed sense of deservingness, employees high in entitlement are less likely to experience workplace engagement. Furthermore, the negative relationship between employee entitlement and workplace engagement is strengthened when ethical leadership is low, yet mitigated when ethical leadership is high. Finally, we predict that under conditions of low ethical leadership, reductions in (...) engagement explain why employee entitlement results in hindered job performance. This mediated effect does not hold when ethical leadership is high. We tested our theoretical model utilizing field data from employees and their direct supervisors in the financial services industry. Our results support our theoretical model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

A growing body of research suggests that follower perceptions of ethical leadership are associated with beneficial follower outcomes. However, some empirical researchers have found contradictory results. In this study, we use social learning and social exchange theories to test the relationship between ethical leadership and follower work outcomes. Our results suggest that ethical leadership is related positively to numerous follower outcomes such as perceptions of leader interactional fairness and follower ethical behavior. Furthermore, we explore how ethical leadership relates to and (...) is different from other leadership styles such as transformational and transactional leadership. Results suggest that ethical leadership is positively associated with transformational leadership and the contingent reward dimension of transactional leadership. With respect to the moderators, our results show mixed evidence for publication bias. Finally, geographical locations of study samples moderated some of the relationships between ethical leadership and follower outcomes, and employee samples from public sector organizations showed stronger mean corrected correlations for ethical leadership–follower outcome relationships. (shrink)

Business schools play an instrumental role in laying the foundations for ethical behavior and socially responsible actions in the business community. Drawing on social learning and identity theories and using data collected from undergraduate business students, we found that ethical climate was a significant predictor of unethical behavior, such that students with positive perceptions about their business school’s ethical climate were more likely to refrain from unethical behaviors. Moreover, we found that high moral and institutional identities strengthened the effect of (...) ethical climate on unethical behavior. In addition to novel theoretical contributions to the business ethics and socio-psychology literature, this study offers practical pathways through which business schools can nurture and instill the values and behaviors that ultimately help shape positive organizational ethics. Directions for future research are provided. (shrink)

Millennial employees are increasingly paying more attention to well-being in the workplace and it has become an important issue for managers. Given that millennial employees are more sensitive to ethical issues, this study began by analyzing an ethical element in the organization—the ethical climate—and explored whether millennial employees have higher affective well-being in organizations with a good ethical climate. We verified our hypotheses based on 288 valid questionnaires collected from 40 teams. The results showed that: ethical climate was a positive (...) predictor of millennial employees’ organizational citizenship behavior and affective well-being, employees’ OCB partially mediated the relationship between ethical climate and affective well-being, and an employee’s moral identity effectively moderated the relationship between ethical climate and affective well-being, although it did not play a significant moderating role between ethical climate and OCB. These findings provide empirical support for applying situational strength and social information processing theories and emphasize the importance of cultivating an ethical climate in organizations. (shrink)

There is considerable variability across people in their punitive responses to employee offenses in the workplace. We attempt to explain this variability by positing a novel antecedent of punishment: moral recognition. We find consistent evidence that identifying moral considerations and implications for workplace offenses predicts punitive responses toward employees who commit those offenses. Drawing on functional theoretical accounts of morality and punishment, we posit that people are motivated to punish others to the extent that they believe a moral offense has (...) been committed, because much of what it means to commit a moral offense (as opposed to a non-moral offense) is to act in a way that prevents, or inhibits, cooperative behavior to achieve social goals. Punishment can discourage group members from committing those offenses in the future, thereby regulating behavior in a way that facilitates cooperation and social cohesion. We offer correlational and causal evidence that the link between moral recognition and punishment is explained, in part, by participants’ beliefs that committing these offenses prevents cooperative behavior to achieve organization-related goals. (shrink)

Implicit morality theories refer to people’s beliefs about whether individuals’ moral character is fixed or malleable. Drawing on the social cognitive theory of morality, we examine the relationship between employees’ implicit morality theories and their organizational citizenship behaviors toward coworkers (OCBC) and coworker-directed deviance (CDD) through a moral self-regulatory mechanism. A laboratory experiment (Study 1), an online experiment (Study 2), and a multi-wave, multi-source field survey (Study 3) found that the more employees held a fixed belief about morality, the lower (...) their sense of moral control, especially when their moral identity was lower. This perceived lack of moral control, in turn, predicted decreased OCBC, particularly when the workgroup ethical climate was weak. However, this relationship did not hold for CDD. Overall, our research highlights implicit morality theories as a novel antecedent of employees’ workplace behaviors, and identifies the underlying moral self-regulatory process, along with individual and situational boundary conditions. (shrink)

Employees frequently engage in job crafting to better match their jobs with their personal abilities and skills. Compared with its benefits, the potential detrimental consequences of job crafting have received less attention from researchers. Drawing on relative deprivation theory, we examined employees’ potential negative reactions to coworkers’ job crafting. We proposed that coworkers’ job crafting is positively related to employees’ feelings of relative deprivation, thus reducing prosocial behaviors and giving rise to social undermining. We further argued that employees’ zero-sum mindset (...) moderates the relationship between coworkers’ job crafting and employees’ feelings of relative deprivation, such that the relationship is more positive when the zero-sum mindset is high rather than low. Our hypotheses were generally supported by time-lagged data collected from a sample of 313 employees and their leaders from 85 teams. Our findings advance the understanding of the unintended consequences of job crafting in organizations. (shrink)

Studies have shown that internal whistleblowing could be utilized as an effective way to stop an organization’s unethical behaviors. This study investigates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing by focusing on the mediating role of employee-perceived organizational politics and the moderating role of moral courage. An analysis of data collected at three phases indicates that employee-perceived organizational politics partly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and internal whistleblowing. Also, moral courage is found to moderate the effect of employee-perceived (...) organizational politics on internal whistleblowing and the indirect effect of ethical leadership on internal whistleblowing via employee-perceived organizational politics. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

Although a number of studies have demonstrated that perceived ethical leadership engenders beneficial follower outcomes, there is a dearth of research on ethical leadership in the sales context. This is surprising given that salespersons constantly face ethical challenges in their work environment and ethical leadership could provide them with appropriate guidelines for navigating such challenges successfully. Focusing on the salesperson’s perspective and responding to calls for investigating underlying processes responsible for the effects of ethical leadership, this study proposes that sales (...) managers’ ethical leadership influences salespersons’ emulation intentions—i.e., their intentions to model or imitate the manager’s ethical behavior—which, in turn, influences both behavior and outcome performance. In addition, salespersons’ perceptions of the manager’s competence and gratitude toward the manager are examined as moderating mechanisms on the relationship between ethical leadership and salespersons’ emulation. Finally, three aspects of the ethical climate prevailing in the organization—ethical responsibility, peers’ unethical behavior, and unethical sales practices—are included as control variables. The proposed relationships are tested by using data from 290 business-to-business salespeople. Based on the findings, implications are offered for theory and practice. (shrink)

This study examines why individuals who are deeply embedded in the organization may engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Drawing from social identity theory and self-affirmation theory, we propose that deeply embedded employees may engage in UPB as a way of promoting or maintaining their status in the organization. We further propose that this positive relationship between organizational embeddedness and UPB, mediated through status perceptions, is stronger for employees working under managers who display low levels of ethical leadership. Using data (...) gathered in a two-wave survey from 224 working adults, the results of the study lend support for the hypothesized relationships and remained significant even after controlling for affective commitment. The study advances our understanding of both contextual and individual factors motivating employees to engage in UPB and the boundary conditions under which UPB can be reduced. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Although prior work has shown that employees with ethical leaders are less likely to engage in deviant or unethical behaviors, it is unknown whetherallemployees respond this way or to the same extent. Drawing on social learning theory as a conceptual framework, this study develops and tests hypotheses suggesting that two follower characteristics—conscientiousness and core self-evaluation—moderate the negative relationship between ethical leadership and workplace incivility. Data from employees of a U.S. public school district supported our predictions. Implications and future research directions (...) are discussed. (shrink)

This study examines a mediated model of ethical leadership on ethical climate, turnover intention, and affective commitment. It is suggested that managers are role models in their organizations. Specifically, through ethical leadership behavior, managers can influence perceptions of ethical climate, which in turn will positively influence organizational members’ turnover intention, and affective commitment. The results indicate that ethical leadership has both direct and indirect effect on affective commitment and turnover intention. The indirect effect of ethical leadership involves shaping perceptions of (...) ethical climate, which in turn, engenders greater affective organizational commitment and less turnover intention. (shrink)

This paper posits that ethical leadership increases important organizational and individual outcomes by reducing politics in the workplace. Specifically, we propose that perceptions of organizational politics serve as a mechanism through which ethical leadership affects outcomes. We further argue that the modeled relationships are moderated by political skill. By means of data from 136 matched pairs of supervisors and subordinates employed by a state agency in the southern US, we found support for our predictions. Specifically, we found that perceptions of (...) organizational politics fully mediated the relationship between perceptions of ethical leadership and helping and promotability ratings. In addition, political skill was found to moderate the direct and indirect effects. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the nature of the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), defined as unethical behavior conducted by employees with the aim of benefiting their organization, and whether the strength of the relationship differs between subordinates experiencing high and low identification with supervisor. Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 239 public sector employees in China, we find that ethical leadership has an inverted u-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with UPB. As the level of ethical leadership (...) increases from low to moderate, UPB increases; as the level of ethical leadership increases from moderate to high, UPB decreases. Further, we find that the strength of this inverted u-curve relationship differs between subordinates with high and low identification with supervisor. That is to say, the inverted u-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and UPB was stronger when subordinates experienced high levels of identification with supervisor. The theoretical and managerial implications of our findings for understanding how to manage UPB in an organizational context are discussed. (shrink)

This study examined the direct influence of national economic condition, as well as the indirect effects through the strength of noneconomic institutions on supervisors’ ethical reasoning using the institutional anomie theory developed by Messner and Rosenfeld :1393–1416, 2001). Utilizing data of 20,025 supervisors across 52 countries, the analyses showed that high disparity in the economic distribution directly and indirectly leads to unethical values. High economic inequality in a country resulted in high tendency of supervisors to justify unethical acts. In addition, (...) some of this influence went through the institutional strength of family, education, polity, and religion, thereby indicating partial mediation. As a result, the study presented the important roles of social institutions in explaining supervisors’ attitude and behavior. The findings of this research contribute to the institutional anomie theory by clarifying the multilevel path of the macrostructures’ conditions in explaining supervisors’ ethicality. Moreover, since some of the relationships between variables resulted in the direction opposite to the propositions of the theory, this study suggested other theoretical models that may be integrated with IAT. Along with these theoretical contributions, practical implications to businesses and society are discussed to strengthen supervisors’ ethics. (shrink)

The study's goal was to examine the socially responsible power use in the context of ethical leadership as an explanatory mechanism of the ethical leadership-follower outcomes link. Drawing on the attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982 ), we explored a power-based process model, which assumes that a leader's personal power is an intervening variable in the relationship between ethical leadership and follower outcomes, while incorporating the moderating role of followers' moral identity in this transformation process. The results of a two-wave field study (...) ( N = 235) that surveyed employees and a scenario experiment ( N = 169) fully supported the proposed (moderated) mediation models, as personal power mediated the positive relationship between ethical leadership and a broad range of tested follower outcomes (i.e., leader effectiveness, follower extra effort, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and work engagement), as well as the interactive effects of ethical leadership and follower moral identity on these follower outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This study empirically investigated the impact of ethical leadership on employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance through two psychological mechanisms: developing higher levels of employee trust in leaders and demonstrating lower levels of surface acting toward their leaders. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from employees of a pharmaceutical retail chain company. Analyses of multisource time-lagged data from 45 team leaders and 247 employees showed that employees’ trust in leaders and surface acting significantly mediated the relationships between (...) ethical leadership and employee burnout, deviant behavior and task performance. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for understanding how ethical leaders influence employees’ attitudes and behavior. (shrink)

Existing research on the formation of employee ethical climate perceptions focuses mainly on organization characteristics as antecedents, and although other constructs have been considered, these constructs have typically been studied in isolation. Thus, our understanding of the context in which ethical climate perceptions develop is incomplete. To address this limitation, we build upon the work of Rupp to develop and test a multi-experience model of ethical climate which links aspects of the corporate social responsibility, ethics, justice, and trust literatures and (...) helps to explain how employees’ ethical climate perceptions form. We argue that in forming ethical climate perceptions, employees consider the actions or characteristics of a complex web of actors. Specifically, we propose that employees look outward at how communities are impacted by their organization’s actions, upward to make inferences about the ethicality of leaders in their organizations, and inward at their own propensity to trust others as they form their perceptions. Using a multiple-wave field study conducted at a privately held US corporation, we find substantial evidence in support of our model. (shrink)

Ethically questionable leader conduct continues to garner headlines. It has prompted the leadership field to renew their focus on research regarding the ethical dimensions of leadership. Empirical emphases have focused on understanding negative leader behaviour, with the typical leadership study reliant upon positivist approaches. I critique these studies as not having produced meaningful, practicable or wholly relevant insights regarding the challenges and support mechanisms required to lead ethically. Few studies have in fact examined leadership in not-for-profit organisations where decisions might (...) reasonably be expected to possess elevated moral capital. To test this, my study interviewed leaders from professional sectors in both the USA and the UK, to offer a more holistic interpretation of what underpins and directs leader moral disposition. As corollary, this research explicates issues of practicability and how other sectors might learn from leaders who perpetually practise their ethicality. To gain insights that develop the field of leadership research, my thesis centres on the experiences of ten high-level, elite and specialised leaders. Although not selected as ethical, they were found to be principled, ethical decision-makers. A specific type of in-depth, qualitative interviewing was conducted and justified to more readily reflect the status of the leaders. Elite and specialised interviewing has not been widely used as a data collection tool, but it offered a unique opportunity to garner specialised data, once access issues had been overcome. The findings reveal unique insights into the underexplored ethical leader mindset and highlight the complex processes of leader decision-making in situ by demonstrating what underpins leaders’ behaviour, with reference to how they understand experiences for themselves. This study uncovers the symbiotic and interconnected nature of the variety of ideological frameworks at play, positing theological concepts alongside sociological and philosophical counterparts. Ethical awareness, the notions of trust and responsibility are shown as bedrock and explicit. This research presents a new ethical leadership, a typology that shows how ethical leaders are created through experience, sustained and developed over time, and nourished by awareness beyond the self. Current conceptions have done little to inform ethical leadership development, whereas I offer a more practical and holistic way to use the unexpected, traumatic, and intense crucibles of leadership experience to explicate and consolidate ethical foundations. This thesis presents a vision of a welfare driven leadership originating from the self, in the service of others, and for society; an ethical leadership for all. (shrink)

Using a sample of 124 managers and 248 subordinates, this study examines the mediating effect of subordinates’ job satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate organizational citizenship and counter-productive work behaviour in the Colombian context. We additionally analyse the effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ perception of leaders’ performance. Factor analyses of the ethical leadership scale revealed two factors, ethical person and ethical guidance, which were differentially associated to the outcomes. We offer an explanation from three cultural dimensions (...) by which Colombian employees seem to be more willing to follow leaders’ ethical example as a way to strengthen their membership to the leader's group, than leaders ethical disciplining by which norms are imposed. These findings have a number of implications for organizations and managers who aim to improve their employees’ behaviour. Our advice to them is that leaders’ deeds have a greater impact than their ethical words. (shrink)