ABSTRACT:The purpose of this article is to review literature that is relevant to the social scientific study of ethics and leadership, as well as outline areas for future study. We first discuss ethical leadership and then draw from emerging research on “dark side” organizational behavior to widen the boundaries of the review to includeunethical leadership. Next, three emerging trends within the organizational behavior literature are proposed for a leadership and ethics research agenda: 1) emotions, 2) fit/congruence, and 3) identity/identification. We (...) believe each shows promise in extending current thinking. The review closes with discussion of important issues that are relevant to the advancement of research on leadership and ethics. (shrink)

The western-based leadership and ethics literatures were reviewed to identify the key characteristics that conceptually define what it means to be an ethical leader. Data from the Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE) project were then used to analyze the degree to which four aspects of ethical leadership – Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation, and Encouragement – were endorsed as important for effective leadership across cultures. First, using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses measurement equivalence of the ethical leadership scales was found, which (...) provides indication that the four dimensions have similar meaning across cultures. Then, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests each of the four dimensions were found to be universally endorsed as important for effective leadership. However, cultures also varied significantly in the degree of endorsement for each dimension. In the increasingly global business environment, these findings have implications for organizations implementing ethics programs across cultures and preparing leaders for expatriate assignments. (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)

In the human quest for meaning, work occupies a central position. Most adults spend the majority of their waking hours at work, which often serves as a primary source of purpose, belongingness, and identity. In light of these benefits to employees and their organizations, organizational scholars are increasingly interested in understanding the factors that contribute to meaningful work, such as the design of jobs, interpersonal relationships, and organizational missions and cultures. In a separate line of inquiry, scholars of business ethics (...) have examined meaningful work as a moral issue concerning the management of others and ourselves, exploring whether there are definable characteristics of meaningful work to which we have moral rights, and whether there are moral duties to ourselves and others to fulfill those rights. In this article, we examine contemporary developments in both disciplines about the nature, causes, and consequences of meaningful work; we explore linkages between these disciplines; and we offer conclusions and research opportunities regarding the interface of ethical and organizational perspectives on performing and providing meaningful work. (shrink)

While a number of studies are being done on ethical leadership, little is known about the role of ethical ideology and organizational justice in the relation of the ethical leadership behavior and individual behaviors such as work engagement and organizational misbehavior has tended to be neglected in ethics literature. This study examines the mediating effects of organizational justice on the relations of ethical leadership, work engagement and organizational misbehavior. Also, it investigates the moderating effect of ethical ideology on the relationships (...) among these variables. It proposes that managers’ ethical values and organizational members’ ethical perspectives such as absolutism, exceptionism, situationism, and subjectivism have the potential to be agents of virtue within the organizations. Employee attributions and emotional reactions to the unethical behavior of their leaders are important factors on individual behavior outcomes. So, in this study it is hypothesized that ethical leadership behavior affects organizational justice perception and this, respectively, affects organizational members’ work engagement and organizational misbehavior. It is also hypothesized that ethical ideology would moderate the relationship between the ethical leadership and organizational justice. Results indicate that ethical leadership has both direct and indirect influence on work engagement and organizational misbehavior. Finally, practical implications are discussed, and suggestions for the future research are made. (shrink)

Abstract:This field survey focused on two constructs that have been developed to represent the ethical context in organizations: ethical climate and ethical culture. We first examined issues of convergence and divergence between these constructs through factor analysis and correlational analysis. Results suggested that the two constructs are measuring somewhat different, but strongly related dimensions of the ethical context. We then investigated the relationships between the emergent ethical context factors and an ethics-related attitude (organizational commitment) and behavior (observed unethical conduct) for (...) respondents who work in organizations with and without ethics codes. Regression results indicated that an ethical culture-based dimension was more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in code organizations while climate-based dimensions were more strongly associated with observed unethical conduct in non-code organizations. Ethical culture and ethical climate-based factors influenced organizational commitment similarly in both types of organizations. Normative implications of the study are discussed, as are implications for future theorizing, research and management practice. (shrink)

This paper presents a cross‐cultural comparison of Protestant work ethic characteristics of practising Protestant British and practising Muslim Turkish managers using Mirels and Garrett’s Protestant work ethic scale. Max Weber’s Protestant work ethic thesis is used as the conceptual framework in this study. The nature of the Protestant work ethic thesis and its relationship with organisation culture is discussed. Multivariate and univariate analysis of variance were used to analyse the data. The results suggest that there is a significant difference between (...) practising Muslim Turkish managers and practising Protestant British managers: the Turkish group showed relatively higher Protestant work ethic scores than their Protestant counterparts. Possible reasons for the difference between British and Turkish groups are advanced in the light of Turkish economic, social and political developments. It is argued that representative Islamic sources also support the results of this research by pointing to the important role of a work ethic in Islam. (shrink)

This paper examines the work ethic characteristics of particular practising Protestant, Catholic and Muslim managers in Britain, Ireland and Turkey. Max Weber, argued that Protestant societies had a particular work ethic which was quite distinct from non-Protestant societies. The Protestant work ethics (PWE) thesis of Weber was reviewed. Previous empirical and analytical research results showed that the number of research results which support Weberian ideas were more than those which did not support. Methodological issues were also discussed. Results revealed that (...) there was a considerable difference between Muslim and other groups in terms of PWE characteristics. The Muslim group showed the highest PWE level, while the Protestant group was placed second and the Catholic group third. The Protestant group showed a slightly higher of PWE level than the Catholic group. The possible reasons for the higher level of the PWE values of Muslim managers are discussed in the light of historical, political, social and economic developments in Turkey. (shrink)

This article attempts to understand and develop the morality of everyday activities in organizations. Aristotle’s concept of phronesis, practical wisdom, is utilized to describe the morality of the everyday work activities at two call centres of an Australian insurance company. The ethnographic data suggests that ethical judgements at the lower level of the organization are practical rather than theoretical; emergent rather than static; ambiguous rather than clear-cut; and particular rather than universal. Ethical codes are of limited value here and it (...) is argued that by developing phronesis members of the organization can improve their capacity to deal with this ethical complexity. (shrink)

In this article I use Kantian moral philosophy to develop a concept of meaningful work. Specifically, a Kantian would argue that work is meaningful if (1) it is freely entered into, (2) it allows the worker to exercise her autonomy and independence, (3) it enables the worker to develop her rational capacities, (4) it provides a wage sufficient for physical welfare, (5) it supports the moral development of employees and (6) it is not paternalistic. I then provide examples of contemporary (...) management practices that provide meaningful work in this sense. (shrink)

This research on the ethics of meaningful work examined how types of job-related harm and their magnitude of consequences influenced components of ethical decision-making. The research also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences on the relation between the MOC and the ethical decision-making elements for each type of harm. Using a sample of 185 Chinese professionals, a between-subjects, fully crossed experimental scenario design revealed that physical and economic job-related harm were recognized as moral issues to a greater extent than (...) cognitive or emotional harm. Second, physical job-related harm stimulated a higher level of moral evaluations than economic and cognitive harm. Third, individuals intended to act ethically when MOC was high versus low. Finally, experience with layoffs and IMO helped explain the relations between MOC and moral evaluations for economic and cognitive job-related harm, respectively. Implications for research and management are discussed. (shrink)

The ethical tension over whether countries have differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation evokes the tale of a master and a man. The one who thinks she is the master is analogous to the wealthier, industrialized nations and their market actors, and the human is the rest of humanity, particularly those citizens of less developed countries. Since 1992, there has been formal, stated agreement that there should be differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation between developed and developing nations, but differentiation (...) remained a sticking point in negotiations over implementation at Copenhagen in 2009. Putting the parties in the climate change differentiation debate in analogy with the characters of Tolstoy’s story, “Master and Man,” this paper seeks to advance the common appreciation for the moral foundations of differentiation. (shrink)

The first aim of this paper was to investigate how the traditional Protestant work ethic and more contemporary work values were related to one another, and differed across genders and two cultural contexts, namely Turkey and the U.S. The second aim was to elucidate the role of religiosity in PWE among the two cultural groups. Two hundred and sixty six American and 211 Turkish university students participated in this questionnaire study. The analyses examining cross-cultural differences revealed that Turkish university students (...) reported greater scores in the PWE and all contemporary work values as compared to their American counterparts. For the Turkish sample, there were no gender-related differences in the PWE, whereas in the U.S. sample, men reported greater PWE scores than did women. With regard to gender differences in contemporary work values, our results showed that gender groups differed in feminine and entrepreneurship values in both cultural contexts; men emphasized femininity and entrepreneurship more than women in Turkey but the reverse was true in the U.S. Correlations between contemporary work values and the PWE illustrated that the PWE is associated with entrepreneurship and masculine values in both cultural contexts and with feminine values in the Turkish context. Finally, our results regarding the role of religiosity in PWE indicated that highly religious participants reported greater PWE scores than the less religious ones regardless of culture. Findings are discussed with reference both to differences in the two socio-cultural contexts and to recent change in the social structure of Turkish society. (shrink)

Leaders who express an ethical identity are proposed to affect followers’ attitudes and work behaviors. In two multi-source studies, we first test a model suggesting that work engagement acts as a mediator in the relationships between ethical leadership and employee initiative (a form of organizational citizenship behavior) as well as counterproductive work behavior. Next, we focus on whether ethical leadership always forms an authentic expression of an ethical identity, thus in the second study, we add leader Machiavellianism to the model. (...) For Machiavellian leaders, the publicly expressed identity of ethical leadership is inconsistent with the privately held unethical Machiavellian norms. Literature on surface acting suggests people can at least to some extent pick up on such inauthentic displays, making the effects less strong. We thus argue that the positive effects of ethical leader behavior are likely to be suppressed when leaders are highly Machiavellian. Support for this moderated mediation model was found: The effects of ethical leader behavior on engagement are less strong when ethical leaders are high as opposed to low on Machiavellianism. (shrink)

Leaders who express an ethical identity are proposed to affect followers’ attitudes and work behaviors. In two multi-source studies, we first test a model suggesting that work engagement acts as a mediator in the relationships between ethical leadership and employee initiative (a form of organizational citizenship behavior) as well as counterproductive work behavior. Next, we focus on whether ethical leadership always forms an authentic expression of an ethical identity, thus in the second study, we add leader Machiavellianism to the model. (...) For Machiavellian leaders, the publicly expressed identity of ethical leadership is inconsistent with the privately held unethical Machiavellian norms. Literature on surface acting suggests people can at least to some extent pick up on such inauthentic displays, making the effects less strong. We thus argue that the positive effects of ethical leader behavior are likely to be suppressed when leaders are highly Machiavellian. Support for this moderated mediation model was found: The effects of ethical leader behavior on engagement are less strong when ethical leaders are high as opposed to low on Machiavellianism. (shrink)