Ethical Leadership Evaluations After Moral Transgression: Social Distance Makes
the Difference |
| |
Authors: | Andranik Tumasjan Maria Strobel Isabell Welpe |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Health and Human Services, Mood and Anxiety Program National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA |
| |
Abstract: | In light of continuing corporate scandals, the study of ethical leadership remains an important area of research which helps
to understand the antecedents and consequences of ethical behavior in organizations. The present study investigates how social
distance influences ethical leadership evaluations, and how in turn ethical leadership evaluations affect leader–member exchange
(LMX) after a leader’s moral transgression. Based on construal level theory, we propose that higher social distance will lead
to more severe evaluations of immoral behavior and therefore entail lower ethical leadership ratings. More- over, we hypothesize
that ethical leadership will positively affect LMX. Participants read a scenario describing a moral situation in which a leader,
who was presented in either high or low social distance, behaves unethically toward an employee. We tested our predictions
using a structural equation modeling approach. As expected, participants in the high social distance condition judged leaders
more harshly (i.e., they gave lower ethical leadership ratings) than in the low social distance condition. Thus, social distance
moderated the extent to which leaders are perceived as ethical leaders after moral transgression. Moreover, in accordance
with our proposition, ethical leadership ratings had a positive influence on LMX. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|