How Ethical Leadership Influence Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: A Perspective of Intrinsic Motivation

Drawing on the cognitive evaluation theory, we proposed a homologous multilevel model to explore how ethical leadership influenced employees’ innovative work behavior through the mediation of intrinsic motivation at both group and individual level. With questionnaires rated by 302 employees from 34 work units of two companies in the mainland of China, we conducted multilevel analysis to examine our hypotheses. The results showed that individual innovative work behavior was positively related to both individual perception of ethical leadership and group ethical leadership, while individual intrinsic motivation mediated the two relationships. Moreover, group intrinsic motivation mediated the relationship between group ethical leadership and innovative work behavior. The theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethical Leadership: Investigating Their Interactive Effect on Employees’ Socially Responsible Behaviors

This research investigates the interlinkage between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical leadership in inducing employees’ socially responsible behaviors (SRBs). Specifically, building on organizational identification theory and cue consistency theory, we develop and test an integrated moderated mediation framework in which employees’ perception of ethical leadership moderates the mediating mechanism between their perceptions of CSR (i.e., perceived CSR–environment and perceived CSR–community), organizational identification, and SRBs (i.e., green and societal behaviors). The findings highlight the need for consistency between employees’ perceptions of CSR and ethical leadership to foster their propensity to further social good through relationship-building activities with their organization. The results, which largely verify the theoretical framework, contribute to and have implications for both research and practice.     

How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees’ Job Performance: The Mediating Roles of Goal Congruence and Psychological Capital

Drawing from research on ethical leadership, psychological capital, and social learning theory, this study investigated the mediating effects of goal congruence and psychological capital in the link between supervisors’ ethical leadership style and followers’ in-role job performance. Data captured from 171 employees and 24 supervisors showed that ethical leadership has a positive effect on followers’ in-role job performance, yet this effect is explained through the role of psychological capital and follower–leader goal congruence, providing evidence of mediation. These findings have significant implications for research and practice.     

Impact of Ethical Leadership and Leader–Member Exchange on Whistle Blowing: The Moderating Impact of the Moral Intensity of the Issue

Given the prevalence of corporate frauds and the significance of whistle blowing as a mechanism to report about the frauds, the present study explores the impact of ethical leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX) on whistle blowing. Additionally, the article also explores the moderating role of the moral intensity [studied as magnitude of consequences (MOC)] of the issue on this relationship. The article reports results of three experimental studies conducted on the postgraduate students of a premier technology institute in India. Ethical leadership, LMX, and moral intensity are manipulated through scenarios. Study one (n = 81) manipulates ethical leadership (ethical/unethical) and quality of LMX (low and high) as independent variables; study two (n = 80) manipulates ethical leadership and moral intensity (high and low MOC), and study three (n = 87) manipulates LMX and MOCs to assess their individual and joint effects on whistle blowing. Results show that not only do ethical leadership and LMX predict whistle blowing, but these relationships get moderated by the moral intensity of the issue as well.     

Not All Followers Socially Learn from Ethical Leaders: The Roles of Followers’ Moral Identity and Leader Identification in the Ethical Leadership Process

Journal of Business Ethics - Recent literature suggests that ethical leadership helps to inhibit followers’ unethical behavior, largely built on the premise that followers view ethical...     

‘The Impact of Personal and Organizational Moral Philosophies on Marketing Exchange Relationships: A Simulation Using the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game’

The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of individual and firm moral philosophies on marketing exchange relationships. Personal moral philosophies range from the extreme forms of true altruists and true egoists, along with three hybrids that represent middle ground (i.e., realistic altruists, tit-for-tats, and realistic egoists). Organizational postures are defined as Ethical Paradigm, Unethical Paradigm, and Neutral Paradigm, which result in changes to personal moral philosophies and company and industry performance. The study context is a simulation of an exchange environment using a variation of the prisoners’ dilemma game. A literature review is provided in the opening section, followed by details on the simulation, discussion of the results, and the implications for theory and practice.     

“It’s Just Business”: Understanding How Business Frames Differ from Ethical Frames and the Effect on Unethical Behavior

Journal of Business Ethics - Unfortunately, business is often associated with unethical behavior. While research has offered a number of explanations for why business might encourage unethical...     

“To Pirate or Not to Pirate”: A Comparative Study of the Ethical Versus Other Influences on the Consumer’s Software Acquisition-Mode Decision

Consumers of software often face an acquisition-mode decision, namely whether to purchase or pirate that software. In terms of consumer welfare, consumers who pirate software may stand in opposition to those who purchase it. Marketers also face a decision whether to attempt to thwart that piracy or to ignore, if not encourage it as an aid to their softwares diffusion, and policymakers face the decision whether to adopt interventionist policies, which are government-centric, or laissez faire policies, which are marketer-centric. Here in order to assess the decision-making of all three of these stakeholders, we focus on the consumers point-of-view as central and examine it by considering on a comparative basis the ethical dimension versus other dimensions, including economic, legal, and other salient consumer behavior considerations. Based on a survey of 689 software consumers conducted over the Internet, the results indicate that ethics as a factor is embedded in a multidimensional set of determinant factors influencing software piracy, including attitudes, legal aspects, social support, perceptions of economic loss and age. Policy and research implications, based on these findings, are provided.