Managerial ethical leadership, ethical climate and employee ethical behavior: does moral attentiveness matter?

Beyond the universal perception: Unveiling the paradoxical impact of ethical leadership on employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior

Ethical leadership, widely recognized as a positive leadership style, has shown inconsistent relationships with employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior in the workplace. This study draws on the social cognitive theory to investigate the paradoxical impact of ethical leadership on employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. It also examines the mediating role of employees' psychological empowerment and the moderating effect of moral identity. The study collects data from 515 nursing staff working in public and private hospitals in Pakistan at three different time intervals, and analyzed using PLS SEM. Contrary to the previous studies and our initial hypothesis, the findings reveal a positive relationship between ethical leadership and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. Additionally, the study demonstrates that employees' psychological empowerment positively mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' unethical pro-organizational behavior. This underscores the significance of employees' psychological processes. Furthermore, the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' psychological empowerment is moderated by employees' moral identity. This highlights the role of the individual differences in shaping employees' behavior within the workplace. Overall, these results challenge the universal perception of ethical leadership as a positive form of leadership, shedding light on the unintended consequences and paradoxical impact it can have in organizations.

The Nexus Between Ethical Leadership and Employees' Perception of Workplace Safety During COVID-19 Under Mediation and Moderation Model

Background

Workplace safety is a crucial aspect of employee well-being and organizational success, with ethical leadership playing a key role in shaping employees' perceptions of safety. Today, the underlying mechanisms through which ethical leadership influences workplace safety perception remain underexplored, especially in the Pakistan healthcare industry. Based on the social cognitive theory, this study aims to investigate the relationship between ethical leadership and workplace safety perception and examine the mediating role of media quality, communication climate, and supervisory communication and the moderating role of moral attentiveness.

Methods

An empirical survey method was used to conduct the quantitative study, with respondents representing nursing staff from hospitals in Pakistan. Data was collected using an online questionnaire during COVID-19, and Smart PLS was used to analyze the data.

Results

The study demonstrated that ethical leadership positively and significantly affects workplace safety perception. Media quality, communication climate, and supervisory communication mediate between ethical leadership and workplace safety perception. Moral attentiveness moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and workplace safety perception.

Conclusion

Ethical leadership is an essential tool that improves media quality, communication climate, supervisory communication, and moral attentiveness. The article presents a novel approach to examining the relationship between ethical leadership and workers' safety perceptions under the influence of mediating and moderating variables. By better understanding these dynamics, the study contributes to developing organizational strategies to improve workplace safety and overall employee well-being. In addition, it is a pioneering study exploring ethical leadership's role in influencing workers' perceptions of safety. Overall, the study is a great initiative that fosters the ethical concepts of individuals, thus achieving health protection and safety.

Influences of (in)congruences in psychological entitlement and felt obligation on ethical behavior

Introduction

Psychological entitlement and felt obligation are two correlated but distinctive conceptions. Prior studies have mainly explored their influences on employees' (un)ethical behavior, respectively. Recently, several studies suggest the interactive impacts of psychological entitlement with felt obligation on individual behavioral choices. In consistency with these studies, the present study focuses on the influences of (in)congruences in psychological entitlement and felt obligation on employees' (un)ethical behavior.

Methods

A two-wave multi-source questionnaire survey is conducted to collect 202 matched questionnaires from full-time Chinese workers. The polynomial regression with response surface analysis is employed to test hypotheses.

Results

The results indicate that: (1) employees have higher levels of work engagement and helping behavior but lower levels of unethical behavior when their psychological entitlement and felt obligation are balanced at higher levels rather than lower levels; (2) employees have higher levels of work engagement and helping behavior but lower levels of unethical behavior when they have higher levels of felt obligation but lower levels of psychological entitlement compared to those having lower levels of felt obligation but higher levels of psychological entitlement; and (3) work engagement mediates the relationship between (in)congruences in psychological entitlement and felt obligation and employees' helping behavior and unethical behavior.

Discussion

This study provides a novel insight into the interactive influences of (in)congruence in psychological entitlement and felt obligation on employees' ethical behavioral choices.

Moral leadership and employee workplace incivility: The roles of moral tolerance and leader trustworthiness

Drawing on social information processing theory, we conducted a crosssectional study to explore how moral leadership affects employees' workplace incivility. We tested our theoretical model with a sample of 427 employees of a Chinese textile processing company and 88 of their immediate leaders. The results indicate that moral leadership was negatively related to employees' workplace incivility, and moral tolerance partially mediated the relationship between moral leadership and workplace incivility. Furthermore, a high level of perceived leader trustworthiness amplified the negative impact of moral leadership on both employees' moral tolerance and workplace incivility. This study will help organizations to understand how moral leadership affects employees' workplace incivility and guide the managers to take effective measures to deal with such behaviors.

Spiritual Leadership, Autonomous Motivation and Employee Craftsmanship Spirit: The Cross-Level Moderating Effect of Caring Ethical Climate

Purpose

Whether in traditional manufacturing or modern intelligent manufacturing, craftsmen have always been the backbone of China’s manufacturing industry. Cultivating employee craftsmanship spirit has become one of the top tasks of human resource management in China’s manufacturing industry. The question is what kind of leadership style will promote employee craftsmanship spirit and how can it be promoted? To answer this question, based on self-determination theory and social exchange theory, this study focuses on the influence of spiritual leadership on employee craftsmanship spirit, as well as the moderating effect of having a caring ethical climate and the mediating effect of autonomous motivation between spiritual leadership and employee craftsmanship spirit.

Methods

The leaders and employees of 103 work teams from Chinese manufacturing enterprises were investigated, and 434 paired data points were obtained. Data analysis and hypothesis testing were conducted using data analysis software, such as HLM, SPSS, and AMOS.

Results

The results reveal that spiritual leadership can significantly positively predict employee craftsmanship spirit. Employee autonomous motivation plays a partial mediating role in the positive correlation between spiritual leadership and craftsmanship spirit. Additionally, caring ethical climate positively moderates the correlation between spiritual leadership and the autonomous motivation of employees. The greater the caring ethical climate of teams is, the stronger the positive correlation between spiritual leadership and the autonomous motivation of employees.

Conclusion

Leadership plays an important role in the process of employees improving their skills, acquiring the status of craftsmen, and developing craftsmanship beliefs. Therefore, it is of great significance to understand how spiritual leadership style can effectively promote craftsmanship spirit among employees for high-quality development of the manufacturing industry. This study reveals the ways that spiritual leadership influences employee craftsmanship spirit from a new perspective and confirms the mediating effect of autonomous motivation as well as the moderating effect of caring ethical climate. The research conclusions can provide practical solutions for cultivating employee craftsmanship spirit.

Supervisor Bottom-Line Mentality, Performance Pressure, and Workplace Cheating: Moderating Role of Negative Reciprocity

Employee cheating at the workplace has reached epidemic proportions and is putting a significant dent on the revenues of corporations. This study evaluates workplace cheating behavior as a consequence of supervisor bottom-line mentality with performance pressure as the mediating mechanism. Most importantly, it scrutinizes the moderating function of negative reciprocity belief in the relation between bottom-line mentality, performance pressure, and cheating in a moderated-mediation model, through the lens of displaced aggression theory. We systematically conduct time-lagged studies in two different populations (Pakistan and United States). Data analysis reveals that (1) bottom-line mentality positively influences workplace cheating behavior through performance pressure and (2) negative reciprocity moderated this indirect relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.