Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2162-3
Introduction
Ethical leadership is considered important for organizations because it helps reduce business costs (Thomas et al.
2004). Numerous studies have explored the beneficial
impact ethical leadership has on reducing unethical practices and harmful follower behaviors (Mayer et al. 2009;
Walumbwa and Schaubroeck 2009). However, relatively
less attention has been paid to the effects of ethical leadership on followers in-role performance (e.g., Walumbwa
et al. 2011b, 2012; Piccolo et al. 2010). Few studies have
examined how and why ethical leadership relates to in-role
performance; however, a framework that has been very
instrumental in explaining this relationship is Brown
et al.s (2005) social learning perspective. One of the basic
assumptions of this framework is that ethical leaders
influence the conduct of followers via modeling. By
demonstrating moral management behavior, such as communicating about ethics and rewarding employees based on
ethical compliance, ethical leaders as role models encourage followers not to engage in behaviors that may compromise bottom-line performance (Brown et al. 2005;
Piccolo et al. 2010).
While the relationship between ethical leadership and
in-role performance has received little research attention,
research about the intervening mechanisms through which
ethical leadership relates to task performance is even
scarcer (e.g., Piccolo et al. 2010; Walumbwa et al. 2011b,
2012). To the best of our knowledge, there are three studies
that explain the processes through which ethical leadership
is related to performance (Piccolo et al. 2010; Walumbwa
et al. 2010, 2012). In these studies, the quality of the
relationship between leaders and followers appears to play
a key role in ethical leadership having a positive impact on
employees job performance (Walumbwa et al. 2011b,
2012). While previous studies mainly focused on trust as an
indicator for assessing the quality of the relationship (Pillai
et al. 1999; Schaubroeck et al. 2011 as cited in Zhu et al.
2013), this study focuses on the alignment in goals between
leaders and followers as a potentially important mechanism
that explains how ethical leadership is related to followers
in-role job performance. More specifically, building upon
Brown et al.s (2005) social learning perspective, we
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
the form of increased efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience (Luthans et al. 2007a). Therefore, it is pivotal for
research that explores the relationship between ethical
leadership and in-role performance to include psychological capital as a potentially important mediator variable.
Taken together, we thus seek to make the following
contributions. First, we focus on the mediating role of a
critical, yet scarcely investigated, aspect of employee
supervisor relationships in the ethical leadershipemployee
job performance link, namely, followerleader goal congruence. Second, we identify and examine the role of a
motivational resource (i.e., PsyCap) as a critical mechanism through which ethical leadership positively influences
performance. By incorporating goal congruence between
followers and leaders, along with PsyCap (for the first
time), we respond to previous calls to identify the mechanisms that help us to make sense of how ethical leadership
affects followers in-role job performance (Brown and
Trevino 2006; Walumbwa et al. 2010). In this study, we
use theories of ethical leadership and social learning to
address the abovementioned challenges. From these theories, we derive our studys hypotheses and develop the
conceptual framework summarized in Fig. 1.
Level 1
Psychological capital
Ethical leadership
Follower-leader goal
congruence
123
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
(Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998), and by extension, it indicates whether followers perceive a strong fit with their
organization overall (Vancouver and Schmitt 1991). Several studies have used goal congruence as an indicator of
the quality of relationships between followers and leaders
(De Clercq et al. 2009; Merlo et al. 2006). When
employees experience high levels of similarity between
their own goals and those of others in the organization,
including their supervisor (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005),
they are more likely to engage in positive behaviors and
avoid harmful activities that might undermine the organizations performance (Colbert et al. 2004).
We argue for a positive relationship between ethical
leadership and followerleader goal congruence. Conceptually, ethical leaders, through their caring style, transparent
information sharing style, and high moral values, are likely
to be seen as trustworthy and attractive role models who
promote identification with the organization by conveying
values and goals that resonate with their followers goals
and values (Tyler 1997; Walumbwa et al. 2011b). With
their proactive actions aimed at encouraging high moral
standards, ethical leaders are more likely to have a major
influence on the values internalized by followers. Because
of their perceived credibility and attractiveness as role
models, ethical leaders arouse a collective sense of mission
(Conger 1999). Thus, prior research suggests that ethical
leaders influence followers because they are attracted to the
leaders vision and values (Bono and Judge 2003; Howell
1988; Shamir and Lapidot 2003). Put differently, ethical
leadership should be associated with followerleader goal
congruence. Accordingly, we formulate a first hypothesis:
H1 There is a positive relationship between a supervisors ethical leadership style and followerleader goal
congruence.
We also anticipate that followerleader goal congruence
will enhance in-role job performance. When followers and
supervisors share the same goals, followers will have
insight into information useful to their effective functioning. More specifically, a shared understanding of the
importance of specific goals by leaders and their followers
reduces ambiguity about effort allocation and ensures that
their followers activities directly contribute to their organizations overarching goals (Colbert et al. 2008). We also
expect goal congruence to be positively associated with job
performance because goals in themselves are important
motivational forces that help employees select the activities
on which they should expend effort (Locke and Latham
2002). Put differently, goal congruence increases the
motivation to invest high levels of personal energy in work
because such investment is believed to benefit not only the
entire organization but also ones own objectives (Nahapiet
and Ghoshal 1998). Based on the above, we hypothesize:
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
Method
Sample and Procedure
Our sample consisted of 24 groups representing 171 whitecollar employees working in different sectors in Lahore,
123
Measures
Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics (i.e., means and
standard deviations), bivariate correlations, and reliabilities
of the scales used. All scales were measured using 5-point
Likert scales except for the in-role job performance scale
(7-point Likert scale).
Ethical Leadership was measured using the ethical
leadership scale (ELS) proposed by Brown et al. (2005).
Individual respondents were asked to indicate their agreement or disagreement regarding the ethical conduct of their
immediate supervisors. All 10 items as proposed by Brown
et al. (2005) were used in the current study. Example items
for ethical leadership include the following: My supervisor listens to what employees have to say, and My
supervisor conducts his/her life in an ethical manner. A
one-factor solution using the 10 items yielded the best fit
(v2/df = 1.83; GFI = .93; IFI = .97; RMR = .03;
RMSEA = .07). The internal reliability of ethical leadership was .91. Consistent with the notion that work group
members are likely to be consistent (homogeneous) in their
perceptions of the leader (Dansereau and Yammarino
1998; Shamir et al. 1998), and following mainstream
Table 1 Correlations and descriptive statistics
M(SD)
1. Ethical leadership
3.98(0.68)
(.91)
2. Psychological capital
4.04(.0.49)
0.60**
(.91)
3. Goal congruence
4. In-role job performance
3.87(0.62)
4.93(0.74)
0.50**
0.28**
0.37**
0.40**
(.71)
0.37**
(.72)
5. Gender
0.09
0.05
0.04
0.05
6. Age
0.03
0.01
0.01
-0.03
-0.25**
0.04
0.04
-0.04
-0.07
-0.15
7. Tenure
4.83(5.69)
0.56***
Notes ** P \ 0.01 (two tailed test); With the exception of ethical leadership (Level 2, N = 24), all other variables are Level 1 (N = 171)
The numbers in italics on the main diagonal represent the internal consistency of the measures
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
Analysis Procedure
Step one in our analysis was to examine the construct
validity of our measures. In addition to CFA analyses and
reliability analyses, we examined whether we could justify
the aggregation of ethical leadership at the work unit level
by computing the intraclass correlation coefficients and
Rwg(j) values (James et al. 1993). Because of the nesting
of data (i.e., employees were nested within units), we used
hierarchical linear modeling (HLM: Raudenbush et al.
2011) to test our hypotheses. First, we estimated a null
model that had no predictors at either level 1 (individual
level) or level 2 (unit level) to partition performance variance into within and between units. Next, we tested for a
2-1-1 multilevel mediation model (Zhang et al. 2009) using
HLM 7.0 (Raudenbush et al. 2011). Following Hofmanns
recommendations, we used grand-mean centering for the
independent variables at each level.
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Results
Construct Validity
We confirmed the discriminant validity of the four focal
constructs. First, following Fornell and Larcker (1981), we
computed the AVE estimates of the constructs and found all
estimates to be greater than the squared correlations
between corresponding pairs of constructs (see Table 2).
Second, significant differences were found between the
unconstrained model and the constrained model (Anderson
and Gerbing 1988) for all six pairs of constructs (see
Table 3). For example, for the psychological capitalethical
leadership pair, the fit of the unconstrained model
(v2 = 627.00) was significantly better (Dv2(1) = 79.72,
P \ .001) than that of the constrained model (v2 = 706.73).
Data Aggregation
As noted earlier, and consistent with previous research, we
aggregated ethical leadership at the work unit level.
Although it has long been a running debate within leadership theory and research at large whether leadership
should be measured at the work unit level (Dansereau and
Yammarino 1998), the mainstream suggests that work
group members are likely to be consistent (homogeneous)
in their perceptions of the leader. A leader, these scholars
suggest, is likely to treat his/her subordinates in a similar
and consistent fashion, causing subordinates to describe
their leader in similar terms. Furthermore, the interaction
among team members is likely to render team members
homogeneous in their perceptions of their leader. This
implies that ethical leadership is a construct that is shared
by members of a unit. Thus, if ethical leadership captures
consistent shared observable behavior instead of just a
projection of followers implicit theories or response tendencies, followers should show greater within-group or
within-leader homogeneity in their ELS scores (ethical
leadership) than would be expected on the basis of chance.
Because shared unit properties emerge as a collective
aspect of the unit as a whole, one has to check for restricted
within-unit variance (Klein and Kozlowski 2000). Two
indices were used to compute the level of restricted withinunit variance: (1) Rwg(j), an index of within-group consensus and agreement (James et al. 1993; Lebreton and
Senter 2008), and (2) the intraclass correlation coefficient
ICC(1) (Bliese 2000). The median Rwg(j) values for ethical leadership (.95) indicate strong agreement within each
unit about ethical leadership. The ICC(1) has a medium
effect size with a value of 0.17 and meets the cutoff value
recommended by Bliese (2000). In sum, because the values
of Rwg(j) and ICC(1) were well above the acceptable cut
offs, aggregation is justified and in line with previous
PsyCap
EthLead $ PsyCap
0.52
0.35
EthLead $ GoalCong
0.52
EthLead $ Perf
0.52
0.41
0.35
PsyCap $ Perf
0.35
GoalCong $ Perf
v2 values
0.34
0.38
0.09
0.18
0.41
0.19
0.41
0.29
v2 difference
Constrained
(Cov = 1)
0.40
0.40
Support for DV
(AVE [ common
variance)
Perf
0.40
PsyCap $ GoalCong
Pairs of constructs
GoalCong
Common variance
DDF
(CV)
Unconstrained
(Cov = 1)
Discriminant
validity
(v2 diff [ CV)
EthLead $ PsyCap
706.73
627.01
79.72
3.84
EthLead $ GoalCong
183.73
123.57
60.17
3.84
EthLead $ Perf
PsyCap $ GoalCong
209.67
496.17
134.63
397.62
75.04
98.55
1
1
3.84
3.84
Y
Y
PsyCap $ Perf
502.79
418.29
84.50
3.84
84.26
34.70
49.56
3.84
GoalCong $ Perf
related to followerleader goal congruence (H1) and PsyCap (H4). Lastly, for full mediation of the effect of our
mediating variables (i.e., followerleader goal congruence
and PsyCap), the relationship between ethical leadership
and in-role job performance should become non-significant, or at least the strength of the relationship between
ethical leadership and in-role job-performance should
weaken (Table 4, model 4). Taken together, the results
reveal that the ethical leadershipperformance relationship
was fully mediated by followerleader goal congruence
and psychological capital, offering support for H3 and H6,
respectively. Lastly, a post hoc analysis also indicated that
an incremental 4 % of variance in job performance was
explained when PsyCap was included while controlling for
followerleader goal congruence (model 4).
Discussion
Theoretical Implications
Recent work has highlighted the importance of linking
leadership in general to in-role job performance, yet relatively limited attention has been devoted to the mechanisms through which ethical leaders influence followers to
achieve desired outcomes (Kark and Van Dijk 2007). By
exploring the simultaneous roles of followerleader goal
congruence and PsyCap, we respond to the call that the role
of the follower (i.e., PsyCap) should be equally important
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
Table 4 HLM results
In-role
job performance (M1)
Goal congruence
(M2)
Psychological
capital x(M3)
Step 2
Age
c (SE)
.01 (.07)
c (SE)
.05 (.10)
Gender
-.01 (.15)
.01 (.14)
Tenure
-.01 (.00)*
.01 (.01)
Ethical leadership
.84 (.20)***
1.04 (.30)**
.29
.19
Step 1
c (SE)
Age
.05 (.07)
Gender
-.00 (.11)
Tenure
-.02 (.00)*
Ethical leadership
.55 (.21)*
.17
Step 3
c (SE)
Age
.00 (.06)
Gender
-.02 (.14)
Tenure
-.00 (.01)
Ethical leadership
.46 (.25)
Goal congruence
.36 (.08)**
PsyCap
.42 (.12)**
R2
.30
123
In-role job
performance
(M4)
providing support for scholarly conceptual positions, indicating that PsyCap is related to in-role job performance
(Luthans 2002; Wright 2003).
Another primary contribution is that we not only identified a psychological resource variable (i.e., PsyCap) by
which ethical leadership is associated with in-role performance, but we also highlighted social learning theory
(Bandura 1986) as an explanatory framework by which
ethical leaders impact their followers. Consistent with the
theorizing of Brown et al. (2005), we found that follower
leader goal congruence is an important intervening mechanism in the ethical leadershipperformance relationship.
By including multiple mediating mechanisms, our study
represents an important attempt to integrate psychological
processes and the role of the quality of the relationship
between leaders and followers in explaining the relationship
between ethical leadership and employee performance.
Although this study does not provide a direct test of
whether ethical leadership varies or is universal, the fact
that our data were collected in Pakistan, a country that
differs significantly from many western developed countries, is a first step in the right direction. Being a collectivistic society with strong religious influence on all aspects
of life (Khilji 2002), the application of the ethical leadership construct and westernized theoretical frameworks (i.e.,
social learning theory) on data collected from Pakistan
Conclusion
The main objective of this study was to deepen our
understanding of the relationship between ethical leadership and employees in-role job performance. The perspectives of social learning theory and psychological
capital were applied to further develop our understanding
of the link between ethical leadership and performance.
Second, our data were collected in South Asia, which is
playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, as multinationals are moving to these regions. Unless
we test the theories largely developed in the United States
in non-Western settings, researchers and practitioners
would have little confidence about their generalizability to
those regions (Tsui et al. 2007). Our study provides greater
insights into the generalizability of concepts such as ethical
leadership, PsyCap and followerleader goal congruence in
Pakistan. Even if this study is only a drop in the ocean, we
hope it will encourage other scholars to continue to extend
the knowledge of these concepts or related concepts in
other cultural settings.
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D. Bouckenooghe et al.
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