A meta‐analytic test of the differential pathways linking ethical leadership to normative conduct

• Author: Ann C. Peng,Dongkyu Kim
• Date: 01 May 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2427
• Published date: 01 May 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A meta-analytic test of the differential pathways linking ethical

leadership to normative conduct

Ann C. Peng

1

| Dongkyu Kim

2

1

Trulaske College of Business, University of

Missouri, Columbia, Missouri

2

HEC Montréal, University of Montreal,

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Correspondence

Ann C. Peng, Trulaske College of Business,

University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211,

USA.

Email: cpeng@missouri.edu

Summary

We test how ethical leadership influences normatively (in)appropriate work behavior

through distinct mediating pathways, including one's exchange relationship with the

leader, ethical culture, and identification with the organization. Our study also

controls for transformational leadership as a predictor and trust in leader as a

nonhypothesized alternative mechanism. We test our hypotheses using meta-

analytic structural equation modeling based on our meta-analysis of 301 independent

samples (N= 103,354) and relevant meta-analytic correlations reported in previous

research. Supporting our prediction, we found that leader–member exchange, which

represents social exchange theory, was the most potent mechanism that accounts

for the positive relationship between ethical leadership and task performance. In

contrast, ethical culture, which assesses a social learning mechanism, is the strongest

predictor of counterproductive behavior. In addition, all three hypothesized

mediators each contribute to understanding the positive relationship between ethical

leadership and organizational citizenship behavior, although the indirect effect via

organizational identification was the weakest. The findings hold after controlling for

job satisfaction as another mediator parallel to the theoretical ones. Our results

contribute to a precise theory about ethical leadership by differentiating the pro-

cesses through which it affects employee behavior.

KEYWORDS

ethical culture, ethical leadership, LMX, normative conduct, organizational identification,

transformational leadership

1|INTRODUCTION

Ethical leadership refers to a leadership style that demonstrates

“normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and

interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to

followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and

decision-making”(Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005, p. 120). Studies

have consistently shown that ethical leadership has a positive effect

on followers' task performance (e.g., Piccolo, Greenbaum, den

Hartog, & Folger, 2010) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB;

e.g., Kacmar, Bachrach, Harris, & Zivnuska, 2011; Mayer, Kuenzi,

Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009). Research has also reported a

negative relationship between ethical leadership and employee devi-

ance or counterproductive work behavior (CWB; e.g., Mayer et al.,

2009; Schaubroeck et al., 2012). Performing well at the job and

engaging in OCB both contribute to the effectiveness of the organiza-

tion and are considered normatively desirable, whereas CWB violates

organizational and/or social norms and is thus normatively inappropri-

ate (Fox, Spector, & Miles, 2001; Robinson & Bennett, 1995).

In contrast to the accumulating evidence on the positive influence

of ethical leadership on normatively (un)desirable behaviors in the

workplace (see quantitative reviews by Bedi, Alpaslan, and Green

(2016) and Ng and Feldman (2015)), our understanding of the mecha-

nisms that link ethical leadership to these outcomes is incomplete, for

Received: 4 August 2018 Revised: 18 December 2019 Accepted: 28 December 2019

DOI: 10.1002/job.2427

348 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2020;41:348–368.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

two reasons. Although scholars have frequently referred to social

exchange theory (SET; Blau, 1964) and social learning theory (SLT;

Bandura, 1969, 1986) to hypothesize a positive relationship between

ethical leadership and employee task performance, OCB, or CWB (see

Table 1), they have rarely tested the postulated exchange or learning

processes. Among studies that rely on social exchange theory to

explain the benefits of ethical leadership, only 14% of them directly

measured the exchange process. Besides, with one exception (Yang,

Ding, & Lo, 2016), studies have not examined more than one mecha-

nism in linking ethical leadership to follower behavior. Testing a single

mediator often leads to the problem of discovering “specious

mediators,”which are “mediators that appear to channel an effect but

do not in fact do so”(Fischer, Dietz, & Antonakis, 2017, p. 1728). It

thus raises the question of whether the three dominant theories

(i.e., social learning theory, social exchange theory, and social identity

theory), which have been tested and supported in separate studies,

remain useful explaining the influence of ethical leadership if they

were tested simultaneously. Even when scholars did test different

mediator variables (Yang et al., 2016), it remains a question as to how

well a theoretical mechanism generalizes to other contexts and types

of behavior. These limitations of empirical tests of the mediating

mechanisms in the literature therefore impede scholars from develop-

ing accurate knowledge about how ethical leadership influences fol-

lower behavior.

To address the aforementioned limitations in the literature, we

propose a model that simultaneously considers the social exchange,

social learning, and social identification pathways through which

ethical leadership has been postulated to influence normative behav-

ior (see Figure 1). We test the model using meta-analytic correlations

from our analysis, and others reported in the published studies

(e.g., Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012; Judge,

Thoresen, Bono, & Patton, 2001). In doing so, our research makes

three main contributions. First, we formulate hypotheses that

compare the unique contributions of the dominant theoretical per-

spectives for predicting how ethical leadership is related to different

forms of normative conduct. Distinguishing the mechanisms through

which ethical leadership may affect task performance, OCB, and CWB

challenges the existing assumption that ethical leadership influences

different behaviors through the same process (e.g., Liu, Kwan, Fu, &

Mao, 2013; Thiel, Hardy, Peterson, Welsh, & Bonner, 2018). This pre-

cise knowledge on how ethical leadership affects each normative con-

duct refines our understanding of ethical leadership as a process

model (Fischer et al., 2017) and sheds insights into whether and how

ethical leadership is similar or different from other leadership con-

structs (Hoch, Bommer, Dulebohn, & Wu, 2018). As we elaborate

later, this knowledge also has implications for how organizations man-

age the lack of ethical leadership in some work units to promote posi-

tive changes among their employees.

Second, our study examines the multiple competing processes

derived from the major theories employed in the ethical leadership

literature, contributing to theory pruning by “eliminating weak,

biased, and marginal theoretical candidates”(Leavitt, Mitchell, &

Peterson, 2010, p. 644). The emphasis on interesting theory in orga-

nizational research often motivates scholars to advance new theo-

retical explanations. Yet ethical leadership studies that propose a

new theoretical mechanism (e.g., organizational identification) sel-

dom control for other established theories (e.g., social exchange the-

ory) in their tests. This often results in inflated empirical support for

the new theory and, accordingly, creates the problem of a dense

theoretical landscape in which theories are not sufficiently distinct

to be meaningful (Leavitt et al., 2010; Pillutla & Thau, 2013). Given

that the literature is shifting from examining the consequences of

ethical leadership to uncovering the mediating processes (Fischer

et al., 2017; van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013), it is of particular

importance to critically evaluate the existing theories before

research can fruitfully identify and test novel theories.

TABLE 1 Theories referenced and tested in research on ethical leadership influences

a

Theory referenced to develop hypotheses Theory tested via examining mediation

b

Theory Number of studies Percent of studies (%) Number of studies Percent of studies

d

(%)

Social learning theory (SLT) 36 51.4 6 16.7

Social exchange theory (SET) 49 70.0 7 14.3

Social identity theory (SIT) 4 5.7 2 50.0

Other theories

c

13 18.6 10 76.9

No specific theory 2 2.9 0 0.0

Both social exchange and social learning theory 23 32.9 1 4.3

a

We coded a total of 70 primary studies that have hypothesized and tested the consequences of ethical leadership on employee behavioral outcomes (i.e.,

task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and counterproductive work behavior). Studies that examined ethical leadership as a correlate (e.g.,

control variable and nomological network analysis), an outcome, or the moderator in the hypotheses were not included in this analysis.

b

Mediators used to test SLT were ethical culture/climate, self-efficacy, and moral attentiveness/judgment. Mediators used to test SET included leader–

member exchange and trust in leader; and mediators for SIT involved organizational identification and identification with the leader.

c

Other theories that were referenced to develop hypotheses about influences of ethical leadership include implicit leadership theory, fairness theory,

regulatory focus theory, conservation of resource theory, group engagement model, dramaturgical theory, attraction-selection model, social comparison

theory, and affective events theory.

d

This percentage refers to the proportion of studies that have tested the theory used in developing the hypotheses.

PENG AND KIM 349