Ethical Climate(s), Distributed Leadership, and Work Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Organizational Identification.

Massimiliano Barattucci,Davide Pietroni,Serena Iacobucci,Alessandro Lo Presti,Stefano Pagliaro,Manuel Teresi

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.564112

Abstract

Organizational identification (OI) has increasingly attracted scholarly attention as a key factor in understanding organizational processes and in fostering efficient human resource (HR) management. Available evidence shows that organizational ethical climate crucially predicts OI, a key determinant of both employees’ attitudes and behaviors. In the present paper, we examined the relationship between two specific ethical climates (self-interest vs. friendship), distributed leadership (DL), and employees’ attitudes and behaviors, incorporating OI as a core underlying mechanism driving these relationships. Three hundred and forty-two employees filled out questionnaires to examine ethical climate, DL, OI, and a series of measures concerning attitudes and behaviors toward the organization. Structural equation modeling confirmed that a perception of an ethical climate of friendship (but not self-interest) fostered OI, which elicited higher commitment, perceived trust and recommendation, and lower turnover intention. Perception of DL further contributed to increasing OI. Our findings suggest that HR practices should carefully consider employee perceptions of a collectivistic (vs. individualistic) ethical climate, together with perceptions of DL, as key determinants of positive organizational outcomes. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach and present practical implications for HR management.

Highlights

In the last three decades, both researchers and practitioners interested in organizational processes focused their attention on the psychological link between employees and their organizations
We find reasonable the assumption that distributed leadership agency (DLA) will positively relate with a friendship ethical climate and not with a self-interest ethical climate and that DLA will relate to many outcomes through organizational identification (OI) (Barattucci et al, 2020), and we hypothesized the following: Hypothesis 4: DLA will be positively related to friendship ethical climate and negatively related to selfinterest ethical climate
We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) through AMOS 22.0 to test the construct validity and reliability of the measurement model consisting of the aforementioned scales

Summary

Introduction

In the last three decades, both researchers and practitioners interested in organizational processes focused their attention on the psychological link between employees and their organizations. HR management (HRM) must deal with the new operational and organizational scenarios that have recently been unfolding in a Organizational Identification and Employees’ Reactions timely and creative manner (Cornelissen et al, 2007). Organizational identification (OI) started playing a key role in strategic management research, primarily for its effects on many motivational factors, work outcomes, attitudes, behavioral intentions, and team dynamics (Meyer et al, 2006; Liu et al, 2011; Smith, 2011; Peters et al, 2013; Zagenczyk et al, 2020). Researchers proposed that employees’ perception of different ethical climates may determine different degrees of OI, and this, in turn, may influence their attitudes and behaviors (Pagliaro et al, 2018; Teresi et al, 2019). Attempting to extend our knowledge about the key role of OI, distributed leadership agency (DLA) (Jønsson et al, 2016) was considered as a further additional antecedent

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion