Ethical Leadership and Organizations: An Analysis of Leadership in the Manufacturing Industry Based on the Perceived Leadership Integrity Scale

Abstract

Ethics has been identified as a significant issue among those in leadership positions. The purpose of this research was to assess the ethics and integrity of leaders in today’s manufacturing environment as perceived by their employees. This study included a total of 10 manufacturing companies in the United States. A total of 59 surveys were used to calculate data for this study. A demographic survey and the Perceived Leader Integrity Scale (PLIS) were used to collect data from respondents. The research addressed the following question: To what degree are leaders in the manufacturing industry considered “low ethical,” “moderate ethical,” and “high ethical” on the PLIS? It was determined through descriptive data analysis that the majority of supervisors in this study, as rated by their employees were highly ethical. Male and female employees equally rated their supervisors as highly ethical. Employees in the age category (18–25) rated their supervisors higher ethically than other age groups in the␣study. However, considering ethnicity categories, African-Americans scored their supervisors lower ethically than the European-American category. The education level of the employees did not provide any significant findings in rating their supervisors.