Abstract
The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: (a) the effect of ethical leadership (EL) on volunteers’ satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; (b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between EL and volunteers’ intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between EL and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants’ age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, EL was found to be positively associated both with volunteers’ intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers’ satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors’ knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by EL on volunteers’ behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of EL by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization.
Highlights
Scandals involving Endrom and WorldCom in the United States, the Banca Popolare di Lodi in Italy, or even Volkswagen in Germany, have brought ethical questions about these organizations’ corporate management under the attention of the media, the broader public, and even the academia (Carson, 2003)
We estimate the fit of our measurement model in terms of χ2, Non-normed Fit Index (NNFI), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR)
The general aim of this study was to observe the effect of ethical leadership (EL) on volunteers, by looking at its effect on their job satisfaction, their intention to stay in the same organization, and their affective organizational commitment
Summary
Scandals involving Endrom and WorldCom in the United States, the Banca Popolare di Lodi in Italy, or even Volkswagen in Germany, have brought ethical questions about these organizations’ corporate management under the attention of the media, the broader public, and even the academia (Carson, 2003). Over the past two decades a number of studies have been developed on the ethical management of for-profit organization (see e.g., Coffee, 2005; Agrawal and Cooper, 2017; Zyglidopoulos et al, 2017) These studies have highlighted the need for a strong commitment on behalf of senior managers in order to leverage the ethical behavior of their organizations. EL has proven to play a significant role in the generation of positive attitudes and behaviors among the members of an organization, which in turn are important antecedents of high levels of individual and organizational performance (Rowold and Rohmann, 2009; Lam et al, 2016; Ren and Chadee, 2017). This explains the growing interest in the role played by EL in organizations
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