Abstract
In the field of organizational behavior, the influence of leadership in organizations and the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of employees have always been two hot topics studied by scholars. However, previous studies have mainly examined the OCB of baby boomers and Generation Xers. With millennials now entering the workforce, they will highly likely not take the initiative to engage in OCB due to their different values. Scholars have found that millennials respond well to ethical leadership. Although this statement has a theoretical basis, empirical research regarding this topic is still insufficient. Thus, this study explores whether ethical leadership can effectively promote millennials’ OCB. Moreover, the mediating effect of group-level ethical climate and individual-level affective well-being, and the moderating effect of individual-level moral identity, were examined. The study hypotheses were verified based on 384 valid questionnaires collected from 61 teams using Mplus 8.3. The results showed that (1) ethical leadership was a positive predictor of millennials’ OCB; (2) ethical climate and affective well-being partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and OCB; and (3) moral identity moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and affective well-being and the indirect impact of ethical leadership on OCB. These findings provide empirical support for applying social learning theory, social information processing theory, and conservation of resources (COR)theory. This research also provides several managerial implications through which managers can more effectively improve the OCB of millennial employees.
Highlights
By 2025, millennial workers will account for 75% of the global workforce, which means that three out of four workers will be millennials [1]
The work values of millennials and the previous generations differ in four ways: (1) millennials pay more attention to extrinsic value [5]; (2) millennials have a stronger desire to obtain money and status from their work and are more concerned about leisure time [6,7]; (3) millennials tend to have lower social values, indicating their less willingness to make friends at work [5,6]; (4) millennials place a higher emphasis on meaningful work
This study focuses on the millennial employees of Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China to explore the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
Summary
By 2025, millennial workers will account for 75% of the global workforce, which means that three out of four workers will be millennials [1]. The work values of millennials and the previous generations differ in four ways:. (1) millennials pay more attention to extrinsic value [5]; (2) millennials have a stronger desire to obtain money and status from their work and are more concerned about leisure time [6,7]; (3) millennials tend to have lower social values, indicating their less willingness to make friends at work [5,6]; (4) millennials place a higher emphasis on meaningful work. Due to these differences in work values, millennial workers may shy away from engaging in organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) that requires them to undertake efforts beyond their regular work duties [8]. If millennials place a high emphasis on leisure time and extrinsic rewards, OCB, which is a voluntary action beyond work requirements that provides no formal rewards, is less common among millennials [6,8].
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