One definition, different manifestations: Investigating ethical leadership in the Chinese context

Abstract

Although ethical leadership positively relates to a variety of favorable work outcomes across cultural settings, how national/societal culture potentially shapes the behavioral manifestations of ethical leadership remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate behavioral manifestations of ethical leadership in the Chinese context and develop the Chinese Ethical Leadership Scale (CELS). In Study 1, we use an indigenous, qualitative approach to investigate the nature of ethical leadership. Based on the qualitative findings, we develop the CELS, which consists of six important components of Chinese ethical leadership: moral courage, openness to criticism, incorruptibility, reliability, fairness, and role modeling. In Study 2, we empirically show that, after controlling for a Western ethical leadership scale, the six dimensions of Chinese ethical leadership predict various subordinate outcomes, including reporting of wrongdoing, cooperative voice, protection of company resources, conscientiousness, interpersonal harmony, and task performance. Based on our results, we propose a culturally integrated model of ethical leadership that elucidates both ethical and Chinese leadership literatures.