The effect of ethical leadership at senior management levels on in-role work behaviors

Mohamed Ahmed Ali Nemr,Yuhuan Liu

doi:10.22495/cbv17i2art1

Mohamed Ahmed Ali Nemr, Yuhuan Liu

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.22495/cbv17i2art1

Copy DOI

Abstract

Higher education institutions and most contemporary organizations face behavioral issues often related to the leaders’ skills and styles of leadership. Ethical leadership is one of those methods that helps to improve the workers’ behaviors within the workplace (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005; Kia, Halvorsen, & Bartram, 2019; Qian & Jian, 2020). This study aims to test ethical leadership’s (EL) impact on in-role work behaviors (IWBs) and to test the moderating role of organizational cynicism (OC) between them. The authors conducted this study using a stratified random sample consisting of 400 faculty members working in Egypt’s Sohag University. For this analysis, we used simple regression, hierarchical regression moderated analysis (HRMA) and simple slope analysis. Our paper findings reveal that EL had a positive effect on IWBs and that OC modified the positive correlation between them. This meant that the relationship was stronger for workers, who perceived a low level of cynicism, and was weaker for workers who perceived a high level of cynicism. These findings resulted in our conclusions about the respective relationships between EL, IWBs and OC concerning ethical leadership.

Highlights

Contemporary organizations including higher education institutions face numerous employee and faculty member behavioral problems related to all aspects of organizational performance (Treviño, Brown, & Hartman, 2003)
The mean value of the in-role work behaviors (IWBs) variable is slightly lower than 3. This indicates the relative weakness of the presence of those behaviors among Sohag University’s faculty members and the unwillingness of staff to sacrifice themselves for the University
It shows their weak attitudes towards positive behaviors. These results show a divergence of views between the sample members on the variables of Sohag University’s ethical leadership and in-role work behaviors

Summary

Introduction

Contemporary organizations including higher education institutions (i.e., universities) face numerous employee and faculty member behavioral problems related to all aspects of organizational performance (Treviño, Brown, & Hartman, 2003). The evolving role of leaders’ ethical leadership has forced forward-thinking organizations to focus on developing these skills among their current leaders. It is one of the methods used to increase the organizations’ development and success (Puaschunder, 2018; Sun, 2018; Mrwebi, 2019; Yahiaoui & Ezzine, 2020). The findings of studies (Shafique, Kalyar, & Ahmad, 2018; Bello, 2012; Malik, Awais, Timsal, & Qureshi, 2016; Lu, 2014; Yang & Wei, 2018), which deal with the behaviors resulting from ethical leadership, reveal a positive correlation between workers’ perceptions of ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and in-role work behaviors (IWBs) as well as the negative consequences of counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) (Mayer, Kuenzi, Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009; Avey, Palanski, & Walumbwa, 2011)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion