We consider the problem of moral disjunction in professional and business activities from a virtue-ethical perspective. Moral disjunction arises when the behavioral demands of a role conflict with personal morality; it is an important problem because most people in modern societies occupy several complex roles that can cause this clash to occur. We argue that moral disjunction, and the psychological mechanisms that people use to cope with it, are problematic because they make it hard to pursue virtue and to live (...) with integrity. We present role coadunation as a process with epistemic and behavioral aspects that people can use to resolve moral disjunction with integrity. When role coadunation is successful, it enables people to live virtuous lives of appropriate narrative disunity and to honor their identity-conferring commitments. We show how role coadunation can be facilitated by interpretive communities and discuss the emergence and ideal features of those communities. (shrink)

In this empirical study, we investigate _what_ and _how_ teachers in Dutch universities of applied sciences (UAS) think they contribute to the development of students’ ethical compasses. Six focus groups were conducted with teachers across three programmes: Initial Teaching Education, Business Services, and Information and Communication Technology. This study revealed that teachers across the three different professional disciplines shared similar ideas about what should be addressed in the development of students’ ethical compasses. Their contributions were grouped into three core themes: (...) creating students’ moral awareness, developing students’ moral skills and promoting students’ moral professional behaviour. The majority of the teachers used a wide range of planned and unplanned pedagogic–didactic actions (reflecting individual learning and cooperative and group learning) to enhance the development of students’ ethical compasses. However, teachers’ strategies were mostly unstructured and unreflective and depended on the individual teacher’s ability and knowledge to address moral themes. Furthermore, the study revealed two incompatible ideals: as role models, the teachers aimed to exemplify explicitly how to be a professional with an ethical compass. However, they also wanted to adopt a neutral stance because they were afraid to manipulate the students’ ethical compasses. Therefore, they avoided promoting _the_ ethical compass that they believed to be the best. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper aims to offer a new perspective on role modelling by examining adolescents’ own efforts to lead a morally virtuous life. While traditional approaches to moral education emphasize the importance of teachers as role models, this study proposes a shift in focus towards adolescents’ own role models. Drawing on the philosophical concept of moral self-cultivation and psychological insights on identity development and social cognitive learning, it is argued that adolescents have the ability to cultivate their moral character by (...) emulating others. However, empirical evidence suggests that adolescents often do not perceive teachers as their role models. Consequently, moral educational theories are advised to demand less of teachers as role models. Teachers could invest more time in understanding students’ personal role models and encourage them to compare these role models with their own behavior. By acknowledging and addressing students’ role models, teachers can facilitate the moral self-cultivation of adolescents. (shrink)

Given the prevalence of misconduct in research and among students in higher education, there is a need to create solutions for how best to prevent such behaviour in academia. This paper proceeds on the assumption that one way forward is to prepare students in higher education at an early stage and to encourage a smoother transition from academic integrity to research integrity by incorporating academic integrity training as an ongoing part of the curriculum. To this end, this paper presents three (...) checklists developed as part of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project _Bridging Integrity in Higher Education, Business and Society_ (BRIDGE, 2020-1-SE01-KA203-077973). The aim of the checklists is to help students and their supervisors to bridge academic integrity and research integrity in research training. The checklists target master students, doctoral students, and their supervisors. This paper presents the theoretical background of the checklists, how they were developed, their content, and how they may be used in supervising thesis/dissertation work to promote a transition from academic integrity to research integrity. (shrink)

Recent literature suggests that ethical leadership helps to inhibit followers’ unethical behavior, largely built on the premise that followers view ethical leaders as ethical role models and socially learn from them, thereby engaging in more ethical conduct. This premise, however, has not been adequately tested, leaving insufficient understanding concerning the conditions under which this social learning process occurs. In this study, we revisit this premise, theorizing that not all followers will equally regard the same ethical leader as being a personal (...) ethical role model, thereby bounding the leader’s effects in reducing followers’ unethical behavior. We integrate the role of follower self-concepts into social learning theory, hypothesizing that the extent followers emulate their ethical leaders is contingent on how they identify with ethics as well as the particular leader. We test our hypotheses with three-wave survey data collected from 214 employees, finding that ethical leaders are viewed as being role models only amongst followers higher in moral identity and leader identification, and that followers’ perceptions that the leader is an ethical role model mediated the effect of ethical leadership on followers’ unethical behavior. Interestingly, results for the full-model tests show that ethical leadership evokes unethical behavior amongst followers lower in both moral identity and leader identification. These results suggest that ethical leadership is not a universally useful practice to decrease unethical behavior and that a more nuanced understanding of its contingent effects needs to be better understood. (shrink)

Although the trickle-down effect of ethical leadership has been documented in the literature, its underlying mechanism still remains largely unclear. To address this gap, we develop a cross-level dual-process model to explain how the effect occurs. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that the ethical leadership of high-level managers could cascade to middle-level supervisors via its impact on middle-level supervisors’ two ethical expectations. Using a sample of 69 middle-level supervisors and 381 subordinates across 69 sub-branches from a large banking (...) firm in China, we found that middle-level supervisors’ ethical efficacy expectation and unethical behavior–punishment expectation accounted for the trickle-down effect. The explanatory role of middle-level supervisors’ ethical behavior–reward expectation, however, was not supported. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Background: In accordance with ethical guidelines for nurses, leaders for nurse services in general are responsible for facilitating professional development and ethical reflection and to use ethical guidelines as a management tool. Research describes a gap between employees’ and nurse leaders’ perceptions of priorities. Objective: The purpose of this article is to gain deeper insight into how nurses as leaders in somatic hospitals describe ethical challenges. Design and method: We conducted individual, quality interview with 10 nurse leaders, nine females and (...) one male nurse aged 34–64 years. We used a hermeneutical approach to analyse the data. Ethical considerations: The participants received oral and written information about the study. Participation in the study was voluntary, and the participants were given the opportunity to withdraw. All of them gave written consent. The Norwegian Centre for Research Data approved the research project. In addition, the head of the hospitals gave permission to conduct our study. Findings: Four main areas were identified: deficient ethical language, conflicting demands on nurse leaders regarding staff management, concerns regarding young nurses’ ethical consciousness and restricting factors on the creation of a climate of ethics. The nurse leaders experienced considerable pressure. An unexpected finding was the lack of – and even disregard for – an ethical language. Discussion and conclusion: It is crucial to recognise ethics in all types of nursing approaches and to make it explicit. Ethical language must be implemented in nursing education. It must be recognised and used in clinical practice. Recommendations: We recommend further research be conducted into how nurses understand the concept of ethics and how to incorporate ethical principles into clinical nursing and nurse leadership. (shrink)

Building from an interactionist view of ethics, this study sought to integrate individual and contextual factors for understanding ethical perceptions in teams. Given the proximal nature of team members, this study specifically explored how individuals comparatively evaluate their own ethical behaviors and team members’ ethical behaviors to arrive at a perception of ethical person–group fit within a team. Grounding our theoretical arguments in relational schemas theory, we demonstrate that interpersonal ethical perceptions can have distal impacts on perceptions of team functioning. (...) The results support the hypotheses that a perceived ethical incongruence between the self and other team members negatively influenced perceptions of relationship conflict and ultimately information sharing. By exploring individual and team level aspects of ethics concurrently, we contribute to a deeper understanding of contextual forces in ethics through an interactionist approach. (shrink)

Conversely to the United States, lobbying consulting in France is a relatively recent activity and is perceived negatively by a majority of the population. Influencing public decision-making is certainly a sensitive occupation at both managerial and societal levels. This is why ethics applied to business can play a central role while establishing the practice of lobbying in France. This paper examines the issues and the practices of ethics in lobbying consulting. The field for this exploratory study is a lobbying consultancy (...) firm based in France. Our research is developed through a 3-month participant observation and complemented with secondary data on the lobbying profession in France. The results of this research are developed along two lines: The practice of ethics in lobbying consultancy firms reveals its limits as well as a framework worth developing. The players and the represented client topics are potential dangers for ethical lobbying firms. This intervention research has nevertheless allowed us to observe the emergence of an effective regulation approach: the ethics of exemplarity as potentially illustrated by a representative actor of the French lobbying consulting profession. The stakes of ethics are both internal and external to lobbying consulting professionals in France. Internally, ethics act as a structuring element enabling this profession to establish itself with practices and deontological codes; externally, it clarifies the relationship between lobbying consultants and their major stakeholders including customers, government, and the civil society. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Scientific malpractice is not just due to researchers having bad intentions, but also due to a lack of education concerning research integrity practices. Besides the importance of institutionalised trainings on research integrity, research supervisors play an important role in translating what doctoral students learn during research integrity formal sessions. Supervision practices and role modelling influence directly and indirectly supervisees’ attitudes and behaviour toward responsible research. Research supervisors can not be left alone in this effort. Research institutions are responsible for supporting (...) supervisors in being more aware of their RI function, and in supporting responsible supervision practices to have a positive cascading effect on supervisees’ research practices. We interviewed 22 European research supervisors to investigate how they perceive their role as research integrity trainers and their real-life supervision practices. Moreover, we investigated their points of view concerning the role of research institutions in supporting supervision practices. Although there are different commonalities in supervisors’ perception of their research integrity-related role, differences are emphasised depending on the supervisors’ characteristics such as academic domain, seniority, working country and gender. In addition, supervisors’ way of mentoring depend also on supervisees’ learning curve. Overall, all supervisors agreed on institutions playing an important role in support their supervision effort and practices. This study aims to be a starting point for better understanding research integrity supervision practices and the role of institutions in supporting them. Moreover, it puts the basis to further investigate differences in supervision practices depending on supervisors’ characteristics. (shrink)

Significant research attention has been devoted to understanding the ethical behavior of leaders (i.e., the moral person) and how leaders’ expectations influence their followers’ ethical behavior (...

ABSTRACT:This article addresses the fundamental question of what is ethical leadership by rearticulating relations between leaders and followers in terms of “affective leadership.” The article develops a Spinozian conception of ethics which is underpinned by a deep suspicion of ethical systems that hold obedience as a primary virtue. We argue that the existing research into ethical leadership tends to underplay the ethical capacities of followers by presuming that they are in need of direction or care by morally superior leaders. In (...) contrast, affective leadership advocates a profoundly political version of ethics, which involves people in the pursuit of joyful encounters that augment our capacity to affect and be affected by others. Instead of being led by people in leadership positions, we are led by active affections that enhance our capacity for moral action. (shrink)

Faced with the disenchantment and disengagement expressed by their employees, business leaders are considering ways of incorporating more benevolence into managerial practices. Nevertheless, ‘benevolence’—care and concern for the well-being of others—has not yet been studied in an organizational profit-focused context. In this paper, we seek to investigate the emergence and practice of benevolence with an eye on profit and performance. We begin by investigating the main ethical approaches to benevolence—virtue ethical, utilitarian, and deontological. Then, based on an empirical study, we (...) identify two distinct types of benevolence. On the one hand, formal benevolence is defined and monitored by the organizational processes and actions of leaders; it is understood by all concerned to be bounded by organizational performance. On the other hand, informal benevolence exists at the margin of these processes, in interpersonal and discretionary relationships. We set out to analyze these two types of benevolence and the complementarity between them. We also discuss to what extent they can be managed, teasing out some implications for managers and some potential avenues for further research. (shrink)

Ethical leadership is an important construct in the literature on behavioral ethics in organizations, given its link with employee attitudes and behaviors. What remains unclear, however, is what leader characteristics are associated directly with ethical leader perceptions and indirectly with employee unethical behavior. In this paper, we use a socio-cognitive lens to integrate goal orientation theory with the literature on ethical behavior in organizations. Specifically, we propose that certain patterns of managers’ goal-oriented behavior provide signals and cues to employees about (...) their managers’ ethical leadership, which then relates to employee displays of more unethical behavior. Using a sample of 265 manager–employee dyads, our findings largely support our claims. We found that leader performance-avoid goal orientation was negatively related to perceptions of ethical leadership and positively related to employee unethical behavior. Moderated mediation tests indicated that the positive indirect effect of leader performance-avoid goal orientation on employee unethical behavior through perceptions of ethical leadership was attenuated by higher levels of leader learning goal orientation. Taken together, these findings suggest that when leaders emphasize avoiding failure while downplaying the importance of personal learning and development, employees perceive them as less ethical and are more willing to engage in ethical misconduct. We discuss implications of our findings for both theory and practice. (shrink)

Past research illustrated that leaders could restrict followers’ deviance by reinforcing social norms of appropriate behaviors. Nevertheless, we submit that this understanding is incomplete without considering the effects of leaders on followers’ self-sanctions given that most undesirable behaviors are controlled internally. This research argues that interactional justice is an effective strategy for leaders to enhance followers’ self-sanctions. Leaders’ interactional justice provides personalized information and dyadic treatment that indirectly reduce employees’ deviance by restraining followers’ moral disengagement. Besides, this study examines the (...) social sanction role of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders highlight the importance of adherence to collective norms, which influence the relationship between followers’ moral disengagement and deviance. By identifying the different pathways via which they influence followers’ moral disengagement, we integrate interactional justice and ethical leadership into one theoretical framework. Our predictions are supported by data analyses of 220 samples from a multi-wave and -source field study. This integrative framework contributes to a comprehensive understanding of how leaders restrict employees’ deviance. (shrink)

Over the past decade, ethical leadership has increasingly become one of the most popular topics in the areas of leadership and business ethics. As a result, there now exists a substantial body of empirical research addressing ethical leadership issues, but the findings reported by this body of research are highly fragmented. The topic has advanced to the stage where a review and synthesis of existing literature can provide great value and help move the scholarly conversation forward. The primary purposes of (...) this article are to review empirical findings from the ethical leadership literature utilizing a framework consisting of the antecedents, mediators, moderators and outcomes of ethical leadership, and suggest a set of interesting research opportunities, thereby facilitating future investigation. We base our synthesis on a review of 62 empirical studies on ethical leadership that were published between 2005 and mid-2015. (shrink)

This study extends earlier findings on ethical leadership by testing the relationship of the seven dimensions of ethical leadership with job satisfaction, organization commitment, job embeddedness, and cynicism. It uses time-lagged data from 585 employees in Pakistan. Using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, the study supports the concept of multidimensional ethical leadership in the Eastern setting and indicates that the dimensions of people orientation, fairness, power sharing, ethical guidance, and role clarification are associated with the majority of outcomes, (...) as suggested by social exchange theory. However, the concern for sustainability and integrity dimensions had a limited effect. (shrink)

Ethical leadership has become a popular subject of empirical research in recent years. Most studies follow Brown et al.’s definition of ethical leadership, which consists of two components: the moral person and the moral manager. In this paper, I argue for a third relevant component: i.e., the moral entrepreneur who creates a new ethical norm. Viewing moral entrepreneurship as a new component of ethical leadership opens up avenues for studying various antecedents and outcomes of ethical leadership that have not been (...) acknowledged so far, or at least, not adequately. (shrink)

Under some circumstances, individuals are willing to engage in unethical behaviors that benefit another entity. In this research we advance the unethical pro-organizational behavior construct by showing that individuals also have the potential to behave unethically to benefit their supervisors. Previous research has not examined if employees engage in unethical acts to benefit an entity that is separate from oneself and if they will conduct these acts to benefit a supervisor. Our research helps to address these gaps. We also demonstrate (...) that unethical behavior to benefit a supervisor, what we term unethical pro-supervisor behavior, is more likely to occur if individuals are more identified with their organization or supervisor. That is, feeling a sense of oneness with one’s organization or supervisor can result in employees engaging in unethical behavior to help their supervisor. Further, this positive relationship is weakened if the employee possesses higher levels of moral identity. We test our hypotheses with a two-part laboratory study, a field study, and a time-lagged field study. Theoretical and practical implications of this work are discussed. (shrink)

This qualitative study explores how business leaders narrate their personal ways of recognizing, reasoning, and resolving moral conflicts and what these stories reveal about their moral identity processes within organizational contexts. Based on interviews with 25 business leaders, 4 moral identity statuses were identified: achievement, moratorium, foreclosure, and diffusion. The moral identity statuses were based on how leaders approached and interpreted moral conflicts and what the influence of the organizational context was in their moral decision-making processes. Some remained steadfast in (...) adhering to their previous value commitments, while others tried to avoid taking any clear moral standpoint. Still others experienced moral conflicts as disequilibrating events that triggered reflective processes and developmental cycles of moral identity change. These moral identity statuses hold implications for facilitating moral identity development among business leaders in the context of work. (shrink)

Explanations of organizational misconduct frequently point to declining firm performance and/or the actions of unethical or suspect leaders. Evidence that high-performing firms act illegally or unethically is an enigma. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues by exploring organizational performance using aspirational rather than absolute measures and examining the effect that suspect leader succession has on the increased probability of organizational misconduct. Our analysis of 128 collegiate football programs competing between 1953 and 2016 reveals an increased likelihood (...) of misconduct among organizations with strong as well as weak performance, most notably in comparison to competitive peer programs. Social- and self-referenced aspirations produced distinct relationships between relative performance and misconduct. The impact of leader succession was conditional. The data revealed an increased likelihood of infraction episodes with the appointment of suspect leaders. In some instances, however, a reduced likelihood of misconduct accompanied succession events involving untainted leaders. (shrink)

At the end of their article in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Douglas R. May, Matthew T. Luth, and Catherine E. Schwoerer state that they are “hopeful in outlook” about the “evidence that business ethics instructors are….able to encourage students…to develop the courage to come forward even when pressures in organizations dictate otherwise”. We agree with May et al. that it is essential to augment students’ moral courage. However, it seems overly optimistic to believe that (...) this improvement will result from any course in business ethics. Indeed, we question the appropriateness of their measure of moral courage and assert that business ethics educators must purposely design their courses to develop students’ moral courage. In particular, we advocate introducing business ethics students to works of literature featuring protagonists who exercise moral courage in organizations. Fiction provides rich accessible narratives that show students worlds beyond their experience, awaken their imaginations, and evoke their emotions. Further, we highlight morally courageous exemplars because they inspire the cultivation of character. Joining those who underscore the role of virtue in business ethics education, we argue that exposure to moral exemplars in fiction will help students to build the moral courage they need to carry out ethical decisions in the workplace. Results from 46 students at the end of an MBA ethics course featuring moral courage provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of our approach. (shrink)

The convergence of India’s rich cultural and religious heritage with its rapidly transforming economy provides a unique opportunity to understand how senior executives navigate the demands of the business environment within the context of their religious convictions. Forty senior executives with varying religious backgrounds and global responsibilities within Indian multinational corporations participated in this study. Drawing from virtue ethics theory and using systematic content analysis, several themes emerged for ethical virtues. The analysis illustrates how these deeply seated ethical virtues helped (...) to form and refine these executives’ ethical mindsets via guiding principles such as an ethical culture, environment, molding, education, commitment and leadership. In turn, these ethical mindsets influenced the executives’ ethical decision-making processes. We find that these executives’ ethical virtues and mindsets are inspired by their religious backgrounds. In summary, a very complex mental tug-of-war appears to take place as these executives rationalize and negotiate unethical circumstances while being cognizant of personal religious beliefs. We contend that in a pluralistic multi-faith society such as India, it is critical for corporations to align the virtues of its senior executives with those of the corporation so that virtues are applied consistently when dealing with various stakeholders. The findings present several theoretical and practical implications, which are discussed. (shrink)

This paper investigates the potential contribution of sociological perspectives for business ethics teaching. After a brief and selective literature review, the paper suggests starting with sociological thinking and three aspects of it: sociological concepts, sociological imagination, and postponed judgment. After presenting two short case teaching stories and three sociological concepts or frameworks, the potential inspiration value of a sociological checklist for analysing or diagnosing business ethics cases is tried out. As an open ending, some short final suggestions are made for (...) further use of sociological perspectives in both business ethics teaching and research. (shrink)

Although a number of studies have demonstrated that perceived ethical leadership engenders beneficial follower outcomes, there is a dearth of research on ethical leadership in the sales context. This is surprising given that salespersons constantly face ethical challenges in their work environment and ethical leadership could provide them with appropriate guidelines for navigating such challenges successfully. Focusing on the salesperson’s perspective and responding to calls for investigating underlying processes responsible for the effects of ethical leadership, this study proposes that sales (...) managers’ ethical leadership influences salespersons’ emulation intentions—i.e., their intentions to model or imitate the manager’s ethical behavior—which, in turn, influences both behavior and outcome performance. In addition, salespersons’ perceptions of the manager’s competence and gratitude toward the manager are examined as moderating mechanisms on the relationship between ethical leadership and salespersons’ emulation. Finally, three aspects of the ethical climate prevailing in the organization—ethical responsibility, peers’ unethical behavior, and unethical sales practices—are included as control variables. The proposed relationships are tested by using data from 290 business-to-business salespeople. Based on the findings, implications are offered for theory and practice. (shrink)

We use a lab experiment to examine whether and how leaders influence workers’ (un)ethical behavior through financial reporting choices. We randomly assign the role of leaders or workers to subjects, who can choose to report an outcome via automatic or self-reporting. Self-reporting allows for profitable and undetectable earnings manipulation. We vary the leaders’ ability to choose the reporting method and to punish workers. We show that workers are more likely to choose automatic reporting when their leader voluntarily does so and (...) can assign punishment. Even workers who choose self-reporting tend to cheat less when their leader chooses automatic reporting. Nonetheless, most leaders do not opt for automatic reporting in the first place: they often choose self-reporting and punish workers who rather choose automatic reporting. Collectively, our results reveal a dual effect of leadership on ethical behaviors in organizations: workers behave more ethically if their leader makes ethical choices, but often leaders do not make ethical choices in the first place. Hence, leading by example can backfire. (shrink)

Leadership studies on corporate ethical behavior and practices have grown considerably, contributing significant knowledge on ethical leadership challenges that are organizational and industry focused. However, complex socio-ecological systems are placing pressure on organizational culture and old patterns of leadership behavior that play a role in organizational justice. In this study, we argue that scholars of business ethics must consider the role of organizational justice and use person-organization fit (P–O fit). To address this, our study investigates the mediating effect of organizational (...) justice on the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ ethical behavior. We also examine the moderating role of P–O fit on the relationship between organizational justice and employee’s ethical behavior. The study survey focused on 295 employees belonging to organizations in Iraq. We show that ethical leadership positively influences employees’ ethical behavior, and this relationship is shaped by organizational justice. The findings reflect the positive impact of organizational justice on ethical behavior, and this relationship is more pronounced in employees with high rather than low P–O fit. This study clarifies the importance of employee’s P–O fit and its impact on organizational processes for creating a positive impact on ethical behavior in the workplace. We also share practical implications of the study and recommend systemic research that explores this area. (shrink)

Several studies have been conducted on ethical leadership and workplace ethical behavior but little is known about the role of organizational justice and each of its dimensions in this relationship. This study predicts that ethical leadership enhances organizational justice perceptions, including each of its specific dimensions, which in turn enhances employee ethical behavior. The results from two-wave survey data obtained from 270 employees in the Malaysian manufacturing industry confirm that ethical leadership has a positive impact on employee ethical behavior, and (...) that organizational justice and each of its justice dimensions mediate this relationship, both individually and together. Importantly, interpersonal and informational dimensions show the strongest mediation effects. This paper highlights the actions and strategies that can help managers to effectively elevate the moral tone in their organizations. In particular, our findings show where managers must put more emphasis to foster an ethical workplace: on providing fair treatment and honest information. (shrink)

Corruption devours profits, people, and the planet. Ethical leaders promote ethical behaviors. We develop a first-stage moderated mediation theoretical model, explore the intricate relationships between ethical leadership and employee ethical behaviors, and treat ethical climate and organizational justice as dual mediators and leaders’ moral attentiveness as a moderator. We investigate leadership from two perspectives—leaders’ self-evaluation of moral attentiveness and members’ perceptions of ethical leadership. We theorize: These dual mediation mechanisms are more robust for high moral leaders than low moral leaders. (...) Our three-wave data collected from multiple sources, 236 members and 98 immediate supervisors in the Republic of Iraq, support our theory. Specifically, ethical leadership robustly impacts organizational justice’s intensity and magnitude, leading to high employee ethical behaviors when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. However, ethical leadership only influences the ethical climate’s intensity but has no impact on the magnitude when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. Therefore, organizational justice is a more robust mediator than the ethical climate in the omnibus context of leader moral attentiveness. Our findings support Western theory and constructs, demonstrating a new theory for Muslims in Arabic’s emerging markets. Individual decision-makers apply their values as a lens to frame their concerns in the immediate and omnibus contexts to maximize their expected utility and ultimate serenity-happiness. Ethical leadership trickles down to employee ethical behaviors, providing practical implications for improving the ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, leader-member exchange, business ethics, and economic potentials in the global competitive markets. (shrink)

This study employed interpretivist, grounded theory method and utilized semi-structured interviews to explore how 31 African migrant high school and university students from eight sub-Saharan African representative countries and currently residing in Townsville, Australia, perceived the roles of their parents in their career development. The study findings revealed that the support and encouragement received from parents underpinned the youths’ perceptions of their parents as influential in their career trajectories. Though participants acknowledged their indebtedness to parents and the system that nurtured (...) them, they faced a dilemma conforming to parental preference or personal conviction, which presented “a fork in the career decision-making road.” Study findings indicate that participants’ reactions and strategies for negotiating parental approval differ based on entry status and gender. Most participants, particularly those with professional entry status, conformed to their parents’ career choice for fear of failure, while a few who followed their personal interests negotiated parental approval through dialogue and educating parents. Male participants with humanitarian entry status opposed their parents’ career preferences and followed their own personal interests. Taken together, all participants had strong desire to obtain parental approval and whether sought early or later, the main focus for all participants was prioritizing family needs and obligations. The practical implications of these findings for all stakeholders are discussed. (shrink)

Corruption devours profts, people, and the planet. Ethical leaders promote ethical behaviors. We develop a frst-stage moderated mediation theoretical model, explore the intricate relationships between ethical leadership (member rated, Time 1) and employee ethical behaviors (leader rated, Time 3), and treat ethical climate and organizational justice (member rated,Time 2) as dual mediators and leaders’ moral attentiveness (leader rated, Time 3) as a moderator. We investigate leadership from two perspectives—leaders’ self-evaluation of moral attentiveness and members’ perceptions of ethical leadership. We theorize: (...) These dual mediation mechanisms are more robust for high moral leaders than low moral leaders. Our three-wave data collected from multiple sources, 236 members and 98 immediate supervisors in the Republic of Iraq, support our theory. Specifcally, ethical leadership robustly impacts organizational justice’s intensity and magnitude, leading to high employee ethical behaviors when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. However, ethical leadership only infuences the ethical climate’s intensity but has no impact on the magnitude when leaders’ moral attentiveness is high than low. Therefore, organizational justice is a more robust mediator than the ethical climate in the omnibus context of leader moral attentiveness. Our fndings support Western theory and constructs, demonstrating a new theory for Muslims in Arabic’s emerging markets. Individual decision-makers (subordinates) apply their values (ethical leadership) as a lens to frame their concerns in the immediate (organizational justice and ethical climate) and omnibus (leader moral attentiveness) contexts to maximize their expected utility and ultimate serenity-happiness. Ethical leadership trickles down to employee ethical behaviors, providing practical implications for improving the ethical environment, corporate social responsibility, leader-member exchange (LMX), business ethics, and economic potentials in the global competitive markets. (shrink)

Ethically questionable leader conduct continues to garner headlines. It has prompted the leadership field to renew their focus on research regarding the ethical dimensions of leadership. Empirical emphases have focused on understanding negative leader behaviour, with the typical leadership study reliant upon positivist approaches. I critique these studies as not having produced meaningful, practicable or wholly relevant insights regarding the challenges and support mechanisms required to lead ethically. Few studies have in fact examined leadership in not-for-profit organisations where decisions might (...) reasonably be expected to possess elevated moral capital. To test this, my study interviewed leaders from professional sectors in both the USA and the UK, to offer a more holistic interpretation of what underpins and directs leader moral disposition. As corollary, this research explicates issues of practicability and how other sectors might learn from leaders who perpetually practise their ethicality. To gain insights that develop the field of leadership research, my thesis centres on the experiences of ten high-level, elite and specialised leaders. Although not selected as ethical, they were found to be principled, ethical decision-makers. A specific type of in-depth, qualitative interviewing was conducted and justified to more readily reflect the status of the leaders. Elite and specialised interviewing has not been widely used as a data collection tool, but it offered a unique opportunity to garner specialised data, once access issues had been overcome. The findings reveal unique insights into the underexplored ethical leader mindset and highlight the complex processes of leader decision-making in situ by demonstrating what underpins leaders’ behaviour, with reference to how they understand experiences for themselves. This study uncovers the symbiotic and interconnected nature of the variety of ideological frameworks at play, positing theological concepts alongside sociological and philosophical counterparts. Ethical awareness, the notions of trust and responsibility are shown as bedrock and explicit. This research presents a new ethical leadership, a typology that shows how ethical leaders are created through experience, sustained and developed over time, and nourished by awareness beyond the self. Current conceptions have done little to inform ethical leadership development, whereas I offer a more practical and holistic way to use the unexpected, traumatic, and intense crucibles of leadership experience to explicate and consolidate ethical foundations. This thesis presents a vision of a welfare driven leadership originating from the self, in the service of others, and for society; an ethical leadership for all. (shrink)

Creative leadership is a rather novel topic, despite the fact that, leadership and creativity are widely researched and have gained considerable attention these last decades. Leadership and creativity are both complex and much needed processes in everyday work. Specifically, transformational leadership and creativity have traits and attributes that correlate and predict each other. Providing new ties and linkages, as well as connecting already existing attributes, traits and facets, a more complex form of understanding these two processes is proposed, thus creating (...) options to novel and innovative knowledge. An exploratory design with mixed methods was used to answer the questions posed. The research design started with focus group discussions, in order to deeply understand the conceptions of Kosovar engineers about creative leadership, followed by the selection of instruments and quantitative data collection. The doctoral research was conducted, as follows: Four focus groups discussions, with four participants each, were conducted and followed by quantitative part, the main data collection with 182 Kosovar engineers, from whom 103 employees were from private companies and the remaining 79 were from public companies. All of the participants were engineers. Through interpretation of findings, thesis illustrates linkages between leadership and creativity. After establishing and reconfirming the relationship between these two processes, thesis provides deeper understanding of specific characteristics of personality – as one of the key dimensions of creativity and leadership, specifically transformational leadership. Furthermore, comparative analysis between other factors, such as the status of the company and gender are analyzed and presented in order to have a more complete understanding of the interactions between analyzed variables. This doctoral thesis, unfolds chapter by chapter and processes described are interlined in delivering the end result. (shrink)