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Ethical Leadership with Both “Moral Person” and “Moral Manager” Aspects: Scale Development and Cross-Cultural Validation

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Abstract

The importance of ethical leadership in organizations has been increasingly recognized, especially as a shield against unethical employee behaviors and corporate misconducts. Ethical leadership has been theorized to include two aspects: “moral person” and “moral manager.” This conceptualization resonates well with Chinese teachings of Confucius on leadership and management—namely xiuji (cultivating oneself) and anren (bringing the good to others). Based on the theoretical framework of ethical leadership, we develop and validate a new ethical leadership measure (ELM). Through qualitative studies (i.e., face-to-face interviews, open-ended surveys, and literature review) and five quantitative studies, we establish the reliability and convergent, discriminant, and predictive validities of the ELM in a Chinese context. In addition, using a US sample, we find that the ELM has partial measurement invariance across Chinese and American contexts.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge that this study is partially funded by a  research grant from the Humanity and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China (No: 11YJA630212). Correspondence concerning this paper can be addressed to Weichun Zhu or Xiaoming Zheng.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management, School of Management, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, 510006, Guangdong, China

    Weichun Zhu

  2. School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Xiaoming Zheng & Xi Zhang

  3. Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, Sackville Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Hongwei He

  4. Department of Management, College of Business, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Gang Wang

Authors
  1. Weichun Zhu
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  2. Xiaoming Zheng
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  3. Hongwei He
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  4. Gang Wang
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  5. Xi Zhang
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Correspondence to Weichun Zhu.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Appendices

Appendix 1: English Version of Ethical Leadership Measure

My leader

  1. 1.

    is willing to help

  2. 2.

    is kind-hearted

  3. 3.

    is benevolent

  4. 4.

    often treats others mercifully

  5. 5.

    thinks about the moral implications of his/her actions frequently

  6. 6.

    often considers issues from an ethical perspective

  7. 7.

    reflects on the moral appropriateness of his/her decisions

  8. 8.

    frequently thinks about ethical issues

  9. 9.

    sets an example of how to do things in the ethically correct way

  10. 10.

    often makes decisions consistent with his/her moral principles

  11. 11.

    sets examples of ethical behaviors to subordinates

  12. 12.

    practices moral behaviors and serves as role models to subordinates in terms of behaving ethically

  13. 13.

    requires subordinates to learn and understand the codes of ethics

  14. 14.

    provides constructive feedback to subordinates regarding ethical conduct and standards

  15. 15.

    explains the values that guide his/her moral decisions to subordinates

  16. 16.

    ensures that proper procedures are available for subordinates to consult on moral issues

Appendix 2: Chinese Version of Ethical Leadership Measure

我的领导:

1.

乐于助人

2.

心地善良

3.

是一个充满仁爱的人

4.

常常以慈悲之心待人

5.

每天都会想着自己行为是否合乎道德标准

6.

经常深刻思考道德问题

7.

会经常反思所做决定是否符合道德标准

8.

喜欢思考道德方面的事情

9.

在道德准则下如何行事方面为下属树立了榜样

10.

经常做出符合道德规则的决策

11.

在道德行为方面能为下属产生示范作用

12.

在行动中恪守道德价值观方面, 给下属做出了表率

13.

要求员工确认已经阅读并理解了道德准则

14.

经常给员工提供有关道德行为和标准的建设性反馈

15.

会向员工阐明指导他/她道德决策和行为的价值观

16.

确信组织中已建立了相应程序, 以使得员工能够询问道德准则的要求

  1. The item order in the Chinese version is the same as that in the English version

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Zhu, W., Zheng, X., He, H. et al. Ethical Leadership with Both “Moral Person” and “Moral Manager” Aspects: Scale Development and Cross-Cultural Validation. J Bus Ethics 158, 547–565 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3740-y

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