J Bus Ethics (2015) 126:273284

DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-1950-5

Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations: Evidence

from the Field
Ozgur Demirtas

Received: 22 March 2013 / Accepted: 29 October 2013 / Published online: 9 November 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract While a number of studies are being done on

ethical leadership, little is known about the role of ethical
ideology and organizational justice in the relation of the
ethical leadership behavior and individual behaviors such
as work engagement and organizational misbehavior has
tended to be neglected in ethics literature. This study
examines the mediating effects of organizational justice on
the relations of ethical leadership, work engagement and
organizational misbehavior. Also, it investigates the moderating effect of ethical ideology on the relationships
among these variables. It proposes that managers ethical
values and organizational members ethical perspectives
such as absolutism, exceptionism, situationism, and subjectivism have the potential to be agents of virtue within
the organizations. Employee attributions and emotional
reactions to the unethical behavior of their leaders are
important factors on individual behavior outcomes. So, in
this study it is hypothesized that ethical leadership behavior
affects organizational justice perception and this, respectively, affects organizational members work engagement
and organizational misbehavior. It is also hypothesized that
ethical ideology would moderate the relationship between
the ethical leadership and organizational justice. Results
indicate that ethical leadership has both direct and indirect
influence on work engagement and organizational misbehavior. Finally, practical implications are discussed, and
suggestions for the future research are made.

O. Demirtas (&)
2nd Air Supply and Maintenance Center Command, Turkish Air
Force, Kayseri, Turkey
e-mail: ozgurdemirtas@hvkk.tsk.tr

Keywords Ethical leadership
Organizational

justice
Work engagement
Organizational
misbehavior
Ethical ideology

Introduction
Business ethics has become rather more fashionable among
academics, practitioners, regulators and governments
(Manz et al. 2008; Mehta 2003) due to the corporate
scandals such as Enron, and National Irish Bank. The
world has seen that there are unethical leaders who seek to
fulfill their personal desires at the expense of their organizations (Padilla et al. 2007; Schaubroeck et al. 2007).
Trevino and Brown (2004) argued that unethical behavior
has existed ever since the existence of human beings. Also,
there have been ethical and unethical leaders since the
beginning of civilization.
Ethics is partly linked to leadership for managers and
academic researchers. In order to achieve effective and
successful working environment over the long term, leadership ought to have an ethical frame. As a role model in
their organizations (Grojean et al. 2004), leaders must
display the highest moral behavior in their actions to provide a moral framework. There are a lot of studies on
ethical conduct that emphasize the importance of ethics for
leaders (Harris 1990; Ozgener 2009). In accordance with
global trend, a vast amount of ethics researches have
focused on ethical leadership as a critical antecedent of
organizational outcomes.
Ethical leadership refers to the actions, talks, and other
behaviors which consist of appropriate norms. Also, it can
be defined as the demonstration of normatively appropriate
conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers

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O. Demirtas
Work
Engagement
Organizational
Justice

Ethical
Leadership

Ethical Ideology

Organizational
Misbehavior

Fig. 1 The mediating of organizational justice on the relations of

ethical leadership, work engagement, and organizational misbehavior

through two-way communication, reinforcement, and

decision-making (Brown et al. 2005). There are a lot of
studies investigating theoretical and conceptual aspects of
ethical leadership, but there are few studies which provide
empirical evidence from the field. Despite there are a lot of
studies and discussion of ethics in organizational studies,
which mostly tend to conceptualize ethical leadership in
very broad terms, empirical research on ethical leadership
is scarce (De Hoogh and Den Dartog 2008; Trevino et al.
2003). So, these limited researches and requirements for
more clarification on this subject are the reason of commencing of this study.
The purpose of this study is to examine the mediating of
organizational justice on the relations of ethical leadership,
work engagement, and organizational misbehavior. Also, it
is to investigate the moderating effect of ethical ideology
on the relationships among these variables.
This article is organized in four main sections. First, a
review of the literature on ethical leadership, organizational justice, work engagement, organizational misbehavior, and ethical ideology are presented, followed by the
development of hypotheses. Second, the research
methodparticipants, procedures, and measuresare discussed in detail. Third, an analysis of the field study data is
presented along with the discussion of the results in relation to the literature. Finally, strengths and weakness,
research implications and future research recommendations
are mentioned (Fig. 1).

Theoretical Frameworks and Hypotheses

The study of leadership has been the central part of management and organizational behavior literature for several
decades (Yukl 2002). Most of the leadership researches
suggest that leadership is an important determinant of
organizational effectiveness. Leaders can significantly
effect individual, group, and organizational performance
(Ilies et al. 2007). As a role model in their organizations,
leaders must be able to define and articulate a vision for
their organizations, and the followers must accept the
credibility of the leader (Emery and Barker 2007).

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Employees can learn what behavior is expected, rewarded,

and punished via role modeling (Brown et al. 2005).
Social-learning theory suggests that individuals learn what
behavior is appropriate or not, by witnessing their role
models (Bandura 1986). So, leaders are an important
source of such modeling firstly by virtue of their role.
Furthermore, they must be credible, legitimate, and
attractive in the eyes of others. In this era, the new leadership style brings the virtue and moral behaviors to the
front. For that reason, in the following sections, ethical
leadership behavior and its relationships with other variables are described.
Ethical Leadership
Ethical conduct and ethical dimension of the leadership
become obvious when prominent ethical scandals are seen
in virtually every type of organization (i.e., in nonprofit
organizations, sports, religious institutions) (Brown and
Trevino 2006). In order to understand this leadership
phenomenon and its relationships with antecedents and
outcomes, firstly we have to know what ethical leadership
is and how ethical leaders ought to behave. Survey
researches have linked perceived leader effectiveness with
perceptions of the leaders honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness (Den Hartog et al. 1999; Kirkpatrick and Locke
1991; Kouzes and Posner 1993; Posner and Schmidt 1992;
Northouse 2004; Dikeman 2007; Mayer et al. 2012).
Ethical leadership is conceptualized as discussing with
employees what the right course of action is and acting
with the best interests of employees in mind (Brown et al.
2005). A number of exploratory studies are being done to
understand what the term ethical leadership means to
proximate observers of executives (Trevino et al. 2000).
From the interviews, a number of personal characteristics
which are related to ethical leadership were found. Ethical
leaders were seen as fair, principled decision-makers, and
they behaved ethically in their daily lives. The researchers
characterized these characteristics as the moral aspect of
ethical leadership. Based on these qualitative findings,
Brown et al. (2005) developed a ten-item instrument to
measure perceptions of ethical leadership, the ethical
leadership scale (ELS), and they defined ethical leadership
as the demonstration of normatively conduct behavior
through personal actions and interpersonal relationships. In
addition to this definition, ethical leadership is also defined
as the promotion of such conduct to followers through twoway communication, reinforcement, and decision-making.
Ethical leadership behavior reduces peoples anxiety
toward the uncertainty of the jobs or behaviors in the
organizations by being considerate, open, trustworthy and
honest, and by stressing the importance of adherence to the
high ethical principles (Trevino et al. 2003). While defining

Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations

the ethical leadership, behavioral scientists mostly

emphasized on integrity and honesty (Dickson et al. 2001;
Eubanks et al. 2012).
From the corporate social responsibility perspective,
when the value system of a corporation explicitly acknowledges the importance of human values by granting them
parity with the values of profit and technology, then economic responsibilities will be balanced with moral responsibilities, the corporation will seek to balance the interests of
the stakeholders without sacrificing its economic responsibilities, and the responsibilities of its managers will be not
only to the corporation and its shareholders but also to other
stakeholders. Therefore, in the workplace, leaders should be
a central source of such guidance (Clarkson 1991).
In a corporate environment where ethics messages can
get lost amidst messages about the bottom line and the
immediate tasks at hand, ethical leaders also focus attention on ethics by frequently communicating about ethics
and making the ethics message salient. They set clear and
high ethical standards for other stakeholders and follow
these standards themselves. The conceptualization of ethical leadership behavior as defined by Brown et al. (2005),
and used in this research, does not encompass all aspects of
virtue but is consistent with aspects of character virtues
such as love, faithfulness, temperance, and justice. Also, in
a manner consistent with virtue ethics, ethical leadership
behavior is conceptualized as acting in a manner that
communicates the importance of considering the means by
which outcomes are achieved (Brown et al. 2005). It is vital
that these leaders cultivate ethical behavior in their firms.
Since appropriate values are at the root of moral conduct,
the business leader of today must possess a set of values
that will not only enhance a favorable perception in the
eyes of both internal and external stakeholders, but also
lead to greater effectiveness and efficiency of organizational members.
In addition, many organizations have some formal systems such as ethical codes, corporate ethics audits, standardized procedures, and ethics training programs. Also,
managers have a primary role in shaping ethical conduct and
perceived justice at all levels in the organizations. When
behaviors in an organization perceived to be ethical, these
perceptions influence the ethical decision-making and
behaviors of the organizational members as well as their
attitudes toward individual jobs (Brown and Trevino 2006).
So, the ethical leadership influence occurs by means of creating and perpetuating an organizational justice perception.
Organizational Justice
People care deeply about how they are treated by
others. Organizational justice focuses on perceptions on
fairness in the workplace (Greenberg 1990; Cropanzano

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and Greenberg 1997; Angelidis and Nabil 2011), and it

involves three components (Colquitt 2001). The first
component is distributive justice, which refers to the fair
allocations of outcomes (rewards and punishments)
according to each employees individual performance
(Steensma and Visser 2007; Laurie et al. 2009). Distributive justice has been extensively studied since the equity
theory was developed by Adams (1963). The second
component is procedural justice which refers to the perceived fairness of the processes, i.e., procedures and policies used and their enactments of determining outcomes or
resource distributions (Colquitt 2001; Rhoades et al. 2001;
Ambrose and Schminke 2009; Greenberg 2011). Procedural justice defines neutrality, status (social position or
status within a group or process) and trust (Folger and
Cropanzano 1998; Cropanzano et al. 2001). The last justice
type is interactional justice, which can be defined as an
individuals concerns about the quality of interpersonal
treatment they receive during the enactment of organizational procedures (Bies and Moag 1986). Although Bies
(2001) argued that interactional justice is a separate construct which is different from procedural justice, some
authors consider interactional justice as a sub-component
of procedural justice (Greenberg 1993; Lind and Tyler
1988).
A review of the organizational justice researches found
that perceptions of distributive or procedural justice influenced by organizational rules and practices (Colquitt
2001). Ambrose et al. (2007) hypothesized that individuals
attitudes toward specific events would mediate the relationship between justice and system-related attitudes.
Supervisors or managers are the primary sources of interactional justice (Bies and Moag 1986; Greenberg 1993;
Cohen-Charash and Spector 2001; Cropanzano et al. 2007).
Also, McGregor (1960) emphasized the relationship
between leadership and fairness in his writings on Theory
Y. Ethical leadership behavior is primarily concerned with
the procedural aspects of fair decision-making and the
distributive aspect of providing consequences for unethical
behavior (Brown et al. 2005). The perception of managers
as being interpersonally just likely elevates their status as a
moral authority, which heightens their influence on virtuously shaping perceptions of an ethical work environment
(Roberson and Colquitt 2005). As such, managers are
likely to be more effectual in influencing the prevailing
perceptions of an ethical climate when the manager
exhibiting ethical leadership is also perceived as being
interactionally just (Cohen-Charash and Spector 2001;
Cropanzano et al. 2007). But, there are few studies related
to ethical leadership and organizational justice perception.
Rupp and Cropanzano (2002) emphasized that interactional
justice perceptions impact on the quality of the relationship
with managers. Also, other studies indicate that justice

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perception increases the managers influence and their status as a moral authority (Brown et al. 2005; Roberson and
Colquitt 2005; Sara De Gieter et al. 2012). Thus,
Hypothesis 1 Ethical leadership is positively related with
perceptions of organizational justice.
Moderation: Ethical Ideology
There are different taxonomies to describe individual differences in moral thought and underly ethical framework
(Forsyth 1980; Kohlberg 1984; Bateman et al. 2012). In
this study, ethical ideology variable, which based on Forsyths (1980) ethical ideology taxonomy, is used. In this
taxonomy, individuals ethical ideologies were categorized
as four mutually exclusive groups. The first is the extent to
which the individual rejects universal moral rules in favor
of relativism that represents a moral philosophy based on
skepticism. Relativistic individuals feel that moral actions
depend on the nature of the circumstance more than ethical
principles, norms, or laws. The second major dimension
which underlines individual variations in moral judgments
focuses on idealism, which represents the philosophy of
hurting others is always avoidable, and that hurt is almost
never necessary to produce good. When these two dimensions are dichotomized and crossed as high and low, they
yield 2*2 classification of ethical ideologies (Forsyth
1980). Extremely high scores on both dimensions are
labeled situationists, because their rejection of fundamental
principles combined with a desire to achieve positive
consequences promotes a careful weighing of situational
information in arriving at moral judgments. Absolutists are
low in terms of relativism but high in idealism, so they
prefer actions that yield positive consequences through
conformity to moral absolutes. Subjectivists are high in
terms of relativism but low in idealism. Vitell et al. (1991)
called this group of individuals Machiavellian in their
study. Forsyth (1980) himself characterized subjectivists as
ethical egoists. As Machiavellian people mostly do, subjectivists tend to maximize personal gains, rather than
societal gains, when they make moral decisions. Exceptionists who try to maximize social welfare score, are
low on both dimensions; therefore, they believe that
moral rules should guide behavior but that actions which
cause some negative consequences should not necessarily
condemned.
The relationship between ethical leadership and ethical
ideologies is still complicated. This confusion usually
causes gaps in researches since it is not explained how the
relationship between the two is related. There are so few
studies about the relationship with ethical leadership and
ethical ideology. Farrell et al. (2007) and Lofton et al.
(2007) examined ethics and ethical leadership with the help

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O. Demirtas

of Forsyths Ethics Position Questionnaire and found a

relationship between ethical leadership and ethical ideology. Butler (2009) found that there was a difference in the
ethical perspectives (absolutism, exceptionism, situationism, and subjectivism) of leaders and they emphasized a
positive relationship between leadership and idealism, and
negative relationship between leadership and relativism. In
addition to ethical leadership and ethical ideology relationship, researches also indicate a relationship between
organizational justice and ethical ideology (Gilliand et al.
2002; Beekun et al. 2008). For example, Hastings and
Finegan (2011) emphasized that high relativists would
have no reason to engage in deviance when organizational
justice is high. In other words, relativism and justice should
interact to determine deviant reactions. Also, Henle (2005)
concluded that future research should measure features of
the workplace such as justice that might encourage relativists to react in a deviant manner. In addition, he suggested that it may be the relationship between ethical
ideology and perceptions of justice.
As mentioned, there are very few studies for ethical
leadership effect on organizational justice while ethical
ideology is in the model. So, the necessity for an appropriate model behavior, the expectation for an appropriate
behavior, and the support of highest ethical standards for
the leaders of tomorrow, the following hypothesize is
established to foster the development of ethical leadership
effect.
Hypothesis 2a Idealist ethical ideology will moderate the
ethical leadership-to-organizational justice relationship
such that the relationship will be stronger for higher idealist
ideology than for lower idealist ideology.
Hypothesis 2b Relativist ethical ideology will moderate
the ethical leadership-to-organizational justice relationship
such that the relationship will be stronger for lower relativist ideology than for higher relativist ideology.
Mediation: Organizational Justice
Work engagement indicates the assumption of optimal
functioning at work in terms of well-being (Hakanen and
Schaufeli 2012). This concept stimulate motivation and
inspire positive emotions toward the organization (Chen
and Kao 2012). Also, it emphasizes high levels of energy
(that are invested in work), and makes reference to
involvement (being dedicated, enthusiastic, and inspired by
ones work) and commitment (being engrossed and
attached to ones work). But, work engagement is empirically separated from the previously established constructs
of job involvement (Kanungo 1982) and organizational
commitment (Meyer and Allen 1997) with respect to more
stableness and longer lasting (Csikszentmihalyi 1997).

Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations

Leaders tend to move away from past identities and

invest heavily in future identities (Ybema 2010). Hassan
and Ahmed (2011) emphasized that subordinates trust in
leaders who facilitate employees work engagement. Den
Hartog and Belschak (2012) take an integrative approach to
answer leadership questions by looking at the role of work
engagement and Machiavellianism in the ethical leadership
process. The results of their study indicate that the effects
of ethical leader behavior on engagement are weaker when
ethical leaders are high compared to the low levels of
Machiavellianism. Koning and Waistell (2012) analyzed
the narration of identities and ethics through metaphor of
business leaders. This paper takes forward the understanding of ethical leadership as a time- and context-bound
process in which managers aspire to an identity as ethical
leaders within a corruptive business context. Kalshoven
and Den Hartog (2009) found that followers see ethical
leaders as an ideal representation of the groups identity.
Ethical leaders stimulate employees work engagement
since engagement forms a unique motivational state that in
turn enhances work engagement and decreases counterproductive work behavior (Sirota et al. 2005; Schaufeli and
Salanova 2006; Bakker et al. 2004). Avey et al. (2012) used
a sample of 845 working adults to answer the questions
about ethical leadership and positive employee outcomes.
The results indicated that ethical leadership was related to
the work engagement.
In addition to these findings, Saks (2006) and Inoue
et al. (2010) have found that employees with higher perceptions of justice are more likely to reciprocate to the
greater work engagement. Also, some other researches
indicated the relationship between organizational justice
perception and organizational members behavior which is
related to work engagement (Konovsky and Pugh 1994;
Moorman et al. 1998; Pillai et al. 1999; Colquitt 2001;
Cropanzano et al. 2002; Hakanen et al. 2006; Llorens et al.
2006; Koyuncu et al. 2006; Bakker et al. 2007).
Similar to work engagement, organizational misbehavior which indicate any intentional action by members of
organizations that defies and violates (a) shared organizational norms and expectations, and/or (b) core societal
values, mores and standards of proper conduct (Vardi and
Wiener 1992; Vardi and Weitz 2001) is influenced by
ethical leadership. There are many different terms and
definitions such as deviant workplace behaviors (Robinson and Bennett 1995; Robinson and Greenberg 1998),
unconventional practices at work (Analoui and Kakabadse 1992), non compliant behavior (Puffer 1987),
counterproductive workplace behavior (Sackett and
DeVore 2001) or in general antisocial behavior (Giacalone and Greenberg 1997) which are related to the phenomenon of employees who is behaving badly at work.
These terms which are stated above generally define the

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phenomenon of employees who is behaving badly at work,

nevertheless they have minor contextual differences. In this
study, the term Organizational Misbehavior is used to refer
a wide range of work related types of misconduct which
were presumably perpetrated by members of the researched
organization. Bennett and Robinsons typology which is
widely used in the literature defines four types of voluntary
and harmful misconduct such as production deviance
(minor-organizational, i.e., wasting resources, absenteeism,
and slowdowns), property deviance (major-organizational,
i.e., stealing from the company, sabotage, and bribery),
political deviance (minor-personal, i.e., showing undue
favoritism, and gossiping) and personal aggression (majorpersonal, i.e., sexual harassment, and putting ones life in
danger) for organizational misbehavior (Bennett and Robinson 2000).
Organizational justice focuses on perceptions on fairness in the workplace. Folger and Cropanzanos (2001)
fairness theory, which is analyzed according to peoples
judgment, is very helpful to explain how perceived justice
triggers organizational misbehavior. For this relationship,
some other researches indicated that perceived injustice
may cause organizational misbehaviors (Skarlicki and
Folger 1997; Lind 1997; Aquino et al. 1999; VanYperen
et al. 2000; Ambrose et al. 2002; Kennedy et al. 2004;
Alias et al. 2012). So, from the above literature and the
results; the ethical leadership effect on work engagement
and organizational misbehavior and mediating effect of the
organizational justice perception are hypothesized as
follows:
Hypothesis 3a Perceived organizational justice will
mediate the relation between ethical leadership and work
engagement.
Hypothesis 3b Perceived organizational justice will
mediate the relation between ethical leadership and organizational misbehavior.

Method
Sample
One thousand employees in a public firm, which is operating in aviation logistics in Turkey from 1926, were randomly selected to participate in. For our purposes,
participants were selected through stratified sampling on
the basis of their department size and type. Also, participants were required to work fulltime, within an organization, and have direct and frequent contact with their
manager. For this study, two surveys administered 3 weeks
apart to reduce the influence of common method variance
(CMV). Of employee who responded, 418 provided usable

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questionnaires on all study variables for a response rate of

92.8 per cent. This is an acceptable response rate for this
kind of study (Harmon et al. 2002; Nahm et al. 2003). The
sample consisted of 298 (71 %) male and 120 (29 %)
female participants with an average age of 42.36 years.
Participants averaged 10.1 years spent in their current job.
In addition, sample was comprised of employees in the
technical (%37), quality management (%23), programming
and budgeting (%17).
Measures
Unless otherwise indicated, all measures used a
5-point Likert scale where 1 = strongly disagree and
5 = strongly agree. Items are averaged within the scales
to create composite measures for each variable. Items were
coded such that high scores equate to high levels of the
construct of interest.

O. Demirtas

meaning and purpose. The Cronbachs alpha for this scale

was 0.88.
Organizational Misbehavior
Twenty-three items which contains behavioral descriptions
were derived from Vardi (2001). In order to minimize the
potential perceived threat, as well as social desirability, the subjects were not asked whether they themselves
misbehaved, but whether and how often their coworkers
did. An example item is I make private phone calls from
the factory phone during work hours or breaks. The
Cronbachs alpha for this scale was 0.95.

Empirical Results
Minimization of Common Method Variance

Organizational justice was measured by using the scale

adopted from Trevino and Weaver (2001). It consists of
nine items. An example item is, In general, this entity
treats its employees fairly. The Cronbachs alpha for this
scale was 0.94.

All the data used in this study came from a common

source. Several precautions which are suggested by Podsakoff et al. (2003) are taken to minimize common method
biases. The dependent and independent variables were
collected at different times. A time lag was introduced in
this survey to minimize consistency motifs. Furthermore,
the items within each scale were randomly ordered for each
respondent to counterbalance the question order and
decrease priming effects caused by the question context or
item embeddedness. Detailed information is given to insure
the confidentiality of respondents in an effort to decrease
socially desirable responding and increase respondent
candidness. Also, we reminded that there were no correct
or incorrect answers in the survey to decrease the evaluation apprehension.

Ethical Ideology

Initial Analyses

The ethical position questionnaire (EPQ), which was

developed by Forsyth (1980) to test the taxonomy of ethical ideologies, is used. Scores were derived from calculating the mean for items 110, which yield idealism
scores, and a mean for items 1120, which yield relativism scores. The scale consist of 20 items. An example
item is, People should make sure that their actions never
intentionally harm others even slightly. The Cronbachs
alpha for idealist ideology scale was 0.94, and the Cronbachs alpha for relativist ideology scale was 0.95.

Table 1 reports means, standard deviations, correlations

among variables, and Cronbachs alpha coefficients for this
study. As expected, ethical leadership was positively related to work engagement (r = 0.49, p \ 0.01), organizational justice (r = 0.61, p \ 0.01) and idealist ideology
(r = 0.49, p \ 0.01). However, ethical leadership were
found to be negatively related to organizational misbehavior (r = -0.55; p \ 0.01) and relativist ideology
(r = -0.41; p \ 0.01). To explore more, for the discriminant validity of these scales, we followed the procedure
outlined by Fornell and Larcker (1981) and calculated the
square root of the average variance explained for the items
which make up the scales in this study. This value is presented on the diagonal in Table 1. This value is expected to
exceed the corresponding latent variable correlations in the
same row and column. As shown in Table 1, we have

Ethical Leadership
Ethical leadership scale (ELS), which was developed by
Brown et al. (2005) is used in this study. The scale consists
of 10 items. An example item is, My supervisor makes
fair and balanced decisions. The Cronbachs alpha for this
scale was 0.95.
Organizational Justice

Work Engagement
The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale which developed by
(Schaufeli et al. 2002) is used. The scale consist of 17
items. An example item is, I find the work that I do full of

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279

evidence that the variance shared between any two constructs is less than the average variance. Thus, all the scales
used in this study demonstrate discriminant validity.
Hypotheses Testing
Hypothesis 1
Firstly, the mediator variable (organizational justice) on the
independent variable (ethical leadership) was regressed. As
shown in Table 2, the beta weight for ethical leadership
was significant and in the predicted direction. Thus,
Hypothesis 1 regarding the positive relationship between
ethical leadership and organizational justice was supported,
and the first requirement for mediation was satisfied.
Hypothesis 2a and 2b
Hypothesis 2a put forth the moderating effect of idealist
ehical ideology on the ethical leadership-to-organizational
justice relationship. First, idealist ethical ideology and
ethical leadership scales were centered to help alleviate
multicollinearity (Aiken and West 1991). Then, regression
analyses for moderation was obtained with hierarchical
regression analysis method. As shown in Table 3, the

interaction term was significant. In order to graphically

illustrate the significant moderation effects uncovered in
the analyses, a procedure similar to that is used by Stone
and Hollenbeck (1989), plotting two slopes: one at one
standard deviation below the mean and one at one standard
deviation above the mean. This plot is shown in Fig. 2. The
simple slope test (Aiken and West, 1991) was significantly
different from zero for high and for low idealist ethical
ideology suggesting that perceptions of organizational
justice significantly increase for both low and high idealist
ethical ideology. However, this effect is stronger when
idealist ethical ideology is high which provides support for
Hypothesis 2a. Also, as shown in Table 3, the interaction
term for relativist ethical ideology was significant, and the
simple slop test was significantly different from zero for
low and for high relativist ethical ideology suggesting that
perceptions of organizational justice significantly increase
for both low and high relativist ethical ideology. However,
this effect is stronger when idealist relativist ideology is
low which provides support for Hypothesis 2b (Fig. 3).
Hypothesis 3a and 3b
Using hierarchical regression, Baron and Kennys (1986)
three-step procedure for assessing the mediating role of the

Table 1 Mean, standard deviations and correlations

Variable

Mean

SD

1. Ethical leadership

3.36

0.93

0.83
-0.33**

0.71

0.82

2. Organizational justice

3.19

0.90

0.61**

0.81

3. Idealist ideology

3.41

0.91

0.49**

0.43**

4. Relativist ideology

2.85

1.36

-0.41*

-0.35*

-0.48**

0.82

5. Work engagement
6. Organizational misbehavior

3.30
3.11

0.96
0.90

0.49**
-0.55**

0.51**
-0.45**

0.43**
-0.43*

0.41**
0.63**

0.81

n = 418, * p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.01. Values on the diagonal are the square root of the average variance explained which must be larger than all
zero-order correlations in the row and column in which they appear to demonstrate discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker 1981)
Table 2 Regression analyses for mediation
DV: work engagement

DV: organizational misbehavior

Step 1
IV-Med
(b)

Step 2
IVDV
(b)

Step 3
IV/MedDV
(b)

Step 2
IVDV
(b)

Step 3
IV/MedDV
(b)

0.612**

0.507**

0.165**

-0.548**

-0.341**

Adjusted R2

0.23

0.21

F change

179.43**

61.12**

Independent variable
Ethical leadership
Mediator
Organizational justice

0.478**

-0.643**
0.17

576.19**

89.53**

73.13**

n = 418, * p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.01

Note standardized betas are shown. IV independent variable, DV dependent variable, Med mediator

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O. Demirtas

Table 3 Regression analyses

for moderation

DV: organizational
justice (b)
Model 1

0.612**

Adjusted R2

DR2

F change

0.23

0.22

102.07**

Ethical leadership (EL)

Model 2 (IEI)
Ethical leadership (EL)
Idealist ethical ideology (IEI)
Model 3 (IEI)

169.09**
0.498**
0.303**

0.29

0.21

0.232**

0.28

0.14

98.54**

Interaction (EL 9 IEI)

Model 2 (REI)

n = 418, * p \ 0.05,
** p \ 0.01

Ethical leadership (EL)

Organizational Justice

Note standardized betas are

shown. IEI idealist ethical
ideology, REI relativist ethical
ideology

Relativist ethical ideology (REI)

Model 3 (REI)
Interaction (EL 9 REI)

89.09**
0.386**
-0.391**

0.19

0.17

-0.156**

0.21

0.11

103.21**

indicate that organizational justice partially mediated the

relationship of ethical leadership to work engagement
(H3a) since the beta for ethical leadership decreased after
adding organizational justice, but remained significant.
Similarly, organizational justice partially mediated the
relationship of ethical leadership to organizational misbehavior (H3b).

7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0

Ethical Leadership
Idealist Ethical Ideology (Low)

Idealist Ethical Ideology (High)

Organizational Justice

Fig. 2 The interaction of ethical leadership and idealist ethical

ideology on organizational justice

5
4
3
2
1
0

Ethical Leadership
Relativist Ethical Ideology (Low)

Relativist Ethical Ideology (High)

Fig. 3 The interaction of ethical leadership and relativist ethical

ideology on organizational justice

organizational justice is used. First, the independent variable should be significantly related to the mediator variable; second, the independent variable should be related to
the dependent variable; and third, the mediating variable
should be related to the dependent variable with the independent variable included in the equation. If the first three
conditions hold, then at least partial mediation is present. If
the independent variable has a non-significant beta weight
in the third step, then complete mediation is present
(MacKinnon et al. 2002). The results, shown in Table 2,

123

Sobel Test
Finally, to confirm support for mediational hypotheses,
Sobel tests were used to assess the significance of the
indirect effects (MacKinnon 2008; Sobel 1982). Sobel tests
involve calculating the magnitude of the unstandardized
indirect effect (a and b) and its accompanying standard
error (sa and sb). The ratio of the indirect effect over its
standard error, referred to as the Sobel statistic, is then
compared to a z-distribution to determine the statistical
significance of the indirect effect. Supporting Hypothesis
3a, the Sobel test results indicated that the indirect effects
of ethical leadership on work engagement for organizational justice (z = (a 9 b)/sab = -6.75 for 95 % confidence level) was in the anticipated direction and
statistically significant. Supporting hypotheses 3b, the Sobel test results indicated that the indirect effect of ethical
leadership to organizational misbehavior (z = 2.27 for
95 % confidence level) was in the anticipated direction and
statistically significant.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this study investigated the ethical leadership
influence on individual behavior. Ethical leadership
behavior directly and indirectly, through shaping organizational justice, impacted individuals work engagement

Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations

and organizational misbehavior. Moreover, the influence of

ethical leadership behavior on organizational justice was
enhanced according to the ethical ideologies. Leaders who
are viewed as ethical by their subordinates run the possibility of increasing the organizational justice perception
due to increase in idealist ideology and decrease in relativist ideology. Although some analyses have been done in
this study to explore ethical leadership influence, a
descriptive and predictive social scientific approach to
ethics and leadership has remained underdeveloped and
fragmented, leaving scholars and practitioners with few
answers (Brown and Trevino 2006). This study contributes to the field by providing a description and analyses of
the influence of managers who seem as an ethical leader,
and findings fit with previous theoretical and empirical
research efforts and extend them.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This study has several notable strengths. First, in this study
a large number of full-time employees from all level of the
organization are involved. Second, the survey is made by
face to face to reduce questionnaire mistakes. The collection of the independent and dependent variables in this
study were separated in time, and various other proactive
steps were taken to reduce the possible common method
effects that could emanate from the same source. Third,
this study advances the ethical leadership literature by
which ethical leadership influences organizational justice,
work engagement and misbehavior of the organizational
members. Finally, this study is one of the rare researches
which studied on the moderating effect of ethical ideologies on the relationship between ethical leadership and
organizational justice.
This study also has several limitations which need to be
mentioned in order to fully interpret the results offered.
First, the sample was not demographically diverse. Data in
this study are gathered from a public firm in Turkey. There
were many interesting ways to do this research, however; it
was beyond the scope of this study to generalize it for other
cultures (e.g., Resick et al. 2006).
Future Research
The findings of this study suggested that relationships do
exist between ethical leadership and individual behaviors,
but further research is needed to examine more closely the
complexities of these relationships. Future researchers
should consider capitalizing on the weakness outlined
above. For example, this study could be extended by
including additional outcome variables such as political,
counterproductive, or deviant behaviors. Also, future

281

research could use a multi-level approach to theorize and

analyze the effects of ethical leadership. To overcome
single source data, research could collect data from a
source other than the organizational members themselves.
This approach will reduce social desirability effects and
minimize concerns regarding common method effects. In
addition, future research could gather data from work
groups so that the data could be aggregated to assess the
influence of ethical leadership on group level.
In this study, individual level effects of ethical leadership on individual outcomes were studied. The demand for
an emphasis on ethical leadership and for institutions to
demonstrate and develop the required characteristics for
ethical leadership, is stronger than ever, especially in the
current trends witnessed in both private and public sectors.
Also, the relationship between ethical ideologies and ethical leadership practices is still not well understood and
need to be studied more in detail.

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