You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees' Moral Awareness Minimizes

Abstract

Although a growing body of research has shown the positive impact of ethical leadership on workplace deviance, questions remain as to whether its benefits are consistent across all situations. In this investigation, we explore an important boundary condition of ethical leadership by exploring how employees' moral awareness may lessen the need for ethical leadership. Drawing on substitutes for leadership theory, we suggest that when individuals already possess a heightened level of moral awareness, ethical leadership's role in reducing deviant actions may be reduced. However, when individuals lack this strong moral disposition, ethical leadership may be instrumental in inspiring them to reduce their deviant actions. To enhance the external validity and generalizability of our findings, the current research used two large field samples of working professionals in both Turkey and the USA. Results suggest that ethical leadership's positive influence on workplace deviance is dependent upon the individual's moral awareness-helpful for those employees whose moral awareness is low, but not high. Thus, our investigation helps to build theory around the contingencies of ethical leadership and the specific audience for whom it may be more (or less) influential.

C1 [Gok, Kubilay; Eberhard, Jared] Winona State Univ, Coll Business Adm, Winona, MN 55987 USA.

[Sumanth, John J.] Wake Forest Univ, Sch Business, Winston Salem, NC 27109 USA.

[Bommer, William H.] Calif State Univ Fresno, Craig Sch Business, Fresno, CA 93740 USA.

[Demirtas, Ozgur] Inonu Univ, Fac Econ & Adm Sci, Malatya, Turkey.

[Arslan, Aykut] Pirireis Univ, Fac Econ & Adm Sci, Istanbul, Turkey.

[Ozdemir, Ali Ihsan] Abdullah Gul Univ, Fac Management Sci, Kayseri, Turkey.

[Yigit, Ahmet] Abdullah Gul Univ, Coll Engn, Kayseri, Turkey.