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Ethical leadership and follower organizational deviance: The moderating role of follower moral attentiveness

September 2014
The Leadership Quarterly 26(2)

DOI:10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.08.005

Authors:

Suzanne van Gils

BI Norwegian Business School

Niels Van Quaquebeke

Kühne Logistics University

Marius van Dijke

Rotterdam School of Management

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The literature on ethical leadership has focused primarily on the way ethical leaders influence follower moral judgment and behavior. It has overlooked that follower responses to ethical leaders may differ depending on the attention they pay to the moral aspects of leadership. In the present research, we introduce moral attentiveness as an important moderator for the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical employee behavior. In a multisource field study (N = 90), we confirm our hypothesis that morally attentive followers respond with more deviance to unethical leaders. An experimental study (N = 96) replicates the finding. Our paper extends the current leader-focused literature by examining how follower moral attentiveness determines the response of followers to ethical or unethical leadership.

Interaction between ethical leadership and moral attentiveness on follower organizational deviance as found in Study 2.

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, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach's alphas for main variables and controls in Study 1.

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Ethical leadership and follower organizational deviance:

The moderating role of follower moral attentiveness

Suzanne van Gils

⁎, Niels Van Quaquebeke

, Daan van Knippenberg

Marius van Dijke

, David De Cremer

Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Kühne Logistics University, Hamburg, Germany

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, The Netherlands

Judge Business School, Cambridge University, UK

article info abstract

Article history:

Received 11 April 2013

Received in revised form 2 July 2014

Accepted 29 August 2014

Available online 16 September 2014

Handling Editor: Kevin Lowe

The literature on ethical leadership has focused primarily on the way ethical leaders inﬂuence

follower moral judgment and behavior. It has overlooked that follower responses to ethical

leaders may differ depending on the attention they pay to the moral aspects of leadership. In

the present research, we introduce moral attentiveness as an important moderator for the

relationship between ethical leadership and unethical employee behavior. In a multisource ﬁeld

study (N=90),weconﬁrm our hypothesis that morally attentive followers respond with more

deviance to unethical leaders. An experimental study (N= 96) replicates the ﬁnding. Our paper

extends the current leader-focused literature by examining how follower moral attentiveness

determines the response of followers to ethical or unethical leadership.

Keywords:

Ethical leadership

Moral attentiveness

Organizational deviance

Introduction

Organizational deviance at work is a source of massive damage for businesses (Bennett & Robinson, 2000; Brown & Treviño,

2006b). Follower organizational deviance is deﬁned as “voluntary behavior that violates organizational norms and thereby threatens

the well-being of the organization, its members, or both”(Robinson & Bennett, 1995, p. 556). It includes behaviors such as dragging

out work to receive payment for overtime, or taking property of the organization without permission. Leadership has been foundto be

a driving or inhibiting force in this behavior. In particular, a lack of ethical leadership has been identiﬁed as one of the main anteced-

ents of follower organizational deviance (Tepper et al., 2009; Thau, Bennett, Mitchell, & Marrs, 2009). The rationale suggested is that

leaders inﬂuence their followers through social learning and exchange and hence the ethicality of the leader “trickles down”to

followers at the lower hierarchical levels (Mayer, Kuenzi, Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009; Schaubroeck et al., 2012). Thus,

behavior of leaders has been suggested to impact follower's behavior across different levels of the organization.

Researchabout ethical leadership has mostly taken a leader-focused approach, and thus does not specify how follower character-

istics form boundary conditions for ethical leadership. Yet, some followers may pay more attention to moral content than others

(Reynolds, 2008). As a result, some followers may react more strongly to ethical leaders and therefore the effects of ethical leadership

may depend as much on the followers as on the leader. The current paper sets out to show that the effects of ethical leadership on

The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

⁎Correspondingauthorat:FacultyofPsychologyandNeuroscience,Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 40 r. 4.743, PO Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht,

The Netherlands.

E-mail address: suzanne.vangils@maastrichtuniversity.nl (S. van Gils).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.08.005

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The Leadership Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/leaqua

follower organizational deviance result from the interaction between the leader and the followers rather than beinga function of the

leader's behavior alone.

The growing research on ethical leadership (Brown & Mitchell, 2010; Brown & Treviño, 2006a) describes ethical leadership as a

general leadership process that transfers ethical leader behavior into follower behavior through the general mechanisms of social

learning, exchange, and identity (Treviño, Brown, & Hartman, 2003; Walumbwa et al., 2011). All of these mechanisms, however,

could also apply to other leadership styles. Besides the underlying mechanisms, communication of moral cues is the central aspect

of the deﬁnition of ethical leadership (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005). However, the initial operationalization of the concept

and conceptualization of its underlying processes did not do justice to the unique moral character of ethical leadership. In response,

recent research started to provide support for the speciﬁc moral foundation of ethical leadership by discussing, on theone hand, how

moral personality traits motivate ethical leadership (DeHoogh & Den Hartog, 2008; Mayer,Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012)and

specifying, on the other hand, universal normative reference points for ethical leadership (Eisenbeiss, 2012). We seek to extend that

literature by arguing that, because of its moral element, ethical leadership is most effective for followers who are sensitive to moral

cues.

Recent research exploring cognitive processing of moralcues suggests that employees differ in theextent to which they pay atten-

tion to moral issues (Hannah, Avolio, & May, 2011; Reynolds & Ceranic, 2009). These differences are capturedby moral attentiveness,

that is, the extent to which a person chronically perceives and considers morality and moral elements in his or her experiences

(Reynolds, 2008). As a consequence of moral attentiveness, follower sensitivity to moral cues, also in the leader's behavior, increases.

Since the core aspect of ethical leadership is the communication of moral cues, it is reasonable to propose that the effects of ethical

leadership are contingent on follower moral attentiveness.

The present study investigates how ethical leadership and follower moral attentiveness interact to predict follower organizational

deviance. Speciﬁcally, we focus on organizational deviance as the consequence of being confronted with low ethical leadership (cf.

Robinson & Bennett, 1995), as earlier research shows that followers react to low ethical behavior by their leader with counterproduc-

tive work behavior (Folger, Sheppard, & Buttram, 1995; Tepper, 2000). Because followers confronted with low ethical behavior often

cannot retaliate toward their leader directly due to the power difference, they tend to retaliate toward the organization instead

(Tepper, Henle, Lambert, Giacalone, & Duffy, 2008).

We expect that followers who are highlyattentiveto moral cues are more likely to detect low ethical leadership and will therefore

react to it more strongly in terms ofdeviance than followers low in moral attentiveness.By investigating the moral process througha

moderator (Jacoby& Sassenberg, 2011), the presentpaper contributesto theorizing on ethical leadership primarily from a moral point

of view rather thanconsidering it as another general leadershipstyle. We investigate our model for both dispositional moral attentive-

ness (Study 1) and situational-induced moral attentiveness (i.e., an experimental manipulation; Study 2).

Ethical leadership

Most research in the domain of ethical leadership builds on Brown et al.'s (2005) deﬁnition of ethical leadership as “the demon-

stration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships,and the promotion of such con-

duct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making”(p. 120). Ethical leaders thus inform and

shape the ethical behavior of their followers. Ethical leadership has been associated with a number of positive outcomes, including

followers' organizational citizenship behavior (Kacmar, Bachrach, Harris, & Zivnuska, 2011; Mayer et al., 2009; Neubert, Carlson,

Kacmar, Roberts, & Chonko, 2009), proactive behavior such as helping or voice behavior (Kalshoven, Den Hartog, & De Hoogh,

2012; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009), the organization's ethical climate (Mayer, Kuenzi, & Greenbaum, 2010; Schaubroeck et al.,

2012; Schminke, Ambrose, & Neubaum, 2005), and follower performance (Piccolo, Greenbaum, Den Hartog, & Folger, 2010).

The deﬁnition of ethical leadership as “normatively appropriate conduct”raises the question of what standards the normative

appropriateness of the leader is measured against. Recent research has addressed this question by suggesting that the assessment

of ethical leadership may lie in the eye of the beholder (Giessner & Van Quaquebeke, 2010; Meindl, 1995), which means that leader-

ship is perceived as ethical when it aligns with the follower's perception of ethical leadership. The standards to assess leadership

against may thus depend on the type of work relationship between leaders and followers, and followers' expectations of their leaders

based on this relationship (Engle & Lord, 1997; Giessner & Van Quaquebeke, 2010; Rai & Fiske, 2012). In addition, there are different

cultural perspectives on ethics (Eisenbeiss, 2012). Thus, to someextent, the assessment of ethical leadershipis inﬂuenced by the stan-

dards to which followers compare their leader's behavior.

Ethical leadership can be distinguished from other follower-focused leadership styles that consist of both moral and amoral as-

pects, such as transformational leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1994; Bass, 1990; Burns, 1978; but see Van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013)

or servant leadership (Liden, Wayne, Zhao, & Henderson, 2008). The central aspect for this distinction is that ethical leadership is driv-

en by moral motives that are independent of the mentalframe of the perceiver. Theidea that ethical leadership is based on the leader's

moral motivation is supported by research showing that ethical leaders possess moral personality traits such as a moral identity

(Mayer et al., 2012) and a high social responsibility (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008). Moreover, ethical leadership has been linked

to four essential normative reference points (Eisenbeiss, 2012): 1) humane orientation, referring to treating others with dignity

and respect; 2) justice orientation, making fair and consistent decisions; 3) responsibility and sustainability orientation, covering

leaders' concern for the welfare of society and the environment in their long-term views; and 4) moderation orientation, referring

to temperance and humility. Together, these orientations represent universally shared moral norms underlying ethical leadership.

In the current paper, we take a deontological approach to ethical leadership by presenting it as a leadership style with a moral foun-

dation based on personality-based moral motivation and supported by the four orientations.

191S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

Ethical leaders inﬂuence their employees in different ways. Firstly, ethical leaders are responsible for the ethical standards in the

organization, either by being a role model for ethical behavior, or through reinforcement of ethical codes (Brown et al., 2005; Mayer

et al., 2012; Treviño, Hartman, & Brown, 2000; Walumbwa et al., 2011; Weaver, Treviño, & Agle, 2005). Secondly, followers recipro-

cate the behavior of the leader, which makes their ethical behavior dependent on the quality of the leader–follower relationship

(Brown & Treviño, 2006a; Walumbwa et al., 2011). Thirdly, ethical leaders increase follower organizational identiﬁcation (Hogg,

2001; Hogg & Terry, 2000; Van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003; Van Knippenberg, Van Knippenberg, De Cremer, & Hogg, 2004), which

in turn increases motivation to achieve collective goals or display organization beneﬁtting behavior (Walumbwa et al., 2011). Alto-

gether, high ethical leadership seems to motivate followersto reciprocate withmoral behavior, while low ethical leadership motivates

followers to display negative behavior (Kacmar et al., 2011; Weaver et al., 2005), either through modeling, breaches in the exchange

relationship, or reduced identiﬁcation. The negative behavior in response to unethical leadership is often directed atthe organization,

for which the leader operates as a representative (Bies & Tripp, 1998; Robinson & Bennett, 1995).

Early psychological research has demonstrated that the impact of bad events is generally larger thanthat of good events, presum-

ably because overlooking bad events could cause danger, whereas overlooking good events may lead to missing rewards but not to

negative consequences (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). As a result, research on ethical leadership has argued

that low ethical leadership, characterized by violations of norms, is more salient to followers than high ethical leadership (Giessner

& Van Quaquebeke, 2010; Van Gils, Van Quaquebeke, & Van Knippenberg, 2010). Thus, we will predict stronger effects for low

than for high ethical leadership.

Extant literature explains the differences in effects due to ethical leadership mainly in terms of social learning and exchange the-

ories. However, researchers have paid little attention to the unique moral components of ethical leadership butrather describe its un-

derlying processes in terms of social learning and exchange theories that are generally amoral and could also apply to other styles of

leadership (Brown & Treviño, 2006a; Mayer et al., 2012). The existing literature has not yet provided an in-depth discussion of the

unique moral components of ethical leadership. However, investigation into this direction is important because the moral focus of

ethical leaders is crucial for explaining the observed differences in follower moral behavior.

Furthermore, most researchon ethical leadership has focused on the leader. It has for the most part considered followersas passive

recipients of ethical leadership, thereby looking at average follower effects without considering the inﬂuence of follower variables in

the interaction between ethical leaders and their followers (e.g. Brown & Mitchell, 2010; Mayer et al., 2009; Walumbwa et al., 2011).

Recent studies have, however, started to provideinsight into how different follower personality characteristics inﬂuence follower per-

ceptions of ethical leadership. For example, follower moral development inﬂuences follower perceptions of ethical leadership, such

that if the leader is more advanced in terms of moral development than the follower, follower perceptions of ethical leadership are

higher (Jordan, Brown, Treviño, & Finkelstein, 2013). Likewise, high follower self-esteem has been shown to make followers less re-

ceptive to the effects of ethical leadership (Avey, Palanski, & Walumbwa, 2011).

With the present paper we seek to extend the perspective that ethical leadership has a unique moral element, by into account, that

followers' chronic attention to morality qualiﬁes the proposed effects of ethical leadership.

Moral attentiveness

Interpersonal differencesin attention toward moral cues are captured by the concept of moral attentiveness. Moral attentiveness is

deﬁned as the extent to which an individual chronically perceives and considers morality and moral elements in his or her experi-

ences (Reynolds, 2008, p. 1028). These individual differences in the amount of attention paid to moral cues can be explained by social

cognitive theory which argues that attention is determined by saliency, vividness, and accessibility (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Concepts

associated with morality can serve as a mental framework that is chronically accessible for people high in moral attentiveness. Chronic

accessibility subsequently leads to the automatic moral assessment of incoming information, as well as a more intentional use of mo-

rality as a framework to reﬂect upon experiences (Reynolds, 2008; Reynolds, Leavitt, & DeCelles, 2010). Initial research has distin-

guished two components of moral attentiveness: perceptual moral attentiveness –the recognition of moral aspects in everyday

experiences; and reﬂective moral attentiveness –the extent to which the individual regularly considers moral matters. Whereas per-

ceptual moral primarily concerns information coding, reﬂective moral attentiveness involves introspection and action. Together these

two dimensions act to facilitate chronic attention toward moral content (Reynolds, 2008).

Given the novelty of the moral attentiveness concept in the organizational behavior landscape, it seems warranted to discuss the

nuanced theoretical and conceptual distinction between moral attentiveness and moral awareness. Recent literature on ethical lead-

ership and ethical decision-making has identiﬁed moral awareness as a necessary precondition for ethical behavior (DeCelles, DeRue,

Margolis, & Ceranic, 2012; Gino, Schweitzer, Mead, & Ariely, 2011; Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008; Treviño, Weaver, & Reynolds,

2006). Moral awareness is deﬁned as a person's determination that a situation containsmoral content and can legitimately be consid-

ered from a moral point of view (Reynolds,2006). After becoming morally aware, people reach a decision on what they consider to be

the best option by applying moral rules to the situation and comparing possible decisionsto moral standards. Awareness of the moral

cues in a situation may be inﬂuenced by the moral development of the person evaluating the situation (Brown & Treviño, 2006a;

Kohlberg, 1981), but can also be activated by external factors, such as the content of the situation (Butterﬁeld, Treviño, & Weaver,

2000; Jones, 1991). A more extensive discussion of the differences between moral awareness and moral attentiveness can be found

in the Discussion section below.

Moral cues are more likely to be detected by those high in moral attentiveness, to the extent that highly morally attentive people

risk overestimation of the frequency of moral or immoral behavior (cf. Tversky& Kahneman, 1973). Therefore,responses of those high

in moral attentiveness will more likely be based on the observed morality (e.g., ethical leadership) of a situation. In contrast, those low

192 S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

in moral attentiveness will consider issues to be amoral (in contrast to moral or immoral) more often (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe,

2008).

Although moral attentiveness generally motivates moral awareness and moral behavior (Reynolds, 2008), it does not imply that

the person always behaves in a moral way. Rather, it constitutes a difference in perceiving stimuli that makes those high in moral at-

tentiveness more cognizant of the moral content or consequences of incoming information, and thereby inﬂuences their evaluations

of their own behavior or the behavior of others (Reynolds, 2008). The translation of the perception of moral cues into actual moral

behavior is inﬂuenced by factors such as moral development (Kohlberg, 1981), moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002), or situational

cues (Barnett & Vaicys, 2000; Epley & Caruso, 2004; Giessner & Van Quaquebeke, 2010; Martin & Cullen, 2006; Rai & Fiske, 2012). Fur-

thermore, the decision to display moral or immoral behavior also depends on the moral cues that are perceived. Whereas moral cues

in the behavior of others are suggested to evoke feelings of contentment, and result in moral reciprocation, the perception of immoral

cues in the behavior of others may lead to feelings of frustration and being treated unjust. Highly morally attentive followers generally

prefer moral behavior because that corresponds with their perception of what is “the right thing to do”(Reynolds, 2008). However, at

times they may feel that the behavior they observe in others, especially their leaders, represents such a severe transgression of moral

rules that retaliation is warranted. Counterproductive behavior, such as sabotagingthe progress of projects by working less hard, can

be used instrumentally, as a signal to the leader that moral transgressions will have negative consequences. Thus, occasional immoral

behavior in response to unethical leadership might serve to restore the moral balance in the relationship, or act as a mere signal to

leaders that unethical behavior has negative consequences for them or for the organization.

Ethical leadership and follower moral attentiveness

Followingthe preceding reasoning, moral cues from the behavior of the ethical leaderwill be more salient, vivid and accessible to

followers high in moral attentiveness (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Reynolds, 2008). As moral behavior and communication of moral cues are

central to ethical leadership, the effectiveness of ethical leaders is likely to be contingent upon follower moral attentiveness. High

moral attentiveness leads followers to automatically perceive and interpret their leader's behavior interms of morality, andtherefore

be more sensitive to whether the leader's behavior or its outcomes are ethical. Thus, followers high in moral attentiveness are more

likely to question the ethicality of their leader than followers low in moral attentiveness.

As a result of the increased attention to the ethical behavior of their leader, followers high in moral attentiveness will be more like-

ly to use their leader's behavior as a model for their own moral behavior than followers low in moral attentiveness, simply because

they are more aware of the moral behavior of others. In addition, followers high in moral attentiveness will perceive a violation of

a moral norm as a violation of the relationship the follower has with the leader. In contrast, followers low in moral attentiveness

will use other criteria to evaluate their relationship with the leader and will therefore experience violations of a moral norm less as

a breach in the relationship. Finally, whereas ethical leaders motivate identiﬁcation with the collective or organization, especially

to followers high in moral attentiveness, low ethical leaders motivate an individualistic attitude. In contrast to followers high in

moral attentiveness, followers low in moral attentiveness do not evaluate or perceive their environment in terms of morality, and

thus are much less sensitive to the moral inﬂuence of low or high ethical leaders.

Importantly, the chronic cognitive assessment of their own and others' behavior against a moral standard often motivates high

morally attentive followers to display moral behavior (Reynolds, 2008). However, as discussed before, immoral behavior might

have an instrumental function for those high in moral attentiveness to signal that the leader has violated thenorms. Immoral follower

behavior may be based on a social exchange motivation (Brebels, De Cremer, & Sedikides, 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2011) and serve to

restore themoral balance in therelationship. Itmay also have a teaching purpose (Bandura, 1977) and serve as a mere punishment for

the leader's bad behavior, highlighting the negative consequences of the behavior and signaling him or her to get back on the moral

track. Thus, not only does the chronic moral framework of those high in moral attentiveness lead them to perceive and assess the en-

vironment based on moral norms, but it also motivates them to try and make others do the right thing. This action tendency may be

especially present when high morally attentive followers are confronted with low ethical leaders. In contrast, high ethical leadership

might just lead to the conclusion that all is as it should be and no action is needed, because followers perceive ethical leadership as a

baselinecondition. Finally, for followers low in moral attentiveness, their moral cognitive framework is not chronically active, and for

that reason they might not experience the need to respond.

Follower organizational deviance

Being confronted with low ethical leadership is likely to be a frustrating experience for some followers. Frustration can be vented

in several ways. Followers could react to the person displaying the unethical behavior directly. However, followers' reactions to their

supervisor's low ethical behavior are often restricted because of their relative powerlessness compared to the leaders. Therefore, de-

viant behavior is often directed at the organization, in the form of falsifying receipts or putting lower effort into the job, or at the

organization's members, in the form of interpersonal aggression toward others in the organization (Bennett & Robinson, 2000;

Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Indirectly retaliating toward the organization through deviant behavior often seems a safer choice

(Detert, Treviño, Burris, & Andiappan, 2007; Mayer et al., 2009).

Because leaders serve as representatives for their organization, the organization becomes the logical target for retaliation when

followers perceive their leaders as unethical. Therefore, we focus on organization-directed deviance (Bennett & Robinson, 2000;

Tepper et al., 2009; Warren, 2003). Organizational deviance is deﬁned as voluntary behavior that violates organizational norms

193S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

and thereby threatens the well-being of the organization and its members (Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Examples of deviant behavior

range from intentionally working slower than you could have worked to committing fraud (Robinson & Bennett, 1995).

Organizational deviance is traditionally identiﬁed in the literature as one of the possible reactions of followers to low ethical lead-

ership (Brown & Treviño, 2006b; Mayer et al., 2009). Thus far, researchers have assumed that ethical leadership would translate into

less deviance, and that low ethical leadership would evoke more deviance for all followers alike. With the current research, we pro-

pose a qualiﬁcation of that relationship. We expect that followers high in moral attentivenesswill react more strongly to ethical cues

from the leader because of their increased sensitivity, and therefore, will be more affected by high or low ethical leaders and will show

a stronger response in terms of moral behavior compared to followers low in moral attentiveness.

Summarizing, we propose a model predicting that follower moral attentiveness moderates the relationship between ethical lead-

ership and follower organizational deviance. Speciﬁcally, we predict that followers that are high in moral attentiveness by disposition

(Study 1), or that are experimentally induced to be morally attentive (Study 2), will react to low ethical leadership more strongly in

terms of deviance than followers low in attentiveness. We tested our hypothesis in a multisource ﬁeld study and a scenario study to

provide a test and replication across methodologies, and thus bolster conﬁdence in the conclusions based on our ﬁndings (cf. De

Cremer & Van Knippenberg, 2002; Dipboye, 1990).

Hypothesis 1. The positive relationship between low ethical leadership and employee organizational deviance is stronger for

followers high in moral attentiveness than for followers who are low in moral attentiveness.

Study 1

Method

Sample and procedures. We invited 531 members of a Dutch research panel who worked at least 12 hours a week and who had pre-

viously (when they entered the panel group) indicated that they had a supervisor to participate in this study as focal participants. We

relied on a snowballing method (see e.g., Lee & Allen, 2002; VanDijke, De Cremer, & Mayer, 2010 for a similar approach) whereby the

respondents were asked to ﬁll out an online questionnaire on a web page and ask a co-worker to do the same. The respondents were

asked to provide information to a co-worker regarding the research project, including a link to the online survey. We received 210

focal employee responses (for a response rate of 40%). Of the invited co-workers, 216 responded. As employees might be reluctant

to admit deviant behavior (Stewart, Bing, Davison, Woehr, & McIntyre, 2009), we used the co-worker ratings to obtain ratings of de-

viant behavior by the employees. In the next stage, demographic details from the supervisors of all employees still active in the sample

were collected throughthe same method. Our sample included89 focal employees and their co-workers, for whichthe relevant leader

demographics were available. Each respondent received a unique identiﬁcation number to ensure anonymity, and to make sure that

we could match the focal employee and co-worker data.

We took a number of stepsto ensure that the surveys were completed by the correctsources. In introducing the study, we empha-

sized the importance of integrity in the scientiﬁc process. We told the employees that it was essential for the focal employee and the

co-worker to ﬁll out the correct surveys. Furthermore, when respondents submitted their online surveys, time stamps and IP

addresses were recorded to ensure that the surveys were submitted at different times and with different IP addresses. We found

no irregularities in the responses.

In our sample, 68% of the focal employees were male. The average age in the sample was 44.5 years (SD = 9.91). 80% of the par-

ticipants worked full-time, and 20% worked part-time. Average tenure was 6 years (SD = 3.78) and 4.7 (SD = 3.44) years for the cur-

rent function. Participants worked for different kinds of organizations: 19% worked in medical or health services, 12% in governmental

organizations, 12% in the educational sector and 57% in other types of organizations. In terms of highest completed education, 19%

completed secondary school, 40% completed vocational education, 23% completed an applied university degree, and 17% completed

university. For leaders, 69% were male, whereas 59% of the co-workers were male. Average age for leaders was 45.8 years (SD = 9.09)

and for co-workers was 41.4 years (SD = 10.1). For leader education, 18% completed secondary school, 35% completed vocational ed-

ucation, 30% completed an applied university degree and 17% completed university.

Measures

Ethical leadership was reported by focal employees, using the ten-item ELS scale (Brown et al., 2005). Examples of the items are

“My leader conducts his/her personal life in an ethical manner.”and “My leader deﬁnes success not just by results but also the way

that they are obtained.”(1 = disagree strongly, 7 = agree strongly).

Moral attentiveness was reported by focal employees, using a ten-item self-report scale (Reynolds, 2008). Example items are “I

regularly think about the ethical implications of my decisions.”and “I frequently encounter ethical situations.”(1 = disagree strongly,

7 = agree strongly). As the implied two subscales of the moral attentiveness scale correlated very highly in our study (r= .77), we

refrained from computing separate results with each, but rather reported our analyses with the complete scale.

Organizational deviance of the focal employee was reported by a co-worker of each focal employee. We used anadapted version of

the original self-report items of Bennett and Robinson's (2000) twelve-item sub-scale for organizational deviance for report by co-

workers (Stewart et al., 2009; and see Van Dijke et al., 2010, for a similar design in the context of organizational citizenship behavior).

194 S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

Example items are “How often did your colleague in the last year take property from work without permission?”,or“How often did

your colleague in the last year intentionally work slower than he/she could have worked?”(1 = never, 5 = very often).

Prior research has shown relationships between gender, age and education and perceptions of ethical issues. For example, people

may reach higher levels of cognitive moral development when they age (Kohlberg, 1981), thereby increasing the likelihood that they

behave ethically. In addition, different types of education might confront people more or less often with ethics (Ford & Richardson,

1994), thereby potentially inﬂuencing their behavior. Each of these variables could potentially have its own effect on any of our

key variables that may contaminate our ﬁndings (cf. Spector & Brannick, 2011). Inspection of our correlation table shows that indeed

there is a signiﬁcant positive correlation between the leader's age and his or her ethical leadership as rated by the employee. Further-

more, a marginally signiﬁcant relationship was found between employee education and co-worker ratings of employee deviance.

Based on these correlations, we controlled for leader age and employee education in our analysis. Inclusion of the corresponding var-

iables from the employee or leader (i.e., employee age, leader education), co-worker age or any of the involved participants' gender,

did not change the results and are therefore not reported.

Results

Correlations between all scales, means, standard deviations and Cronbach's alphas are presented in Table 1.

To test our hypotheses, we conducted OLS regression analyses. Results reveal a signiﬁcant main effect for ethical leadership on or-

ganizational deviance, β=−0.34, t(83) = −3.03, pb.01, but not for moral attentiveness. In support of our hypothesized model, we

found that theinteraction effect of ethical leadership and moral attentiveness on organizationaldeviance was signiﬁcant, β=−0.22, t

(83) = −2.00, p=.049,R

= .18, d=−.44 (see Table 2).

Speciﬁcally, as can be observed in Fig. 1, there was a stronger relationship between ethical leadership and organizational deviance

for followers high in moral attentiveness than for followers low in moral attentiveness. Following recommendations by Aiken and

West (1991), we further conducted simple slope analysis, which revealed a signiﬁcant negative relationship between ethical leader-

ship and organizational deviance for high morally attentive followers (simple slope β=−0.53, t(83) = −3.21, pb.01), suggesting

that these followers showed higher levels of organizational deviance in response to lower ethical leadership. In contrast, no such re-

lationship existed for followers low in moral attentiveness (simple slope β=−0.18, t(83) = −1.54, ns.).

Discussion Study 1

The ﬁndings of Study 1 conﬁrm that low ethical leadership is more likely to encourage organizational deviancein high morally at-

tentive followers than in low morally attentive followers. In line with our reasoning, the differences in organizational deviance be-

tween followers high and low in moral attentiveness mainly occur when confronted with low rather than high ethical leadership

(see also Fig. 1). The slope for low morally attentive followers was negative but not signiﬁcant, which indicates that there were no

signiﬁcant differences in organizational deviance for these followers in their responses to low or high ethical leaders.

A strength of Study 1 is that our data is collected in a multi-source ﬁeld study which allowed us toassess actual behavior as an out-

come variable rated by a close co-worker. These ratings are preferred to self-report ratings, as the latter may be prone to biases and

will be confounded byone's own moral cognitive development. As co-workers workin the same environment and will have a trusted

relationship with the focal employee, they can be expected to have relatively good insights into the daily routines of the focal employ-

ee —even in deviant behaviors that would remain concealed to outsiders or leaders. Thus, we believe that co-worker reports provide

the most realistic insight in f ollower deviance (Stewart et al., 2009; and see van Dijke, De Cremer, Mayer, & Van Quaquebeke, 2012,for

a similar design in the context of organizational citizenship behavior).

Despite these advantages however, the design of Study 1 is cross-sectional and therefore does not provide us with conclusive in-

formation on the causality of the relations hypothesized in this paper. Therefore, we conducted a second study (Study 2).

In Study 2 weemployed an experimental design that manipulated ethical leadership (lowvs. high). In addition, we experimentally

manipulated moral attentiveness (low vs. high) in the context of our scenario. The experimental manipulation of moral attentiveness

Table 1

Means, standard deviations, correlations and Cronbach's alphas for main variables and controls in Study 1.

MSD1 234 5 67

1. Ethical leadership (EL) 3.47 0.63 (.91)

2. Follower's moral attentiveness (MA) 2.85 0.69 .19

†

(.93)

3. Follower's organizational deviance 1.59 0.88 −.26⁎.08 (.95)

4. Focal employee gender n/a −.04 −.18 .02

5. Focal employee age 44.4 9.76 .08 .06 −.12 −.19

6. Focal employee education n/a −.01 −.14 −.17 −.01 −.27⁎

7. Leader gender n/a −.10 −.09 .07 .59⁎⁎ −.06 −.03

8. Leader age 45.9 9.09 .21⁎.05 −.13 −.06 .55⁎⁎ −.11 −.18

Notes.N= 90. Cronbach's alphas are represented between brackets on the main diagonal. Leader gender and focal employee gender were coded 0 = male and

1=female.

†

pb.10.

⁎pb.05.

⁎⁎ pb.01.

195S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

may seem unusual because personality variables are traditionally assumed to have little intra-personal variation. However, some au-

thors have argued that this notion needs to be reconsidered as results show variability of some personality constructs based on situ-

ational contexts (Fleeson,2001; Mischel, 2004; Mischel & Shoda, 1995). Furthermore, in line with the social cognitive approach taken

in this paper, we aimed to induce a mental model that would guide participant's perception and interpretation of cues in the scenario

in terms of morality (vs. business) in order to simulate the effect of chronic moral attentiveness for the duration of our experiment

(for a similar priming of cognitive frameworks, see the literature on self-construal; Gardner, Gabriel, & Lee, 1999).

Study 2

Method

Sample

Our sample consisted of 94 students of a Dutch university who participated voluntarily in return for coursecredits. The averageage

was 22 years (SD = 1.93), and 55% of the participants were male. Participants were randomly assigned to the conditions of a 2

(ethical vs. low ethical leadership) by 2 (low moral attentiveness vs. high moral attentiveness) factorial design.

Procedure

Upon arrival in the lab, participants were seated in front of a computer in individual soundproof cubicles. All further instructions

were given via a computer program. Our study was the ﬁrst in a series of experiments. The scenario experiment started with an in-

troduction of our ethical leadership manipulation through a short story describing either a high ethical leader or a low ethical leader.

The descriptions were based on Brown, Trevino and Harrison's (ELS; 2005) ethical leadership scale, and consisted of sentences

representing the scale items (see Appendix A for a full description).

Subsequently, the moral attentiveness manipulation was introduced by asking participants to write a short story, in a textbox

allowing for a maximum of 10 lines of text, about their potential cooperation with this leader, whereby they should especially pay

attention to moral aspects (high moral attentiveness) or business aspects (low moral attentiveness) of the situation. We chose this

Table 2

Results for analyses regressing ethical leadership and follower moral attentiveness on organizational deviance in Study 1.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

BSEβBSEβBSEβ

Ethical leadership (EL) −.26 .09 −.29⁎⁎ −.31 .10 −.36⁎⁎ −.29 .10 −.33⁎⁎

Follower's moral attentiveness (MA) .13 .10 .14 .11 .09 .12 .10 .09 .11

EL × MA −.18 .09 −.20

†

−.18 .09 −.22⁎

Focal employee education −.10 .06 −.18

†

Leader age −.01 .01 −.10

Adjusted R

.07 .09 .11

ΔR

.09 .04

Fchange 3.43

†

1.95

Df 86 85 83

Notes.N= 89. The table presents the unstandardized b-coefﬁcients and standarderrors for centered variables, following the recommendation of Cohen,Cohen, West

and Aiken (2003).

⁎pb.05.

⁎⁎ pb.01.

†

pb.10.

Fig. 1. Interaction between ethical leadership and moral attentiveness on follower organizational deviance as found in Study 1.

196 S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

particular design based on various studies suggesting thatframing a decision in business terms makes its moralaspects less salient(cf.

Butterﬁeld et al., 2000; Pillutla & Chen, 1999; Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1999). After completingthe stories, participants answered a series

of questions consisting of manipulation checks and questions about the amount of deviance predicted in response to interacting with

the described leader.

Measures

After receiving the scenario manipulations, two single items were used as manipulation checks, one for ethical leadership –“To

what extent do you think this leader is an ethical leader?”–and one for moral attentiveness, “To what extent would you pay attention

to the moral aspects of the task?”(1 = not at all, 7 = very much). Next, participants ﬁlled out four items asking them to predict their

organizational deviance in response to working with the previously described leader: “Taking additional or longer breaks than is ac-

ceptable at your workplace,”“Neglect to follow your boss's instructions,”“Intentionally work slower than you could work,”and “Put

little effort into your work”(1 = not at all, 7 = very much; Cronbach's α= .78). We selected the items for this measure from Bennett

and Robinson's (2000) organizational deviance scale on the basis of their relevance in the context of the scenario. Lastly, participants

answered demographic questions. As discussed in Study 1, several demographic variables such as higher age, education (Ford &

Richardson, 1994; Kohlberg, 1981), and being female (Ford & Richardson, 1994) have been related to moral decision-making before.

Although none of these variables correlated signiﬁcantly with the dependentvariable in this study, we have analyzedour results with

and without these variables to avoid potential confounding effects in our data (Spector & Brannick, 2011).

Results

Manipulation check

A two-way ANOVA, with the manipulation check for ethical leadership as dependent variable, revealed that participants in the

high ethical leadership condition rated the leader as more ethical than participants in the low ethical leadership condition, F

(1, 90) = 919.09, pb.01, η

= .91 (see Table 3 for means).

The main effect for moral attentiveness on the manipulation check for ethical leadership was not signiﬁcant, nor was the interac-

tion effect. This last ﬁnding rules out the possibility that the high moral attentiveness condition would strengthen the ethical leader-

ship manipulation.

A second two-way ANOVA, with the manipulation checkfor moral attentiveness as dependent variable, revealed that our manip-

ulation for moral attentiveness was successful,

as participants in the high moral attentiveness condition indicated that they would

pay more attention to moral aspects of the situation than participants in the low moral attentiveness condition, F(1, 90) = 4.01,

p=.053,η

= .10. Neither the main effect of ethical leadership, nor the interaction between ethical leadership and moral attentive-

ness on the manipulation check for moral attentiveness was signiﬁcant.

Ethical leadership and moral attentiveness

A two-way ANOVA revealed a signiﬁcant main effect for ethical leadership on organizational deviance, showing that higher levels

of ethical leadership corresponded to lower levels of deviance, F(1, 90) = 42.22, pb.001, η

= .32, but no main effect for moral at-

tentiveness. Furthermore,the analysis conﬁrmed the interaction effect of ethical leadership and moral attentiveness on organizational

deviance as proposed, F(1, 90) = 5.82, p=.02,η

=.06(seeFig. 2). Pairwise comparisons (with Bonferroni adjustment) revealed

that the difference between the low ethical leadership condition and the high ethical leadership condition was larger for participants

in the high moral attentiveness condition, F(1, 92) = 42.09, pb.001, η

= .31, than for participants in the low moral attentiveness

condition, F(1, 92) = 8.46, p= .005, η

= .08 (means are reported in Table 3). These results show that participants high in moral at-

tentiveness react more strongly to ethical leadership than participants low in moral attentiveness.

Furthermore, pairwise comparisons (with Bonferroni adjustment) reveal that in the low ethical leadership condition, participants

in the high moral attentivenesscondition showed more deviance in response to working with a low ethical leader than participants in

the low moral attentiveness condition, F(1, 90) = 5.31, p= .02, η

= .06 (means are reported in Table 3). For the high ethical lead-

ership condition, no such difference between the high moral attentiveness condition and the low moral attentiveness condition was

found. Thus, the difference inresponses between high and low morally attentive followers is mainly driven by low ethical leadership.

Table 3

Mean predicted deviance as a function of ethical leadership and moral attentiveness in Study 2.

Low moral attentiveness High moral attentiveness

Low ethical leadership 2.89 (0.19) a 3.50 (0.19) b

High ethical leadership 2.13 (0.18) c 1.86 (0.18) c

Notes.N= 94. Higher ratingsindicate higher levelsof predicted deviance.Standard deviationsare provided within parentheses.Means with different subscripts differ

signiﬁcantly from each other after pairwise comparisons (Bonferroni adjusted).

Importantly, giventhe high social desirabilityof morality in the workplace and thefact that simply reading a question about morality (i.e., our manipulationcheck)

makes morality salient, we believethat the lower score on thisitem in the low moral attentivenesscondition, combinedwith the near-signiﬁcant p-value, warrants our

conclusion about the effectiveness of the manipulation.

197S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

Discussion Study 2

Our ﬁndings supported thehypothesis that high morally attentive followers react more strongly to the ethicality of the leader than

low morally attentive followers. Furthermore, in line with the ﬁndings of Study 1, Study 2 shows that the differences in deviance be-

tween followers high and low in moral attentiveness are due to followers reacting differently to low ethical leadership than to high

ethical leadership. By manipulatingmoral attentiveness, and thus temporarily increasingthe salience of moral cues in a controlled ex-

perimental setting, we provide convincingevidence with regard to the causal direction of this effect. Moreover, as participants in both

conditions were provided with the same information with regard to the morality of the leader, the fact that those for whom moral

cues were more salient were found to react more strongly, demonstrates the importance of attention for these cues.

Study 2 provides support for the appropriateness of the hypothesized causal relationships in the current paper basedon the exper-

imental design employed. However, as part of the experimental design, participants predicted the amount of organizational deviance

they would display in response to a leader low or high inethical behavior. Even though this dependent variable ﬁts the context of the

scenario best, and the ﬁndings of Study 1 are replicated, reporting hypothetical behavior forms a potential limitation of this study.

General discussion

The ﬁndings from our multisource ﬁeld study (Study 1) and scenario experiment (Study 2) conﬁrm that followers high in moral

attentiveness respond with more organizational deviance to low ethical leaders than followers low in moral attentiveness. The

present studies demonstrate that the effects of ethical leadership are not, as traditionally assumed (Brown & Treviño, 2006b;

Detert et al., 2007; Mayer et al., 2009), similar for all followers, but instead dependent on follower moral attentiveness. We expect

that high moral attentiveness facilitates followers' assessment of leader behavior against moral standards and increases sensitivity

to transgressions this domain (Reynolds, 2006). In contrast, low moral attentiveness may make followers focus on differentquestions

when assessing their leader's behavior. Our ﬁndings demonstrate that followers to whom moral cues are salient respond stronger to

low ethical leadership in that they show more deviant organizational behavior.

We are among the ﬁrst to emphasize the importance of the moral cues transferred by ethical leaders, thereby highlighting a key

component of ethical leadership that is not entailed in other general leadership styles. We thus extend the literature on ethical lead-

ership (Brown & Treviño, 2006b; Walumbwa et al., 2011) by addressing the uniquely moral aspects of ethical leadership in more de-

tail. The present results encourage a continuing focus on the speciﬁcally moral aspects of ethical leadership instead of relying on

general mechanisms.

Furthermore, our focus on moral attentiveness as a moderator ﬁts with calls for research to pay more attention to the cognitive

processes that precede moral judgments and moral behavior (Hannah et al., 2011; Reynolds & Ceranic, 2009). Our ﬁndings add to

the establishment of moral attentiveness as a concept that has an important role in the transition of moral inﬂuences into ethical be-

havior (Hannah et al., 2011; Reynolds, 2006; Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008). In contrast to other morality-related concepts such as

moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002), moral attentiveness comprises a mere assessment of the morality of one's own and other's be-

havior rather than a motivation to display moral behavior.

Fig. 2. Interaction between ethical leadership and moral attentiveness on follower organizational deviance as found in Study 2.

198 S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

As mentioned earlier, our research emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between moral attentiveness, and the related but

differentconcepts of moral awareness (cf. Reynolds, 2008). The chronic accessibility of moral cues due to moral attentiveness is likely

to precedemoral awareness, hence moral attentiveness can be considered a precursor to moral awareness. Other differences between

the two constructs are as follows. Whereas moral attentiveness may be strengthened by exposure to past moral issues, it is not inﬂu-

enced by speciﬁc aspects of the situation as moral awareness is. In addition, because moral attentiveness is a mental framework that

promotes automatic processing and active screening of information in the social environment that is activated before the person

encounters a situation (Reynolds, 2008), it ﬁrst operates subconsciously. Moral awareness, on the other hand, is a strictly conscious

process of comparing alternatives against moral standards that takes place after the moral cues of a speciﬁc issue are picked up

(e.g., Kohlberg, 1981).

Having clariﬁed thesedifferences, our research presents moral attentiveness as a mechanism that helps followers assess and take

action to restore themoral balance in their work environment. Although followers high inmoral attentiveness will have a strong pref-

erence for moral behavior, they may resort to immoral behavior after assessing the moral imbalance, as a means of retaliation or as a

signal to their leader. For example, followers may punish their leader's lack of ethical behavior by intentionally working slower or tak-

ing longer breaks.

Finally, we contribute to the literature on ethical leadership by providing new insights about the importance of the transfer of

moral cues for ethical leadership to be effective. In addition to a direct inﬂuence, we also suggest an important role for moral cues

as a part of the underlying process (DeCelles et al., 2012; Gino et al., 2011; Reynolds, 2006). Followers in our study seem to have

reacted to low ethical leaders based on their attentiveness. In turn, followers may also have become more attentive toward the

type of behavior that is exchanged in the relationship between themselves and the leader. When the leader's behavior is moral, the

follower's attentiveness might lead to a more morally focused exchange relationship. Heightened attention for moral cues in the

leader's behavior may also increase followers perception of the leaderas a moral role model (Jordan et al., 2013), and enable followers

to better follow the leader's example. The studiespresented in this paperthus set the stage for a more speciﬁc approach toward ethical

leadership.

Managerial implications

The current idea in management education is that we need to prepare our leaders to display ethical leadership in order to create

and foster ethical cultures, and, as a result, ethical followers. We would like to emphasize that ethical leadership is a leadership style

that should be strived for as an end in itself. However, we suggest that its effectiveness is contingent on follower moral attentiveness.

In addition, our results show speciﬁcally that low ethicalleadership drives thefollowers most attentive toward it to deviant behavior.

Given the devastating inﬂuence ofemployee deviance on the prosperity of organizations (Bennett & Robinson, 2000), it is thus impor-

tant for leaders to prevent even themost sensitive followers from resorting to deviance. The bar for doing so is not that high; according

to extant research, positive ethical rolemodels evoke more positive behavior in their followers (Mayer et al., 2009). The challenge for

leaders essentially lies in serving as such an ethical role model in order to prevent unethical conduct in the organization.

In addition, organizations may need to become aware that there are differences in the extent to which their employees observe

their environment and co-workers through a moral lens. Although some will be driven by their chronic moral attentiveness

(Reynolds, 2008), and may even overestimate the extent to which moral issues are present in the workplace (Tversky &

Kahneman, 1973), others who lack such an internal moral lens may not pick up on moral cues in the work environment at all. Ulti-

mately, tocreate a moral workplace, organizations may need to promote an ethical vision that is strong enough to keep every member

oftheorganizationonboardandalert.

Strengths, limitations and suggestions for future research

Study 1 conﬁrms our hypothesis in a sample in which the independent variable and the moderator variable were collected from a

different source than the dependent variable. Through this method, we not only avoided problems with social desirability or single-

source biases that are highly likely to occur in such research (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), but also were able to es-

tablish external validity. In addition,Study 1 measures actual rather than predicted behavior. Despite the fact that we did not measure

actual behavior in Study 2, the scenario approach presented inthis study is among theﬁrst causal studies in the domain of ethical lead-

ership. Thus, the value of Study 2 lies in conﬁrming the causal relationships in our hypothesized model in a controlled laboratory

setting.

Aﬁrst limitation of the presented research lies in the differentresults for low morally attentive followers across studies. In Study 1,

there was no signiﬁcant difference in deviance for low morally attentive followers in reaction to low or high ethical leaders. In Study 2,

a similar pattern was found, although the slope for followers low in moral attentiveness turned out to be signiﬁcant (albeit the slope

was still signiﬁcantly less steep than that for high morally attentive followers). An explanation for the different ﬁndings between the

two studies is that in thescenario of Study 2, the cues were stronger and possibly less ambiguous than in Study 1, potentially reaching

the minimal threshold for followers low in moral attentiveness to respond as well. In addition, Study 2 involved a direct manipulation

of moral attentiveness, while in Study1 moral attentiveness was measured without a link to a speciﬁc situation, which could explain

the different effects.

A second limitation concerns our manipulation of moral attentiveness in Study 2, which was aimed at temporarily increasing the

extent to which participants perceived the moral aspects of the situation, and how they reﬂectedon these (i.e., perceptual and reﬂec-

tive moralattentiveness). This manipulation directs the attention of the participant totheir interaction with the leader in our scenario.

199S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

Although we aimed to induce a general mentalframework with regard to the scenario rather than pointingparticipants to thefact that

the situation necessarily contained moral cues, we manipulated attentiveness in such a way that it became speciﬁc for the situation

described in the scenario. This could mean that we measured characteristics of moralawareness as well. While we can parsimoniously

interpret the ﬁndings across the two studies, future research may ﬁnd better ways to manipulate moral attentiveness without simul-

taneously triggering moral awareness, for example by priming morality subliminally through word-search tasks or pictures.

The ﬁnding that the effect of high ethical leadership is smaller than that for low ethical leadership is consistent with recent re-

search suggesting that low ethical leadership represents a norm-transgression, which is perceived as a breach in the leader–follower

relationship, whereas ethical leadership is simply normatively appropriate conduct, and can be seen as a baseline condition that does

not evoke strong reactions (cf. Giessner & Van Quaquebeke, 2010). Speciﬁcally, followers may implicitly expect leadership to contain

moral aspects, and thus see ethical leadership as the default. Furthermore, in line with other researchsuggestingthat bad events –to

the extent that one is aware of them –have a stronger effect than good events (Baumeister et al., 2001), it may be the case that low

ethical leadership is simply more salient to followers than high ethical leadership. Speciﬁcally, when observing the leader's behavior

through anethical lens, it may be easier for followers to determine whether the leader's behavior is harmful or constitutes a breach of

a moral rule (cf. Reynolds, 2006), than whether it is helpfulor in accordance with moral rules. In addition, negative behavior calls for

corrective actions, while positive behavior mainly leads to the conclusion that everything is as it should be.

Future research could extend our research in multiple ways. Firstly, it should consider that aspects of the situation (Butterﬁeld

et al., 2000; Jones, 1991) or the ethical climate in the organization (Ambrose, Arnaud, & Schminke, 2008; Schminke et al., 2005;

Victor & Cullen, 1988)canhaveaninﬂuence on our proposed relationship, as both of these factors can increase the salience of

moral cues. Ethical climate can induce a shared moral awareness among members of a team (Kalshoven et al., 2012), and thereby in-

crease ethical behavior in organizations. Importantly, individual moral attentiveness may interact with these external, higher-level

factors. Speciﬁcally, because unethical leadership stands out more strongly in an ethical climate than in an unethical climate, it

might require more moral attentiveness to assess the immorality of unethical behavior that occurs in an unethical climate. Similarly,

an ethical leader may stand out positively in an unethical context, while it takes more attention to distinguish the moral actions of an

ethical leader in an ethical climate. Future research should investigate the inﬂuence of context factors such as ethical climate.

Secondly, the presented model could be extended by includingother ethical predispositions and follower values that might inter-

act with moral attentiveness. Reynolds (2006) provided initial support for such interactions by showing that a formalist ethical pre-

disposition raised the moral awareness of a presented issue based on indicators of harm, as well as violation of a norm, while a

utilitarian ethical predisposition only ra ised moral awareness when indicators of harm were present. It is beyond the scope of the cur-

rent paper to study the complex effects of follower ethical predisposition on the relationships between ethical leadership, follower

moral attentiveness and follower outcomes. However, this might be a fruitful avenue for future research.

Relating to the previous point, the results of Study 1 are based on co-worker assessment of the employee's deviant organizational

behavior. A problem with this approach may be that the moral personality characteristics or moral attentiveness of the co-worker

might have inﬂuenced their perception. However, there is no reason to expect a co-worker bias in our research because there are

no reasons to expect an abnormally high co-occurrence of high or low moral attentive co-workers and focal employees. In addition,

co-workers form an external observing party and are thus more likely to report employee organizational deviance without being bi-

ased by social desirability or self-promotional motives (Stewart et al., 2009).Nonetheless, it may be interestingto look at the potential

inﬂuence that co-workers' moral attentiveness and other moral characteristics have on their assessment and reporting of the behavior

of their peers.

Finally, the present research could be extended toward other types of deviant behavior. Research on counterproductive work behav-

ior (Spector et al., 2006) has, for example, distinguished between workplace aggression (Fox & Spector, 1999), retaliation (Skarlicki &

Folger, 1997), revenge (Bies & Tripp, 1998), and workplace incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). In addition, deviance directed at

third parties such as customers (Greenbaum, Mawritz, Mayer, & Priesemuth, 2013), or the type of deviance that has beneﬁcial side effects

for the organization or the leader personally (Hoogervorst, De Cremer, & Van Dijke, 2011), are not covered. It might be interesting to ex-

plore the differential effects on each of these variables produced by the interactional effect of ethical leadership and follower moral at-

tentiveness. Particularly, it might be the case that followers high in moral attentiveness perceive leader-directed retaliation as the

most effective way to restore the moral balance, since their heightened attention to moral cues might also make them more aware of

thesourceoftheunethicalbehavior(compareresearchbyLavelle et al., 2009, about how employees distinguish between beneﬁciaries

of organizational citizenship behavior). In this context, it may also be important to distinguish between different types of unethical lead-

ership. Different types of unethical leadership, such as abusive leadership (Tepper, 2007) or leadership that is unethical for instrumental

reasons (Hoogervorst et al., 2011), may be driven by different motivations. In particular when unethical leadership is used in an instru-

mental way, to obtain positive outcomes for the team or the company, followers may not perceive it as negatively as unethical leadership

that harms the organization or team. In this study we cannot rule out that there is a discrepancy between the perceived unethical lead-

ership as reported by the employees and the leader's intended behavior. One explanation for this discrepancy is that people differ in their

perspective on morality, which in turn may lead to different evaluation criteria for the leader's behavior (Giessner & Van Quaquebeke,

2010). For this reason it is very difﬁcult to measure ethical leadership in an objective way. However, gaining more insight into these pro-

cesses by assessing the different perspectives may be an interesting suggestion for future research.

Conclusion

Although researchand practicehave extensively focused on ethical leadership in the past years, our study is one of the ﬁrst to em-

phasize the importance of the moral element inherent in ethical leadership. We showed that some followers are more sensitive to

200 S. van Gils et al. / The Leadership Quarterly 26 (2015) 190–203

ethical leadership, and, as a result, these followers respond with more organizational deviance to a lack of ethical leadership than

others. Organizational deviance can beseverely harmful for organizations. Our research suggests that one way to prevent it is byurg-

ing leaders to behave ethically, as even minor breaches can push the most sensitive employees toward deviant behavior.

Appendix A. Materials for scenario experiment

A.1. Ethical leadership manipulation —high ethical leadership

“Your leader lives his personal life in an ethical way. Heis a reliable person and asks himself what is the right thing to do before

making decisions. Your leader also takes honest and balanced decisions in his work. He listens to what employees have to say

and keeps their interest in mind when deciding. At work he discusses the importance of ethical norms and disciplines

employees who violate ethical standards. He deﬁnes success not only in terms of results, but also in the way the results are

obtained. All in all, your leader sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics.”

[(based on Brown et al., 2005)]

A.2. Ethical leadership manipulation —low ethical leadership

“In his personal life, your leader does not care about living life in an ethical way. He is not really a reliable person and rarely asks

himself what is the right thing to do before making decisions. In his work, your leader does not always take honest and

balanced decisions either. He does not listen to what employees have to say and does not keep their interest in mind when

deciding. At work he never discusses theimportance of ethical normsand does not pay attention to whether employees behave

in accordance with theethical standards. He deﬁnes successonly in terms of results, and does not careabout the way resultsare

obtained. All in all, your leader is not a good example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics.”

[(based on Brown et al., 2005)]

A.3. Moral attentiveness manipulation —high moral attentiveness

Describe in a short story how the cooperation between you and this leader would be if you would work with this leader and would

mainly be focused on the moral aspects of the interaction.Describe the style in which this leader would give you tasks, and what the

interaction between the two of you would be like.

A.4. Moral attentiveness manipulation —low moral attentiveness

Describe in a short story how the cooperation between you and this leader would be if you would work with this leader and would

mainly be focused on the business aspects of the interaction. Describe the stylein which this leader would giveyou tasks, and whatthe

interaction between the two of you would be like.

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Effect of ethical leadership on unethical deviant behavior of employees in state-owned enterprises: based on cognitive-affective system theory

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While much of the literature on unethical behavior focuses on self-serving misconduct, this study explores employees’ violations of social norms and/or ethical standards to benefit their organizations: unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB). Given the unique socio-cultural and economic dynamics in Hispanic American contexts, this study examines how critical organizational, interpersonal, and cognitive factors contribute to UPB in this region. Drawing from social identity theory, social learning theory, social exchange theory, and social cognitive theory, we hypothesize that ethical culture, ethical leadership, leader-member exchange, organizational identification, moral disengagement, and ethical evaluation play significant roles in shaping employee behavior. Data collection proceeded through an online survey with 652 employees from various industries in Ecuador and Venezuela. Findings support most of the hypotheses, shedding light on the complex dynamics of UPB within Hispanic-American organizations. The study offers theoretical and practical insights for managing UPB in similar socio-cultural environments.

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Background: Corruption is one of the major inhibitory to various advances. Corruption that was characterized by misuse of public or organizational positions for personal or organizational benefit commonly involved public officials in the form of bribery behavior. Therefore, it is important to investigate factors contributing to bribery behavior in public officials. Purpose: Taking a micro-level perspective, this research aims to extend corruption literature by focusing on the moderating role of ethical leadership in the relationship between descriptive norms and corruption. Method: The study used a quantitative survey approach with 116 participants working in public organizations. Three scales were used to measure descriptive norms, ethical leadership, and corruption. A moderation regression-based analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings: The results showed that descriptive norms have a significant role in predicting corruption. However, ethical leadership has no moderating role in the relationship between descriptive norms and corruption. Implication: These findings provide new insight into the literature by suggesting that ethical leadership might not be effective in reducing followers’ corruption when corruption is widespread. Therefore, corruption intervention programs may emphasize descriptive norms aspect in anti-corruption campaigns to reduce the perception of descriptive norms in order to reduce the possibility of individuals engaging in corruption.

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May 2025

Purpose This article examines how fear of goal failure leads to unethical behavior at work. The study further explores whether ego depletion mediates the positive link between employees’ fear of failure in meeting their goals and their unethical behavior. In addition, the moderating role of moral attentiveness on the mediated relationship is examined. Design/methodology/approach Time-lagged data were collected from the sales staff working across various industries in the USA and Pakistan. The final samples from the USA and Pakistan were n = 334 and n = 381, respectively. Findings Fear of goal failure was significantly related to employees’ unethical behavior, and ego depletion mediated this positive relationship. In addition, employees’ moral attentiveness attenuated the link between fear of goal failure and unethical behavior. Practical implications This study contributes to the existing literature by testing an unexplored relationship between fear of goal failure and employee unethical behavior at work. It further confirms the role of an individual’s morality in shaping this relationship. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature by testing an unexplored relationship of fear of goal failure with employee unethical behavior at work. It further confirms the role of individual’s morality in shaping this relationship.

Belonging through values: ethical leadership, creativity, and psychological safety with ethical climate as a moderator

Article

Full-text available

May 2025

Introduction This study aims to provide conceptual insights on how varying levels of value congruence vary employees’ sense of belongingness within ethically led organizations. The ethical leadership effect was tested directly and indirectly through belongingness and psychological safety on creativity; the ethical climate was considered as a moderator. Methods Study 1 data was multi-sourced and was collected from 377 participants at three different time points. Study 2 was scenario-based data collection. 208 employees participated in this study. The process and Hayes techniques were used for SPSS. Results Findings were that ethical leadership was a significant factor in influence directly and indirectly through belongingness and psychological safety on creativity; the moderating role of ethical climate was also found significant. Belongingness varies at high and low levels of congruency with the leader. Conclusion Findings suggest that ethical leadership is a strong predictor of belongingness and psychological safety that helps employees to be creative. Overall, the working climate, if it is ethical, also improves the impact of ethical leadership. Then, it discusses the theoretical and practical implications of ethical leadership for research and practices.

Leadership and business ethics: A conceptual framework for responsible management

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2025

Billel Ferhani

Ethical leadership has emerged as a fundamental determinant of corporate governance and sustainable organizational practices, necessitating a deeper examination of its strategic dimensions. This paper explores the intersection of leadership and business ethics, proposing a conceptual framework for responsible management. Despite the extensive scholarship on ethical leadership, a critical gap persists in understanding the extent to which strategic leadership incorporates ethical considerations into decision-making processes. By identifying and analyzing various leadership styles within an ethical framework, this study elucidates both the convergences and divergences across these approaches. Through a synthesis of theoretical perspectives, this paper advances a structured approach to embedding ethics within leadership paradigms. The findings contribute to the academic discourse by offering a strategic framework that integrates ethical leadership with corporate governance and long-term organizational performance. Additionally, this study provides practical insights for business leaders seeking to cultivate ethical organizational cultures while maintaining competitive advantage. By bridging theoretical constructs with managerial applications, this research enhances both scholarly inquiry and business practice.

Determinants of the willingness to report unethical behavior

Article

Jun 2025
Int Publ Manag J

Ubuntu Value System in Ethical Human Resource Management Practices

Chapter

Full-text available

Apr 2025

This chapter explores the Ubuntu value system as key in ethical human resources management (HRM) practices. Organisations in South Africa suffer from HRM with weak ethical practices. The employer-employee relationship is often shaped by unfair recruitment and appraisal processes, discriminatory policies, exclusive decision-making processes, and employee stressful workplaces and spaces. By adopting Ubuntu-inspired ethical HRM practices, organisations create supportive workplaces and spaces for employees' growth. The authors believe this approach strengthens the employer-employee relationship, enhances employee job satisfaction, and fosters productivity in South African organisations. The Ubuntu-inspired HRM practice contributes to a cohesive, resilient and ethical organisational culture that prioritises shared success and mutual respect. The overall contribution is to the ethical climate and HRM practice in South African organisations. It is a resource for both human resources professionals and scholars who want to apply the Ubuntu principles to ethical HRM.

How to Reduce Time Theft Behavior in Telework: A Moral Self‐Regulation Perspective

Article

Mar 2025

Despite the growing prevalence of telework in the workplace, the impact of telework extent on deviant workplace behaviors, especially time theft, has received scant research attention. Notwithstanding common assumptions, Microsoft and Ctrip have demonstrated in practice that telework does not necessarily lead to time theft among teleworkers. Inspired by these insights, the current research leverages the theoretical perspective of moral self‐regulation, proposing that telework extent threatens moral justification and displacement of responsibility, thereby reducing time theft behavior. The strength of these above indirect effects is contingent upon the key individual moral trait of teleworkers, namely moral attentiveness. This moderated mediation model is validated through a three‐wave study involving a sample of 304 teleworkers. Implications of how telework extent influences time theft behaviors from the moral self‐regulation perspective are discussed.

Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research

Article

Full-text available

Oct 2010

The purpose of this article is to review literature that is relevant to the social scientific study of ethics and leadership, as well as outline areas for future study. We first discuss ethical leadership and then draw from emerging research on "dark side" organizational behavior to widen the boundaries of the review to include unethical leadership. Next, three emerging trends within the organizational behavior literature are proposed for a leadership and ethics research agenda: 1) emotions, 2) fit/congruence, and 3) identity/identification. We believe each shows promise in extending current thinking. The review closes with discussion of important issues that are relevant to the advancement of research on leadership and ethics.

Laboratory vs. field research in industrial and organizational psychology

Article

Full-text available

Jan 1990

Robert L Dipboye

Who Displays Ethical Leadership, and Why Does It Matter? An Examination of Antecedents and Consequences of Ethical Leadership

Article

Full-text available

Feb 2012

Drawing on social learning and moral identity theories, this research examines antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Additionally, this research empirically examines the distinctiveness of the ethical leadership construct when compared to related leadership constructs such as idealized influence, interpersonal justice, and informational justice. Consistently with the theoretically derived hypotheses, results from two studies of work units ( n 's = 115 and 195 units) provide general support for our theoretical model. Study 1 shows positive relationships between ethical leadership and leader "moral identity symbolization" and "moral identity internalization" (approaching significance) and a negative relationship between ethical leadership and unit unethical behavior and relationship conflict. In Study 2, both leader moral identity symbolization and internalization were positively related to ethical leadership and, with idealized influence, interpersonal justice, and informational justice controlled for, ethical leadership was negatively related to unit outcomes. In both studies, ethical leadership partially mediated the effects of leader moral identity.

A model of work frustration–aggression

Article

Nov 1999
J ORGAN BEHAV

The current study was designed to investigate the situational, dispositional, and affective antecedents of counterproductive work behaviors. A model based on the organizational frustration–aggression work of Spector and colleagues was tested using structural equation modeling and zero-order correlational analysis. As expected, a positive relationship was found between employees' experience of situational constraints (events frustrating their achievement of organizational and personal goals) and counterproductive behavioral responses to frustration (personal and organizational aggression), mediated by affective reactions to frustration. In addition, personality (trait anger and trait anxiety), control beliefs (Work Locus of Control), and estimation of likelihood of punishment were strongly associated with affective and behavioral responses. In particular, strong direct relationships were found between affective response variables and anxiety and locus of control, while direct relationships were found between behavioral response variables and anger and punishment. Finally, differentiated relationships between two facets of trait anger (angry temperament and angry reaction) and four categories of counterproductive behaviors (serious and minor deviance directed at organizational and personal targets) were explored. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability

Article

Jan 1982

Tit for tat? The spiraling effect of incivility in the workplace

Article

Jul 1999

In this article we introduce the concept of workplace incivility and explain how incivility can potentially spiral into increasingly intense aggressive behaviors. To gain an understanding of the mechanisms that underlie an "incivility spiral," we examine what happens at key points: the starting and tipping points. Furthermore, we describe several factors that can facilitate the occurrence and escalation of an incivility spiral and the secondary spirals that can result. We offer research propositions and discuss implications of workplace incivility for researchers and practitioners.

Transformational leadership in teams. B. M. Bass, B. J. Avolio, eds. Improving Organizational Effectiveness Through Transformational Leadership. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA

Article

Social Learning Theory

Article

Jan 1977

Albert Bandura

Common Method Biases in Behavioral Research: A Critical Review of the Literature and Recommended Remedies

Article

Oct 2003

Interest in the problem of method biases has a long history in the behavioral sciences. Despite this, a comprehensive summary of the potential sources of method biases and how to control for them does not exist. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to examine the extent to which method biases influence behavioral research results, identify potential sources of method biases, discuss the cognitive processes through which method biases influence responses to measures, evaluate the many different procedural and statistical techniques that can be used to control method biases, and provide recommendations for how to select appropriate procedural and statistical remedies for different types of research settings.

Implicit theories, self-schemas, and leader-member exchange

Article

Aug 1997

This study examined the relation of cognitive factors (implicit theories, self-schemas, and perceived similarity) to liking and leader-member exchange (LMX) in a field setting. Perceived similarity significantly predicted LMX quality, with liking mediating this relationship. Supervisor-subordinate match on implicit performance theories, the normativeness of both subordinates' and supervisors' self-schemas, and subordinates' negative affectivity also predicted liking and LMX ratings. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Ethical leadership and follower organizational deviance: The moderating role of follower moral attentiveness

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