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Leading others to go beyond the call of duty: A dyadic study of servant leadership and psychological ethical climate
Abstract
Purpose
Interest in servant leadership has grown exponentially over the past decade as evident in the surge of academic- and practitioner-oriented publications on the subject. While prior research has shown that servant leadership leads to citizenship behavior, no study has explored the ethical pathway as the underlying influence process despite the fact that servant leadership is an ethical approach to leadership. On the basis of social learning theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine psychological ethical climate as a key mediator between servant leadership and citizenship behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 123 leader–follower dyads from eight high-performing firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange, and analyzed using multiple regression analysis.
Findings
The results showed that the relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) (both for OCBI and OCBO) is mediated by psychological ethical climate.
Practical implications
This study demonstrates the value of using a servant leadership approach in order to foster a psychological ethical climate and increase OCBs. As such, the authors highlight the importance of a systematic approach to develop servant leaders in organizations.
Originality/value
This research contributes to the understanding of the ethical mechanism that explains the relationship between servant leadership and follower outcomes. Drawing on social learning theory, the findings show that servant leaders are ethical climate architects through their role modeling behaviors and interactions with followers.
... Servant leadership makes employees feel like they belong in a community with a shared purpose, thereby increasing the perceived meaningfulness of their jobs. As Sendjaya et al. [31] noted above, servant leaders influence employee behavior, which may go beyond what is expected of them, enabling discretionary effort or proactive behaviors that enhance organizational success. Therefore, by accepting responsibility for performance improvements in relation to various organizational metrics at different levels-individual as well as team levels Furthermore, the incorporation of servant leadership between meaningful work and business performance moderates an organization's capacity to learn, adapt, and withstand change. ...
... Therefore, by accepting responsibility for performance improvements in relation to various organizational metrics at different levels-individual as well as team levels Furthermore, the incorporation of servant leadership between meaningful work and business performance moderates an organization's capacity to learn, adapt, and withstand change. The creation of a culture that encourages learning by leaders who serve is important in the process of making mistakes as opportunities for growth, accepting feedback as a tool for improvement, and encouraging knowledge sharing among team members [31]. Servant leaders enable organizations to adapt to new market conditions, take advantage of emerging opportunities, and cope with challenges better by fostering the encouragement of experimentation and the development of a growth mindset [7]. ...
ABSTRACT: In the fast-changing world of business today, companies are facing increased competition due to advances in
technology, changing consumer demands, and the rise of new markets. To succeed in this dynamic landscape, organizations
must focus on nurturing their most important resource: their employees. Developmental human resources (HR) strategies have
become a key tool in improving employees' skills, encouraging innovation, and boosting overall business performance. This
article investigates how developmental HR practices, meaningful work opportunities, and servant leadership can play a role in
driving success within an organization. Research in this field shows the various aspects of developmental HR, such as
employee training opportunities, career development opportunities, and developmental performance appraisal, and how they
can serve to bring a sense of meaningfulness to work, which can result in furthering business performance. The review
presents a notable framework for scholars to investigate and outline how businesses in the current competitive world can
bolster their performance through developmental HR.
... The servant leadership literature demonstrates that ethical and moral behavior is a key element of many conceptual and operational definitions of servant leadership (Roberts & Hess-Hernandez, 2018), including behaving ethically (Liden et al., 2008(Liden et al., , 2014(Liden et al., , 2015van Dierendonck, 2011), responsible morality (Sendjaya et al., 2008;Pekerti & Sendjaya, 2010;Sendjaya, & Pekerti, 2010), and moral integrity (Graham, 1991;Ehrhart, 2004;Wong & Davey 2007;Walumbwa et al., 2010;Reed et al., 2011;Mittal & Dorfman, 2012;Focht & Ponton, 2015). In terms of the empirical literature, servant leadership enhances the ethical climate of the organization (Jaramillo et al., 2015;Burton et al., 2017;Sendjaya et al., 2020), elevates the sociomoral climate (Verdorfer et al., 2015), favorably influences moral behavior and integrity (Washington et al., 2006;Stollberger et al., 2020), promotes ethical change management (Stauffer & Maxwell, 2020), increases trust in leadership (Reinke, 2004;Shim et al., 2016, Burton et al., 2017Christensen-Salem et al., 2021) and general trust (Miao et al., 2014), raises organizational citizenship behav-iors (Ehrhart, 2004;Chiniara & Bentein, 2018;Luu, 2019;Elche et al., 2020), Sendjaya et al., 2020), reduces employee cynicism (Verdorfer et al., 2015;Chi et al., 2020), decreases employee deviancy (Verdorfer et al., 2015;Peng et al., 2016;Paesen et al., 2019), attenuates bullying (Ahmad et al., 2021), and cultivates perceptions of procedural, distributive, interactional, and distributive justice (Ehrhart;Chung et al., 2010;Kool & van Dierendonck, 2012;Walumbwa et al., 2010;Schwepker;Khattak et al., 2019;Farid, et al., 2021). ...
... The servant leadership literature demonstrates that ethical and moral behavior is a key element of many conceptual and operational definitions of servant leadership (Roberts & Hess-Hernandez, 2018), including behaving ethically (Liden et al., 2008(Liden et al., , 2014(Liden et al., , 2015van Dierendonck, 2011), responsible morality (Sendjaya et al., 2008;Pekerti & Sendjaya, 2010;Sendjaya, & Pekerti, 2010), and moral integrity (Graham, 1991;Ehrhart, 2004;Wong & Davey 2007;Walumbwa et al., 2010;Reed et al., 2011;Mittal & Dorfman, 2012;Focht & Ponton, 2015). In terms of the empirical literature, servant leadership enhances the ethical climate of the organization (Jaramillo et al., 2015;Burton et al., 2017;Sendjaya et al., 2020), elevates the sociomoral climate (Verdorfer et al., 2015), favorably influences moral behavior and integrity (Washington et al., 2006;Stollberger et al., 2020), promotes ethical change management (Stauffer & Maxwell, 2020), increases trust in leadership (Reinke, 2004;Shim et al., 2016, Burton et al., 2017Christensen-Salem et al., 2021) and general trust (Miao et al., 2014), raises organizational citizenship behav-iors (Ehrhart, 2004;Chiniara & Bentein, 2018;Luu, 2019;Elche et al., 2020), Sendjaya et al., 2020), reduces employee cynicism (Verdorfer et al., 2015;Chi et al., 2020), decreases employee deviancy (Verdorfer et al., 2015;Peng et al., 2016;Paesen et al., 2019), attenuates bullying (Ahmad et al., 2021), and cultivates perceptions of procedural, distributive, interactional, and distributive justice (Ehrhart;Chung et al., 2010;Kool & van Dierendonck, 2012;Walumbwa et al., 2010;Schwepker;Khattak et al., 2019;Farid, et al., 2021). ...
... Jaramillo, Grisaffe, Chonko, & Roberts, 2009), psychological ethical climate (e.g. Sendjaya, et al. 2020), there has been not much investigation of direct empirical relationship between ethical and servant leadership styles. Schwepker and Schultz (2015) found positive and high correlation between servant leadership and caring ethical climate. ...
... The research examining the relationship between servant leadership and ethics is scarce (Jaramillo, Bande, & Varela, 2015;Sendjaya, et al. 2020), but is on the increase. The literature suggests synergies exist among ethical leadership, servant leadership . ...
This edited book offers an updated insight into a number of key elements of educational leadership and teachers’ professional development topics.
... And "Mobilising others" (or leading others) is identified as a different form of leadership, that empowers them (Manz and Sims, 2001) or create an innovative collective environment (Basadur, 2004), and helps people going beyond its duty (Sendjaya et al., 2020). ...
**Abstract:**
This chapter explores the digital competences of managers and entrepreneurs in the creative industry sector, focusing on the XD Media Hub project funded by Erasmus+. It applies the EntreComp and DigComp frameworks to assess essential digital skills for innovation and business growth. Through a survey of 76 participants across Europe, the study identifies key competences, emphasizing "Ideas and Opportunities" and "Communication and Collaboration." The findings highlight the necessity of continuous upskilling in digital technologies to navigate the evolving landscape of media and creative industries, offering a strategic approach to enhancing entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities.
... Also, servant leadership is another leadership style that can generate various benefits among SMEs as it prioritizes ethical behavior and social responsibility (Sendjaya et al., 2020). For SMEs in Malaysia, maintaining ethical behavior is not just a moral obligation but also a strategic benefit. ...
This paper explores the relevancy of transformational and servant leadership styles in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The topic of leadership has been studied extensively throughout the years, with various leadership theories have been proposed. Previous studies have also highlighted on how leadership style is crucial in influencing the performance of an organization. Moreover, these two well-known leadership styles are believed to sit well with the concepts and strategies practiced among SMEs in this country. This study seeks to offer literature and practical insights into why these two styles of leadership are relevant and practical for the distinctive circumstances of Malaysian SMEs. Therefore, the researcher concluded with a rationale that applying the right and suitable leadership styles will influence the performance and success of Malaysian SMEs in the future.
... A slight variation to this argument proposes the servant leadership model, which suggests that instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people (Kashyap & Rangnekar, 2016). It has been argued that this model helps explain a wide range of group outcomes (Hoch et al., 2016), and leaders who identify with this model tend to, more so than others, go beyond the call of duty (Sendjaya et al., 2020). ...
Identity formation is a complex process and has been
discussed by post-structuralist discourse theorist Ernesto
Laclau. This paper focuses on Laclau's proposed ideas on
the means of identity production and populism and studies
the popular independence movement for Bangladesh
under that rubric. It locates charismatic leadership as a
necessary condition for populism and identifies Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the charismat suturing
the various chains of equivalence that rose to become
the populist movement that resulted in the nation's
struggle for independence in 1971. This paper also looks
at the transformational leadership of Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman and acknowledges it as a necessary condition
for the patterns of identity creation in East Bengal in the
late 1960s.
... Servant leadership's ability to influence a unit's climate is well established. Servant leaders affect team climate perceptions including virtuous climate (Neubert et al., 2022a(Neubert et al., , 2022b, procedural justice climate (Ehrhart, 2004;Walumbwa et al., 2010), service climate (Hunter et al., 2013;Walumbwa et al., 2010), ethical climate (Burton et al., 2017;Dodd et al., 2018;Sendjaya et al., 2019), trust climate (Ling et al., 2017), positive psychological climate (Ozyilmaz & Cicek, 2015), knowledge sharing climate (Song et al., 2015), and social-moral climate (Verdorfer et al., 2015). These findings, as a whole, support the conclusion that servant leaders are influential role models who "set the tone" for team interactions and members' social expectations. ...
The manufacturing industry faces a trend in which employees’ work processes are being redesigned into simple, repetitive tasks that maximize performance and efficiency. This neo-Tayloristic business model reduces social interactions and stifles relationship building, leading to disgruntled employees and raising questions about leaders’ moral obligation as to the mechanisms they use to enhance employees’ performance at work. As an alternative to redesigning work processes, we contend that servant leaders can enhance employees’ overall performance by cultivating positive interpersonal dynamics at work where social connectedness flourishes. Integrating insights from self-determination theory with servant leadership’s moral foundations, we investigate the degree to which servant leadership fosters two elements of a relationally supportive social context, interactional justice climate and coworker support, that facilitate its influence on followers’ intrinsic motivation and, subsequently, their voice and in-role performance. Temporally-separated data collected from a sample of 296 employees and their supervisors situated in 44 teams yielded results that support our hypotheses. Results underscore the importance of servant leadership cultivating a positive relational context to increase employees’ intrinsic motivation and improve their behaviors at work.
... While the physical symbolic home calls for him to stay and not return to war, Schofield still chooses to accept the mission and leaves to attempt to see to his duty. The embrace of duty aligns with the call of duty of servant-leaders, as described by Sendjaya et al. (2019) as an "innate orientation to serve others altruistically" (p. 621) by ascend beyond sufficient moral actions to a station by which others model their idealized behavior. ...
Film provides a unique medium in which the audience can be engaged through many senses, asking viewers to participate in the storytelling beyond a passive consumption of the artform (Barsam & Monahan, 2016). As art acts as a reflection of reality and the human connection to the great unanswered questions, studying film is a powerful case-study device for leadership scholars and practitioners. “No well-made film is unable to teach us something about leadership because leadership is about conflict, choices, and integrity” (Carey, 2005). Leadership studies often looks at military structures and other perilous situations for leadership lessons in success or failure (Kellerman, 2018; Northouse, 2015). 1917, as a military movie, provides several themes that touch on the personal leadership journeys each of us possess while attempting to live meaningful lives while achieving our passions. “In great films truly generative dialogue can be engaged with modern-day prophets and servant-leaders seeking to better understand the nature of the human condition through the stories we tell each other” (Walsh, 2020). I will discuss the film language used to construct four themes from the film 1917: home, ambition, ethics, and death. One of the two main characters, Lance Corporal Schofield, in traversing a dangerous mission to deliver a message across no man’s land through German occupied France in World War I learns to become a servant-leader. 1917, can be considered a spiritual sibling to the writing of Henry David Thoreau, whose essay Walden deeply influenced Greenleaf’s (1998) thematic understandings of the lasting values which motivate disruptors of an apathetic mode. By finding the conception of home as a tranquil and transcendental value for his mission and motivating ambition, instead of an innocent entity to avoid being corrupted, Schofield, like Thoreau, learns to embrace a slow, steady, and death laden road towards the future. The lessons that Schofield learns are attuned to the primary distinction that Greenleaf (1977/2002) makes in Servant as Leader, the servant-leader is subversive to the Western dominant paradigm of leader first by affirming the connection, wholeness, and process of being servant first.
... The practice of SL in nursing may facilitate healing and transform healthcare organizations. There has been a recent increase in academic and clinical publications about SL principles and practices and how this leadership style influences outcomes (Sendjaya et al., 2020). ...
Servant leadership (SL) is an especially effective leadership style for healthcare. This article relays characteristics, attributes, and essential behaviors of SL. Jesus Christ demonstrated SL by inverting the traditional leadership triangle of leader at the top. Servant leadership promotes a culture of openness, transparency, empowerment, and sharing of ownership. The servant leader values listening, developing, encouraging, building collaboration, and maintaining personal relationships, while displaying authenticity, openness, accountability, and willingness to learn. The experience of a staff nurse functioning as a servant leader for patients and colleagues during the COVID-19 pandemic elaborates how SL can be evidenced in bedside care.
... To the extent that prior authors have investigated the moral and ethical dimensions of servant leadership, such studies have focused primarily on the consequences of servant leadership or viewed it as a mechanism by which environmental factors influence employee outcomes. For instance, servant leadership has been posited as a factor in the emergence of workplace ethical climates (e.g., Jaramillo et al., 2015;Sendjaya et al., 2020;Verdorfer et al., 2015;Burton et al., 2017). In contrast, Stollberger and colleagues (2014) examined how anger at higher levels of management affected employee outcomes via lower-level direct supervisors' servant leadership behaviors. ...
In recent years, scholarship on the concept of servant leadership has advanced considerably. Psychometrically sound scales (Liden RC, Wayne SJ, Zhao H, Henderson D. The Leadership Quarterly 19:161–177, 2008; Van Dierendonck D, Nuijten I. Journal of Business and Psychology 26(3):249–-267, 2011) have been developed to measure the construct and it has been found to be positively related to a range of desirable work outcomes (Eva N, Robin M, Sendjaya S, van Dierendonck D, Liden RC. The Leadership Quarterly 30:111–132, 2019). However, much less is known about how servant leadership develops and who might make for an effective servant leader. While several conceptual articles have offered promising directions for inquiry, there has been much less empirical work to examine these relationships. Based on the trait approach to leadership, the purpose of the current chapter is to focus specifically on the characteristics of the servant leader. To do this, we review the existing literature, identify additional leader dispositional traits and values that may be associated with servant leadership, and we offer suggestions for future research.
... Our study has brought forth new perspectives into the significance of servant leadership in relation to job embeddedness and professional employees' retention in emerging economies, like Malaysia. Interestingly, as evident in this study, relational-based servant leadership has been accepted in the Asian context and has been found to influence voluntary workplace outcomes, such as job embeddedness and employee retention among professional employees, which was once predominantly autocratic-based, and common in power distance cultures, like Malaysia [95,96]. The findings of this study therefore could enhance the validity and universality of the servant leadership style in a non-Western context [97]. ...
The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between servant leadership and retention of IT professionals with the presence of job embeddedness as a mediating factor. 300 IT professionals employed in five ICT companies participated in this study. The data was collected using the survey method. It is found that job embeddedness mediates the relationship between servant leadership and employee retention, partially. This indicates that the relationship between servant leadership and employee retention is both direct and indirect, mediated by job embeddedness. Employee turnover and the resulting scarcity of talent can be bad for any business. Hence, eliminating the cost of employee attrition and understanding the importance of servant leadership and job embeddedness in enhancing IT professionals' retention would help employers to draw up effective retention strategies to prevent such occurrences. Very few studies have analyzed the relationship between servant leadership and professional employees' retention. The research adds to the current knowledge on this relationship through the mediating role of job embeddedness.
... Although there are harmonies in ethics between other leadership styles such as transformational leadership and servant leadership, ethical leadership focuses entirely on ethically acceptable behaviour and ethics, whereas the other leadership styles only consider ethics as a single component (Bedi et al., 2016;Farahnak et al., 2019;Sendjaya et al., 2019). Among different leadership styles, this study specifically explores the effect of ethical leadership on knowledge sharing by considering knowledge sharing as an essential ethical behaviour . ...
This study investigates when leaders can promote knowledge sharing by leading ethically? Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesise that ethical leaders can induce knowledge sharing via role modelling. Moreover, social exchange and social capital theories explain that organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and normative commitment (NC) can boost knowledge sharing among employees through dual mediating effects. We collected two waves data from 506 manager-employee dyads in the banking sector of Pakistan. In addition, structural equation modelling was used to test the model, and bootstrapping was applied to examine the mediation effect. Results show that ethical leadership is positively related to employee knowledge sharing and this relationship is significantly mediated by OCB and NC parallelly. Both are equally important in accounting for the impact of ethical leadership on employee's knowledge sharing. Our research suggests that ethical leaders can promote knowledge sharing by increasing OCB and engendering NC. ARTICLE HISTORY
... Various scholars, surprisingly uncritically, consider SL as generally "ethical" (Beehner, 2020;Keith, 2013Keith, , 2015Mallén Broch et al., 2020;Sendjaya et al., 2019). Keith (2013) argues that "Serving" is ethical as the "needs" of fellow humans are honored. ...
Purpose
The article aims at examining the ethical limits and risks of servant leadership. During the Second World War, the German army officer Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg is a loyal servant to his nation and homeland. But when he learns about the Nazis’ mass murders and crimes, he begins to have doubts about whom he should serve. Being confronted with numerous moral dilemmas, he finally decides to join a resistance group. Of course, Stauffenberg's situation as colonel and leader was an extreme case. Time and again, however, managers and leaders are faced with similar dilemmas. Indeed, the current COVID-19-crisis shows that even today’s leaders are repeatedly faced with almost insoluble dilemmas. The recent literature about ethics and leadership suggests a philosophy which is almost portrayed as a panacea to any ethical issues: servant leadership (SL). This study, however, questions the commonly held view that SL is always ethical. The purpose of our historical case study is twofold. First, this study explores the ethical challenges Stauffenberg (and other officers) faced and how they dealt with them. Second, this study elaborates on what responses (if any) SL would provide to these challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
The applied method is a historical case study, in which the authors draw on a plethora of secondary literature, including books, reports, and articles.
Findings
By analyzing the historical case of “Operation Valkyrie,” this study elaborated and identified risks and limitations of SL and pointed out ways to address these risks. In particular, SL poses risks in the case of a too narrow understanding of the term “service.”
Originality/value
While other leadership styles, e.g. transformational leadership or charismatic leadership, have been extensively studied with regard to ethical risks, in the case of SL possible risks and limitations are still largely unexplored.
Pondok pesantren, sebagai lembaga pendidikan berbasis agama, memiliki peran strategis dalam mempersiapkan pemimpin bangsa dimasa yag akan datang. Pemberdayaan Pondok Pesantren Ar Rahmah di Kecamatan Walantaka, Kota Serang, dilakukan bertujuan untuk mengembangkan keterampilan komunikasi, kepemimpinan, dan pencegahan perundungan dengan harapan dapat menjadi bekal meningkatkan soft skill dan membentuk karakter santri. Melalui program-program yang difokuskan pada peningkatan keterampilan komunikasi, santri diharapkan dapat berinteraksi dengan lebih efektif dan membangun hubungan yang harmonis. Pengembangan keterampilan kepemimpinan bertujuan untuk membentuk santri yang mampu memimpin dengan integritas dan tanggung jawab. Sementara itu, pencegahan perundungan di lingkungan pesantren diharapkan untuk menciptakan lingkungan belajar yang aman dan kondusif. Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat ini dilakukan pada rentan Bulan Mei 2024 secara bertahap yaitu diawali sharing dengan pengelola terkait kebutuhan santri, observasi lingkungan pondok pesantern dan kegiatan inti berupa Training Kepemimpinan, Training Publik Speaking dan Seminar Anti Perundungan. Hasil dari pemberdayaan ini diharapkan dapat berdampak pada santri sebagai upaya mempersiapkan generasi muda yang berkualitas, berdaya saing, dan berakhlak mulia menuju Indonesia Emas 2045.
The study aimed to examine the influence of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour through trust at Christian religious universities in Indonesia. This study used quantitative methods with a sample of 180 lecturers from 27 Christian universities in East Java, Indonesia. This study used partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. The results showed that (i) servant leadership has a direct effect on organizational citizenship behaviour and trust; (ii) trust has a direct effect on organizational citizenship behaviour and (iii) the effect of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour was mediated by trust. Trust was competitive mediation for the effect of servant leadership on organizational citizenship behaviour. The results of this study contribute significantly to the rector/chairman to improve knowledge, attitudes and skills related to the characteristics of servant leadership through training. The rector/chairman needs to design a mentoring programme to empower lecturers to prepare them to become leaders in the future. Lecturers need to increase awareness of organizational citizenship behaviour by participating in mentoring so that they have reflective skills, understand concept exploration, and engage in collaboration spaces to be able to detect that servant leadership rector/chairman influences the growth of organizational citizenship behaviour and trust in leaders.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) merupakan perilaku positif yang akan berdampak pada sebuah organisasi secara keseluruhan sehingga penting bagi organisasi untuk mendorong timbulnya perilaku OCB pada diri setiap karyawannya. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui pengaruh Employee Participation, Benevolent Leardrship, Affective Commitment berpengaruh terhadap Organizational Citizenship Behavior terhadap karyawan H&M di Jakarta Selatan Teknik analisis data menggunakan uji validitas dan uji realibilitas, uji Hipotesis, analisis regresi linier berganda, serta uji hipotesis. Sampel yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini yaitu sebanyak 130 pegawai H&M di jakarta Selatan. Hasil pengujian menunjukkan bahwa variable Employee Participation, Benevolent Leardrship, Affective Commitment berpengaruh terhadap OCB Towards Organization. Suatu kuesioner dikatakan valid jika pertanyaan pada kuesioner mampu untuk mengungkapkan sesuatu yang akan diukur oleh kuesioner tersebut. Indikator uji validitas adalah: factor loading > 0,35 (item pernyataan menunjukkan valid) dan factor loading < 0,35 (item pernyataan menunjukkan tidak valid). Untuk Benevolent Lerdership pada karyawan H&M dijakrta selatan meningkatkan produktivitas tim, karena merasa pekerjaan dan suara mereka dihargai. Mendorong solusi atau ide yang kreatif dari berbagai pemikiran dan cara baru yang inovatif.
The exclusion of women from the labour market continues to be one of the leading causes of poverty within the base of pyramid (BOP) labour market. Using Kabeer’s women empowerment framework, this research aggregates some support that direct selling may be a pathway to increase the inclusion of women within the BOP labour market and alleviate poverty; the complexities presented by the COVID-19 pandemic provide a unique context to test this proposition. Drawing on the social constructivist approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with women engaged in direct selling in the BOP market in a Middle Eastern country. The study revealed four key themes throughout the participants’ narratives of their experience working in direct selling businesses within the context of COVID-19. These themes are agency, resources, achievement, and precarious work. Our study also explored how the pandemic facilitated the female labour force’s inclusion within the direct selling business in the BOP labour market. We concluded that engaging in direct selling has promoted the inclusion of women in labour markets; however, direct selling is still not considered a secure employment option, and direct sellers are exposed to poor pay, employment insecurity, and lack of employment benefits.
Purpose
Given the scarcity of research exploring the influence of emotional dimensions on knowledge hiding (KH), this paper aims to examine how various facets of emotional intelligence (EI) affect teachers’ tendencies to hide knowledge. Additionally, the study delves into the mediating influence of organizational cynicism (OC) and explores the moderating role of servant leadership (SL) in this context.
Design/methodology/approach
The non-probability sampling method was used to gather data from 542 university teachers teaching in India. Structural equation modelling using Smart-PLS has been used to test the hypothesis.
Findings
The study revealed that EI negatively influences KH. Additionally, OC mediates the relationship between EI and KH. Furthermore, SL moderates the relationship between OC and KH.
Originality/value
As per the authors’ knowledge, the present study makes an additional contribution by investigating the mediating role of OC in the relationship between EI and KH. Moreover, it also investigates the moderating role of SL in the relationship between OC and KH.
The present study seeks to expand our understanding of leadership in the public sector by examining the link between servant leadership and work engagement of street-level bureaucrats through the mediating roles of leader motivating language and perceived organizational support. Drawing on theories of social exchange, social learning, motivating language, and job demands-resources, the research proposed that servant leaders can enhance employee work engagement by utilizing motivating language and boosting perceptions of organizational support. Using a survey of 553 police officers and first-line supervisors in Turkey, the results of structural equation modeling reveal that officers’ perceptions of their supervisors’ servant leadership are related to work engagement both directly and indirectly through motivating language and perceived organizational support. This study is the first to investigate the role of leader motivating language as a mediator between servant leadership and work engagement in public sector organizations.
In the current conjuncture, companies can recover human capital, and developing development capabilities at the human and organizational levels has become a huge challenge. The present research aims to identify and analyze what shapes management and the exercise of competence management in the dynamic capabilities of management. Given this, it is essential to conceptualize talent, and dynamic capabilities and emphasize their importance in organizations. The study is characterized as descriptive research with an approach. In research, which has the technical methodology as a form of investigation, there is a need for the research problem to be in the form of a question, interrogation, or as a form of objective, affirmation. From the results, it can be seen that talents favor the development of capabilities. From the data, there must be a strong incentive to do things right, as well as the positive development of large companies and, consequently, the development of dynamic forces and, consequently, the development of the company’s dynamic capabilities. which are crucial to organizational success.
Millennial employees are increasingly paying more attention to well-being in the workplace and it has become an important issue for managers. Given that millennial employees are more sensitive to ethical issues, this study began by analyzing an ethical element in the organization—the ethical climate—and explored whether millennial employees have higher affective well-being in organizations with a good ethical climate. We verified our hypotheses based on 288 valid questionnaires collected from 40 teams. The results showed that: (1) ethical climate was a positive predictor of millennial employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and affective well-being, (2) employees’ OCB partially mediated the relationship between ethical climate and affective well-being, and (3) an employee’s moral identity effectively moderated the relationship between ethical climate and affective well-being, although it did not play a significant moderating role between ethical climate and OCB. These findings provide empirical support for applying situational strength and social information processing theories and emphasize the importance of cultivating an ethical climate in organizations.
The study explored the usefulness of Islamic work ethics within the context of public sector information technology projects. Using social learning theory and social exchange theory, we examined the trickle-down impact of leader’s Islamic work ethics on project performance via teamwork quality. Data were collected from 188 project managers leading information technology teams. Discriminant validity of constructs was established using confirmatory factor analysis, while hypotheses were tested using SPSS process macro. Statistical analysis showed that Islamic work ethics positively and significantly impacted project performance. Teamwork quality partially mediates the relationship between Islamic work ethics and project performance. Public organizations should develop training programs to enlighten employees about the fundamentals of work practices from the Islamic perspective.
Servant leadership practice honesty, stewardship, and high moral standards while prioritizing the needs of subordinates. The moral concern of a servant leadership is to support others and put the needs of others first. We investigated the relationship between servant leadership, psychological safety, and knowledge hoarding in accordance with social learning theory in a survey of 347 workers across 56 teams. The results of this study illustrate that servant leadership is negatively associated with knowledge hoarding and positively associated with psychological safety. We also found that a mastery climate moderated the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hoarding. This study highlights the theoretical and practical implications that contribute to the body of knowledge. It helps organizations that the presence of servant leadership may discourage knowledge hoarding by providing a psychologically safe mastery climate.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of servant leadership on the psychological distress of healthcare staff during the Covid-19 crisis. The authors propose that work engagement mediates and mindfulness moderates the direct relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress.
Methods
Time-lagged data were collected from 277 healthcare staff working at different hospitals in Pakistan. Process Macro version 3.1 on SPSS 23 was used for statistical analysis. For model fitness, we used AMOS V 22.
Results
The results show that servant leadership is negatively related to psychological distress. Furthermore, work engagement mediates the relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress. Moreover, mindfulness is anticipated to moderate the direct relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress, drawing on the social exchange and conservation of resources theory.
Discussion
This study finds that servant leadership is vital for the mental health of healthcare staff. Thus, it extends the utility of the concept of servant leadership to the psychology and crisis management literature.
This concept paper is in response to calls for more excellent Servant leadership research. It was fueled by the fact that much research
This research draws on the substitutes for leadership theory and the organizational configuration perspective to examine if formalization and centralization moderate the effect of servant leadership on job satisfaction. The findings from a field study and an experimental study suggest that while formalization and centralization did not operate as a substitute or neutralizer independently, however as per the configuration perspective, they interact to moderate the relationship between servant leadership and job satisfaction in different configurations. The results indicate that servant leadership behaviors have more salient effects on followers’ satisfaction when they operate in organizations with lower levels of organizational structure. In addition, under specific structural configurations, formalization can act as a substitute for servant leadership, and centralization can act as a neutralizer on servant leadership. This research contributes to the literatures of servant leadership and the substitutes for leadership theory by enhancing our understanding of the impact of structural configurations.
Purpose
Using the frameworks of social exchange theory (SET) and conservation of resources (COR) Theory, this study examined the influence of servant leadership on employees' performance through the social exchange indicator (trust), and how perceived organizational politics (POP) influences these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey data were collected from 236 supervisor/subordinate dyads in a public sector organization in Pakistan. Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were used to test the study hypotheses.
Findings
Servant leadership was found to positively influence employees' task performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Further, analysis revealed that trust in leader partially mediated the positive relationship between servant leadership and subordinates' task performance and OCBs. However, although POP moderated the indirect relationship between servant leadership and subordinates' task performance, it did not moderate the indirect relationships between servant leadership and OCBs.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to be conducted in the South Asian context, testing the relationship between servant leadership and employee performance through the social exchange indicator (trust) in a political organizational environment. Theoretical contributions, practical implications, study limitations and future research directions are discussed at the end of the study.
Notwithstanding the proliferation of servant leadership studies with over 100 articles published in the last four years alone, a lack of coherence and clarity around the construct has impeded its theory development. We provide an integrative and comprehensive review of the 285 articles on servant leadership spanning 20 years (1998–2018), and in so doing extend the field in four different ways. First, we provide a conceptual clarity of servant leadership vis-à-vis other value-based leadership approaches and offer a new definition of servant leadership. Second, we evaluate 16 existing measures of servant leadership in light of their respective rigor of scale construction and validation. Third, we map the theoretical and nomological network of servant leadership in relation to its antecedents, outcomes, moderators, mediators. We finally conclude by presenting a detailed future research agenda to bring the field forward encompassing both theoretical and empirical advancement. All in all, our review paints a holistic picture of where the literature has been and where it should go into the future.
Cross-sectional studies of attitude-behavior relationships are vulnerable to the inflation of correlations by common method variance (CMV). Here, a model is presented that allows partial correlation analysis to adjust the observed correlations for CMV contamination and determine if conclusions about the statistical and practical significance of a predictor have been influenced by the presence of CMV. This method also suggests procedures for designing questionnaires to increase the precision of this adjustment.
This study compares three emerging forms of positive leadership that emphasize ethical and moral behavior (i.e., authentic leadership, ethical leadership, and servant leadership) with transformational leadership in their associations with a wide range of organizationally relevant measures. While scholars have noted conceptual overlap between transformational leadership and these newer leadership forms, there has been inadequate investigation of the empirical relationships with transformational leadership and the ability (or lack thereof) of these leadership forms to explain incremental variance beyond transformational leadership. In response, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to provide a comprehensive assessment of these emerging leadership forms’ relationships with variables evaluated in the extant literature. Second, we tested the relative performance of each of these leadership forms in explaining incremental variance, beyond transformational leadership, in nine outcomes. We also provide relative weights analyses to further evaluate the relative contributions of the emerging leadership forms versus transformational leadership. The high correlations between both authentic leadership and ethical leadership with transformational leadership coupled with their low amounts of incremental variance suggest that their utility is low unless they are being used to explore very specific outcomes. Servant leadership, however, showed more promise as a stand-alone leadership approach that is capable of helping leadership researchers and practitioners better explain a wide range of outcomes. Guidance regarding future research and the utility of these three ethical/moral values–based leadership forms is provided.
Purpose
This research aims to contribute to servant leadership theory by applying social exchange theory to examine why and under what conditions servant leadership is related to employee extra-role behaviors. Specifically, we examined the psychological contract (PC) as a mediating mechanism between servant leader behaviors and two forms of employee extra-role behaviors: organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and innovative behaviors. Furthermore, we examined employee extraversion, collectivism, and proactive personality as boundary conditions.
Design/methodology/approach
We used time-lagged data collected from 101 supervisor–subordinate dyads.
Findings
We found that PC fulfillment mediated the relationships of servant leadership with innovative behaviors, and with individual initiative and loyal boosterism forms of OCB. In addition, extraversion and collectivism moderated the relationship between servant leadership and PC fulfillment, such that it was stronger among individuals low on these characteristics.
Implications
This study suggests that PC fulfillment is a key process through which servant leadership influences follower engagement in extra-role behaviors, and sheds light as to when leadership matters most in terms of motivating employee outcomes through behaviors associated with greater PC fulfillment.
Originality/value
This is an important contribution, as servant leadership research has been largely void of clarifying the psychological mechanisms and boundary conditions through which servant leader behaviors influence follower well-being and associated outcomes.
During the last decade, an increasing amount of research has focused on the ethical context in organizations. Among the recent approaches in this area is the construct of socio-moral climate (SMC), which adopts a developmental perspective and refers to specific elements of organizational climate that include communication, cooperation, and how organizations handle conflict. In this article, we present the results of three empirical studies, shedding light on the nomological network of SMC. Whereas the first study introduces a short SMC measure, the other two studies examined antecedents and outcomes of SMC as well as related mediating mechanisms. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed good fit indices of the 21-item measure of SMC with five subscales. Structural equation modeling confirmed a strong relationship with servant leadership as antecedent to SMC. In turn, employees who perceived a positive SMC were less likely to experience feelings of organizational cynicism and to engage in deviant behaviors. Results indicate that SMC accounted for additional variance above and beyond perceived overall justice.
This study examined the link between servant leadership and hotel employees' customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by focusing on the mediating role of leader-member exchange (LMX) and the moderating role of followers' sensitivity to others' favorable treatment. Using time-lagged data from 304 supervisor-follower pairs in nineteen hotels in China, we found that servant leadership positively influenced customer-oriented OCB, and this influence was mediated by LMX. In addition, moderated path analysis indicated that employees' sensitivity to others' favorable treatment strengthened the direct effect of servant leadership on LMX and its indirect effect on customer-oriented OCB. This study extends the scope of servant leadership research and provides evidence for arguments that servant leadership matters in the hospitality industry. The study also demonstrates the importance of LMX to the relationship between managers and employees, through findings that are strengthened by a longitudinal design.
In a sample of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants of a moderately sized restaurant chain, we investigated a key tenet of servant leadership theory that servant leaders guide followers to emulate the leader's behavior by prioritizing the needs of others above their own. We developed and tested a model contending that servant leaders propagate servant leadership behaviors among followers by creating a serving culture, which directly influences unit (i.e., restaurant/store) performance and enhances individual attitudes and behaviors directly and through the mediating influence of individuals' identification with the unit. As hypothesized, serving culture was positively related both to restaurant performance and employee job performance, creativity, and customer service behaviors, and negatively related to turnover intentions, both directly and through employee identification with the restaurant. Samesource common method bias was reduced by employing five sources of data: employees, restaurant managers, customers, internal audits by headquarters staff, and external audits by a consulting firm.
Building on a social identity framework, our cross-level process model explains how a manager’s servant leadership affects frontline employees’ service performance, measured as service quality, customer-focused citizenship behavior, and customer-oriented prosocial behavior. Among a sample of 238 hairstylists in 30 salons and 470 of their customers, we found that hair stylists’ self identity embedded in the group, namely self-efficacy and group identification, partially mediated the positive effect of salon managers’ servant leadership on stylists’ service performance as rated by the customers, after taking into account the positive influence of transformational leadership. Moreover, group competition climate strengthened the positive relationship between self-efficacy and service performance.
The purpose of this multi-level study is to examine how servant leadership affects both employee creativity and team innovation. Drawing from social identity, in particular, relational identification theory, we found on the basis of a two-nation Asian sample of 154 teams that servant leadership promotes individual relational identification and collective prototypicality with the leader which, in turn, fosters employee creativity and team innovation. In addition, our study suggests that the mediated effect of leader identification is strongest when team climate for innovation is high.
In spite of an increasing number of studies on ethical climate, little is known about the antecedents of ethical climate and the moderators of the relationship between ethical climate and work outcomes. The present study conducted firm-level analyses regarding the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) ethical leadership and ethical climate, and the moderating effect of climate strength (i.e., agreement in climate perceptions) on the relationship between ethical climate and collective organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Self-report data were collected from 223 CEOs and 6,021 employees in South Korea. The results supported all study hypotheses. As predicted, CEOs’ self-rated ethical leadership was positively associated with employees’ aggregated perceptions of the ethical climate of the firm. The relationship between ethical climate and firm-level collective OCB was moderated by climate strength. More specifically, the relationships between ethical climate and interpersonally directed collective OCB and between ethical climate and organizationally directed collective OCB were more pronounced when climate strength was high than when it was low. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are addressed herein.
This article presents an integrated construct of servant leadership derived from a review of the literature. Subscale items were developed to measure 11 potential dimensions of servant leadership: calling, listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, growth, and community building. Data from 80 leaders and 388 raters were used to test the internal consistency, confirm factor structure, and assess convergent, divergent, and predictive validity. Results produced five servant leadership factors—altruistic calling, emotional healing, persuasive mapping, wisdom, and organizational stewardship—with significant relations to transformational leadership, leader-member exchange, extra effort, satisfaction, and organizational effectiveness. Strong factor structures and good performance in all validity criteria indicate that the instrument offers value for future research.
In the shadow of corporate scandals such as Enron and Worldcom, an increase in attention has been directed towards an approach termed `servant leadership'. To date, servant leadership has been discussed and described almost entirely in the North American context (Farling et al., 1999; Spears, 1995). In the following study, we explored the extent to which followers from Ghana and the USA have experienced three servant leadership dimensions in a work situation, and the extent to which these followers relate servant leadership dimensions to judgments about leadership effectiveness in each culture. After testing for measurement equivalence and adjusting the item weights in each culture, we found that Ghanaians reported experiencing servant leadership behaviours significantly less than North Americans. We also found that vision had a significantly stronger relationship with leader effectiveness for Ghanaians in comparison to North Americans, but that both sub-samples relate service and humility with leader effectiveness similarly. We explored possible explanations and implications based on cultural differences.
Senior executives are thought to provide the organization’s ethical ‘tone at the top’. We conducted an inductive interview-based study aimed at defining the perceived content domain of executive ethical leadership. We interviewed two types of key informants - corporate ethics officers and senior executives - about executive ethical leadership and then a contrasting category we labeled ‘ethically neutral’ leadership. Systematic analysis of the data identified multiple dimensions of ethical and ethically neutral leadership. The findings suggest that ethical leadership is more than traits such as integrity and more than values-based inspirational leadership. It includes an overlooked transactional component that involves using communication and the reward system to guide ethical behavior. Similarities and differences between ethics officers’ and senior executives’ perceptions also led to insights about the importance of vantage point and social salience in perceptions of executive ethical leadership. In order to be perceived as an ethical leader by those outside the executive suite, the executive must engage in socially salient behaviors that make the executive stand out as an ethical figure against an ethically neutral ground.
Using 560 followers and 174 leaders in the People's Republic of China and United States, we found that individual follower's "power distance" orientation and their group's shared perceptions of transformational leadership were positively related to follower's procedural justice perceptions. Power distance orientation also moderated the cross-level relationship that transformational leadership had with procedural justice; the relationship was more positive when power distance orientation was lower, rather than higher. Procedural justice, in turn, linked the unique and interactive relationships of transformational leadership and power distance orientation with followers' organizational citizenship behavior. Country differences did not significantly affect these relationships.
Investigated the 1st 6 mo that 166 newly hired employees and their immediate supervisors worked together. Expectations, perceived similarity, liking, demographic similarity, and performance were examined as determinants of leader–member exchanges (LMXs). Leader and member expectations of each other assessed in the 1st 5 days in the life of the dyad predicted LMXs at 2 wks and at 6 wks following the 1st day of the dyads' existence. Member expectations of leaders also predicted LMXs at 6 mo. Following nearly the same pattern, perceived similarity and liking from both the leaders' and members' perspectives predicted LMXs at most time periods. Demographic similarity between leaders and members had no significant effects on LMX development, and subordinate performance ratings were relatively less important in predicting LMX than were affective variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Using a modification of a recently developed measure of ethical climates, this paper presents evidence from a survey of 872 employees of four firms that ethical cork climates are both multidimensional and multidetermined. The study demonstrates that organizations have distinct types of ethical climates and that there is variance in the ethical within organizations by position, tenure, and workgroup membership. Five empirically derived dimensions of ethical climate are described: law and code, caring, instrumentalism, independence, and rules. Analyses of variance reveal significant differences in ethical climates both across and within firms. A theory of ethical climates is developed from organizational and economic theory to describe the determinants of ethical climates in organizations. In particular, the sociocultural environment, organizational form, and organization-specific history are identified as determinants of ethical climates in organizations. The implications of ethical climate for organizational theory are also discussed.
Although Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) has been studied extensively over the years in the US, the measurement of OCB has received relatively limited attention in other international contexts. This study investigates the dimensionality of a specific OCB measure in a Dutch-speaking context (Flemish part of Belgium). In addition, we examine the invariance of this measure across two different samples: supervisor ratings of 259 subordinates and peer ratings of 215 employees. Generally, we found clear support for the discriminant validity of five OCB factors but convergent validity was only established for three of the five factors. This measurement structure found was relatively invariant across the two different samples These results show that the forms of OCB that are predominantly studied in the US seem to hold relatively well in another international context, although there are some differences.
Culture has been identified as a significant determinant of ethical attitudes of business managers. This research studies the impact of culture on the ethical attitudes of business managers in India, Korea and the United States using multivariate statistical analysis. Employing Geert Hofstede''s cultural typology, this study examines the relationship between his five cultural dimensions (individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, and long-term orientation) and business managers'' ethical attitudes. The study uses primary data collected from 345 business manager participants of Executive MBA programs in selected business schools in India, Korea and the United States using Hofstede''s Value Survey Module (94) and an instrument designed by the researchers to measure respondents'' ethical attitudes (attitudes toward business ethics in general and toward twelve common questionable practices in particular). Results indicate that national culture has a strong influence on business managers'' ethical attitudes. In addition to national culture, respondents'' general attitudes toward business ethics are related to their personal integrity; their attitudes toward questionable business practices are related to the external environment and gender, as well as to their personal integrity. A strong relationship exists between cultural dimensions of individualism and power distance and respondents'' ethical attitudes toward certain questionable practices. The analysis of the relationship between cultural dimensions of masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation and respondents'' ethical attitudes toward questionable practices produced mixed results, likely due to the lack of notable differences in cultural dimension scores among the countries surveyed.
Leaders play a critical role in setting the tone for ethical climate in organizations. In recent years, there has been an
increased skepticism about the role played by corporate executives in developing and implementing ethics in business practices.
Sales and marketing practices of businesses, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry, have come under increased scrutiny.
This study identifies a type of leadership style that can help firms develop an ethical climate. Responses from 333 salespeople
working for a North American subsidiary of an international pharmaceutical company were used to analyze the impact of instrumental
leadership on ethical climate. We also examined the effect of ethical climate on effort, satisfaction with the supervisor,
and job satisfaction. Managerial implications are provided.
This study examines the impact of transformational leader behaviors on organizational citizenship behaviors, and the potential mediating role played by subordinates' trust and satisfaction in that process. Measures of six transformational leader behaviors (Articulating a Vision, Providing an Appropriate Model, Fostering the Acceptance of Group Goals, High Performance Expectations, Individualized Support, and Intellectual Stimulation), one transactional leader behavior (Contingent Reward Behavior), employees' trust in their leader, and satisfaction were obtained from 988 exempt employees of a large petrochemical company. Matching evaluations of five citizenship behaviors of these employees (Altruism, Conscientiousness, Courtesy, Civic Virtue, and Sportsmanship) were obtained from their supervisors. In order to determine whether transformational behaviors augment the impact of transactional behaviors, their effects on followers' trust, satisfaction, and citizenship behaviors were examined in the context of the effect of transactional leader behaviors on these same variables. The results indicate that the effects of the transformational leader behaviors on citizenship behaviors are indirect, rather than direct, in that they are mediated by followers' trust in their leaders. Moreover, these results were found not to be wholly attributable to the effects of common method biases. The implications of these findings for future research on transformational leader behaviors, trust, and organizational citizenship behavior are then discussed.
: Although one of the main reasons for the interest in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) is the potential consequences of these behaviors, no study has been reported that summarizes the research regarding the relationships between OCBs and their outcomes. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a meta-analytic examination of the relationships between OCBs and a variety of individual- and organizational-level outcomes. Results, based on 168 independent samples (N = 51,235 individuals), indicated that OCBs are related to a number of individual-level outcomes, including managerial ratings of employee performance, reward allocation decisions, and a variety of withdrawal-related criteria (e.g., employee turnover intentions, actual turnover, and absenteeism). In addition, OCBs were found to be related (k = 38; N = 3,611 units) to a number of organizational-level outcomes (e.g., productivity, efficiency, reduced costs, customer satisfaction, and unit-level turnover). Of interest, somewhat stronger relationships were observed between OCBs and unit-level performance measures in longitudinal studies than in cross-sectional studies, providing some evidence that OCBs are causally related to these criteria. The implications of these findings for both researchers and practitioners are discussed., (C) 2009 by the American Psychological Association
This study utilized social consistency and social exchange theories to propose leadership motivation and self-concept variables as possible antecedents of servant leadership (SL). This is a departure from two past studies which established the leader’s behaviour, experience and personality as antecedents of SL. The study was based on cross-sectional survey methodology, and data acquired through multi-source to minimize common method variance. Data analysis was carried out using statistical package of social sciences, and the analyses of moments of structure software. Participants were managers and their subordinates from six organizations located in Lagos, Nigeria. Key findings of the study are self-efficacy (SE) is a critical variable because of its effect on SL and other antecedents; motivation-to-serve (MTS) is an antecedent and the primary motive for enacting SL behaviour; only one dimension of motivation-to-lead (MTL), non-calculative, is an antecedent of SL; and leader-member exchange, organizational citizenship behaviour and job satisfaction are either direct or indirect outcomes of SL. The tested model explained more variance in the outcomes of SL. Managerial implications include the use of SE, MTS and MTL as selection tools for managers, assigning future leaders as mentees to identified servant leaders through formal mentoring process established by the organization.
The broad consensus among industrial and organizational psychologists in the early 1970s was that job satisfaction had little to do with the productivity of individuals or work groups, although it was in some instances worthy of empirical scrutiny. The more “tough-minded” contended that productivity on the job derived from skills and technology and the contingency of rewards on the level of performance. Studies on satisfaction and productivity supported that view. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior Volume 5 is January 21, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Evaluation of leadership as a necessary component to reform sport could be critical to fostering a more ethical climate and reducing the frequency and severity of ethical improprieties within this context. However, limited research has examined the relationship between leadership and ethical climate. Servant leadership, due to its ethical component and people-centered focus, is a leadership approach that may best support development of an ethical climate. The purpose of this study was to explore the influence of servant leadership on perceptions of an ethical climate in intercollegiate athletic departments, with an examination of how trust and perceptions of organizational justice indirectly influence the relationship between servant leadership and perceptions of an ethical climate. Findings indicated that servant leadership was directly related to trust in leadership and perceptions of an ethical climate. Further, both trust in the leader and procedural justice indirectly influenced the relationship between servant leadership and ethical climate.
This article advances our understanding of the effects of servant leadership, an employee- and community-focused leadership style, on followers' public service motivation (PSM) and job performance. Based on social learning theory, we argue that by emphasizing to their followers the importance of serving others both inside and outside the organization and by acting as role models by serving others themselves, servant leaders enhance job performance by engendering higher PSM in their followers. A multilevel analysis of three waves of multi-source data from a Chinese government agency reveals that PSM mediates the influence that servant leadership has on followers' job performance. The results are consistent with theoretical predictions that the altruistic behaviour displayed by servant leaders elicits higher levels of the altruistic behaviours that characterize PSM, which in turn increases job performance. Hence, this study contributes to our understanding of how leadership drives institutional change and performance in the public sector.
Beginning in a formal way with the work of Robert K. Greenleaf in the 1970s, the study of servant leadership has gradually moved from theoretical discussions, to model development, to initial empirical research. With an emphasis on service, and a commitment to follower-orientation on the part of leaders, servant leadership holds great promise for meeting the unique leadership challenges facing our global communities. These challenges, some of which were evidenced by the fall of our global markets in 2008 and 2009, remind us once again that the health of our organizations and societies is increasingly interdependent on the health of other individuals, organizations, and global communities.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative framework of servant leadership and employees’ perception of inclusion. The authors argue that servant leadership embodies an inclusive leadership philosophy that is in a position to facilitate feelings of belongingness and uniqueness among diverse employees.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model capturing the effect of servant leadership in shaping climates for inclusion, is developed. The authors elaborate on research streams focussing on climates for inclusion, and examine servant leadership as a potential predictor of inclusion. In this respect, the authors posit that inclusive practices mediate the servant leadership and inclusion relationship, while leaders’ inclusiveness beliefs moderate the servant leadership and inclusive practices relationship.
Findings
The model introduces mediating mechanisms that intervene in the indirect relationship between servant leadership and climates for inclusion. In so doing, the authors seek to identify how organizational practices supported through servant leadership behaviors address employee needs for belongingness and uniqueness. The model predicts multi-level beneficial outcomes for social identity groups.
Practical implications
The paper identifies a bundle of organizational practices facilitating employees’ perceptions of inclusion, by placing an emphasis on how servant leaders can enact and implement practices in view of attaining inclusiveness pursuits.
Social implications
Servant leadership is inclusive by empowering diverse employees and fostering equitable and more humane workplaces, as well as by being more sensitive to various societal expectations.
Originality/value
The paper is intended to explore precisely how servant leadership can help inclusive ideals to thrive in diverse work environments.
This study compares the effectiveness of servant versus authentic leadership in hospitality firms by examining relationships with group-level trust and individual-level work outcomes (i.e., organizational commitment, work engagement, and work performance), and their influencing mechanisms through trust climate. Using two-wave data from 1,132 employee–supervisor pairs from 80 departments in 16 star-level hotels in China, we find that these two forms of leadership have positive effects on group trust climate and employee work outcomes; however, the magnitudes and paths of their effects are distinct. In comparison with authentic leadership, servant leadership has a more significant effect on creating a trust climate and a more direct effect regarding increasing employees’ positive work attitudes (i.e., organizational commitment and work engagement), ultimately influencing work performance. This study also demonstrates the importance of group trust climate in relationships between group-level leadership and individual-level employee work attitudes and performance. These findings extend the scope of servant and authentic leadership research, and advocate servant leadership in the hospitality industry.
This study investigates whether servant leadership has a benevolent influence on government employees’ attitudes and productivity. Employing survey responses from 471 local government employees in Korea, this study found that servant leadership contributes to (1) developing employees’ trust in leadership, (2) enhancing employees’ perception of fair work procedures (procedural justice), and (3) inducing benevolent work behaviors (OCB). Thus, the results indicate that public sector leaders who define themselves as servant leaders can provide a better work environment and greater work engagement opportunities for their employees.
How can a servant leader focusing primarily on followers' growth and well-being influence the achievement of organizational outcomes? Despite a growing stream of academic studies exploring positive outcomes of servant leadership practice, little is known empirically about the underlying psychological processes that are activated to enhance individual performance at work. Using the autonomous motivational framework of Self-Determination Theory's (SDT) basic psychological needs (Ryan & Deci, 2000), we propose that a servant leader's attentive focus on employees' development helps fulfill employees' three basic psychological needs, namely for autonomy, competence and relatedness. In turn, satisfaction of each of these three needs fuels employees in a distinct way, either producing an increase in task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) or both. We collected information from 247 supervisor-employee dyads from a large Canadian technology design and manufacturing company. Structural equation modeling results indicate that servant leadership strongly predicted all three needs' satisfaction; autonomy need satisfaction mediated servant leadership's effect on task performance, OCB-Individual (OCB-I) and OCB-Organization (OCB-O); competence need satisfaction mediated servant leadership's effect on task performance only; and relatedness need satisfaction mediated servant leadership's effect on both OCB-I and OCB-O.
This article presents results from a study of how young managers define ethical issues, think about these issues, and resolve them. Several patterns emerge from this study. First, in many cases, young managers received explicit instructions from their middlemanager bosses or felt strong organizational pressures to do things that they believed were sleazy, unethical, or sometimes illegal. Second, corporate ethics programs—codes of conduct, mission statements, hot lines, and so forth—proved to be of little help to these young managers. Third, many of them believed that their companies' executives were out-of-touch on ethical issues, either because they were too busy or because they sought to avoid responsibility. Fourth, the young managers resolved the dilemmas they faced largely on the basis of personal reflection and individual values, not through reliance on corporate credos, company loyalty, the exhortations and examples of senior executives, or philosophical principles or religious reflection. Ironically, however, while the interviewees typically described their experiences as difficult or even traumatic, many believed they had learned important lessons about themselves and the world of work.
Ethical climate theory was first proposed by Victor and Cullen (1987, 1988). Ever since, it has been useful in increasing our knowledge on a variety of organizational outcomes such as workplace bullying, organizational commitment, ethical behavior, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. In this paper, we scrutinize the extant research on ethical climates to provide an understanding of what has been observed thus far, and what else ethical climate theory could be harnessed to examine. We also provide a critique of the ethical climate theory literature base and suggest a future research agenda for ethical climate theory.
This study uses dyadic data from 145 salespeople paired with their managers to investigate relationships among servant leadership, ethical work climate (EWC), behavior control, trust in supervisor (TS), and salesperson performance. The manuscript tests a conceptual model based on precepts from servant leadership, the services climate concept, and the EWC notion. Research findings show that servant leadership behaviors from management (SLMB) impact salesperson performance through a mediating process that involves servant leadership perceptions from the salesperson (SLSP) and EWC. Results also show that (1) behavioral control moderates the impact of SLMB on SLSP and (2) TS moderates the impact of SLSP on EWC.
An increasing interest in sales ethics research in recent years is clearly apparent (McClaren 2013). In response to growing questions of uncertainty, this study examines the influence of an ethical leadership style, servant leadership, and the existence of a caring ethical climate on salesperson performance and the extension of those ethical values to customers. Servant leadership has emerged as a critical leadership style (Parris and Peachey 2013; Goh and Zhen-Jie 2014) and has been shown to affect the organization’s ethical level, person-organization fit, organizational commitment and turnover intention of salespeople (e.g., Jaramillo et al. 2009a, 2009b) as well as predict additional variance above and beyond that of other leadership styles such as transformational leadership (Ehrhart 2004). This paper extends previous sales ethics research by examining servant leadership’s impact on customer value creation.
Results from a sample of 279 business-to-business salespeople suggest that servant leadership affects salespeople’s value enhancing behavior performance, as well as their outcome sales performance. In addition, caring ethical climate perceptions moderate the relationship between servant leadership and salespeople’s value enhancing behavior performance. Based on these findings, both implications and opportunities are provided for future ethics research in the sales environment.
The rapid growth of research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has resulted in some conceptual confusion about the nature of the construct, and made it difficult for all but the most avid readers to keep up with developments in this domain. This paper critically examines the literature on organizational citizenship behavior and other, related constructs. More specifically, it: (a) explores the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of “citizenship” behavior constructs identified in the literature; (b) summarizes the empirical findings of both the antecedents and consequences of OCBs; and (c) identifies several interesting directions for future research.
Servant leadership is positioned as a new field of research for leadership scholars. This review deals with the historical background of servant leadership, its key characteristics, the available measurement tools, and the results of relevant studies that have been conducted so far. An overall conceptual model of servant leadership is presented. It is argued that leaders who combine their motivation to lead with a need to serve display servant leadership. Personal characteristics and culture are positioned alongside the motivational dimension. Servant leadership is demonstrated by empowering and developing people; by expressing humility, authenticity, interpersonal acceptance, and stewardship; and by providing direction. A high-quality dyadic relationship, trust, and fairness are expected to be the most important mediating processes to encourage self-actualization, positive job attitudes, performance, and a stronger organizational focus on sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
This paper offers a critical analysis of charismatic leadership (in several guises) because of its absence of moral safeguards. The heightened motivation inspired by charismatic or transformational leadership may override followers' moral misgivings. Many previous writers on the subject have made only passing reference to this inherent danger by noting that charismatic leadership is value-neutral: Mahandas Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ, Adolph Hitler, Rev. Jim Jones, and Joseph Stalin are all frequently cited as charismatic leaders. This paper goes further by searching out a model of leadership that is both inspirational and moral. Three examples from workplace settings are described to illustrate the new model: servant-leadership.
In this paper I argue that a greater understanding of the part of ethics in leadership will improve leadership studies. Debates over the definition of leadership are really debates over what researchers think constitutes good leadership. The ultimate question is not “What is leadership?” but “What is good leadership?” The word good is refers to both ethics and competence. Research into leadership ethics would explore the ethical issues of current leadership research, serve as a critical study of the field, analyze and expand normative theories of leadership, and develop new theories, research questions and ways of thinking about leadership.
Despite an abundance of research conducted on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) at the individual level of analysis, relatively little is known about unit-level OCB. To investigate the antecedents of unit-level OCB, data were collected from employees of 249 grocery store departments. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to test a model in which procedural justice climate was hypothesized to partially mediate the relationship between leadership behavior (servant-leadership) and unit-level OCB. Models were tested using both employee ratings and manager ratings of unit-level OCB. The results gave general support for the hypotheses, although there were some differences depending on the source of the OCB ratings (supervisor or subordinate), whether the type of department was controlled for, and whether a common method variance factor was included. Overall, the evidence generally supported the association of both servant-leadership and procedural justice climate with unit-level OCB. Building on the current study, a multilevel framework for the study of OCB is presented in conjunction with a discussion of future research directions in four specific areas.
This research examined linkages between mentor leadership behaviors (laissez-faire, transactional contingent reward, and transformational), protégé perception of mentoring functions received (career development and psychosocial support) and job-related stress of 204 mentor–protégé dyads. Results of Partial Least Squares analysis revealed that mentor transformational behavior was more positively related to mentoring functions received than transactional contingent reward behavior, while mentor laissez-faire behavior was negatively related to mentoring functions received. Both mentor transformational behavior and mentoring functions received were negatively related to protégé job-related stress. The relationship between mentor transformational behavior and protégé job-related stress was moderated by the level of mentoring functions received. Results are discussed as they relate to researchers and practitioners who are becoming interested in finding ways to develop organizational members and allay job-related stress. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
This research focused on the role of dyadic duration, the amount of time a subordinate has worked for the same supervisor, in leadership dynamics. Specifically, a field study of engineering personnel examined dyadic duration as a moderator of the relationships between supervisory leadership behavior and subordinates' attitudes and behavior. Moderated regression analysis revealed that the length of time a subordinate had served under the same supervisor influenced the relationship between supportive and directive leader behaviors and follower performance. Implications of these findings were discussed, focusing on the exchange process between individual leaders and followers.
In this study, meta-analytic procedures were used to examine the relationships between individual-level (psychological) climate perceptions and work outcomes such as employee attitudes, psychological well-being, motivation, and performance. Our review of the literature generated 121 independent samples in which climate perceptions were measured and analyzed at the individual level. These studies document considerable confusion regarding the constructs of psychological climate, organizational climate, and organizational culture and reveal a need for researchers to use terminology that is consistent with their level of measurement, theory, and analysis. Our meta-analytic findings indicate that psychological climate, operationalized as individuals' perceptions of their work environment, does have significant relationships with individuals' work attitudes, motivation, and performance. Structural equation modeling analyses of the meta-analytic correlation matrix indicated that the relationships of psychological climate with employee motivation and performance are fully mediated by employees' work attitudes. We also found that the James and James (1989) PCg model could be extended to predict the impact of work environment perceptions on employee attitudes, motivation, and performance. Despite the number of published individual-level climate studies that we found, there is a need for more research using standardized measures so as to enable analyses of the organizational and contextual factors that might moderate the effects of psychological climate perceptions. Finally, we argue for a molar theory of psychological climate that is rooted in the psychological processes by which individuals make meaning or their work experiences. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Research concerning the relationship between psychological ethical climate and job satisfaction is popular in the literature.
However, to date, no study in the literature has simultaneously investigated both the effects of individual-level and organization-level
ethical climates on employees’ job satisfaction. On the basis of a multilevel analysis, the present study used a sample of
472 full-time employees from 31 organizations in Taiwan to examine the above two effects. Results from the analyses showed
that within the organizations, individual employees’ instrumental climate perceptions were negatively related to job satisfaction,
whereas their caring climate perceptions and rules climate perceptions were positively related to job satisfaction. Also,
the results indicated that between organizations, organizational instrumental climate was negatively related to job satisfaction,
whereas organizational caring, independence, and rules climates were positively related to job satisfaction. Implications
for research and managerial practices were derived from these findings.
Employees’ perception of the existence of a covenantal relationship between themselves and their employer indicates that they believe there is a mutual commitment to shared values and the welfare of the other party in the relationship. Research suggests that these types of employment relationships have positive benefits for both employees and employers. There has been little research, however, on the factors that determine whether such relationships will develop and thrive.
In this paper, we suggest that the organization’s ethical work climate may be an important factor affecting employees’ perceptions about the nature of the relational contract between themselves and their employer. Specifically, we argue that work climates emphasizing benevolence and principle will be associated with covenantal relationships. Conversely, we believe that work climates emphasizing egoism will make it less likely that covenantal relationships will develop between an employer and employee.
In order to test our hypotheses, we collected data from 194 employees of a large retail department store. The employees perceived their work climates in terms of principle (laws and professional codes) and benevolence, but to a lesser extent also believed that egoism (self interest) concerns characterized their climate. After controlling for demographic and job-related variables, we found (as expected) that measures of principled and benevolence climate were positively associated with covenantal relationships and that a measure of egoistic climate was negatively associated with covenantal relationships. In the final section of the paper, we discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.
This paper examines the role which organizational context factors play in individual ethical decision making. Two general propositions are set forth, examining the linkage between ethical work climate and decision making. An agenda for research and the potential implications of the study and practice of managerial ethics are then discussed.
Despite the increasingly multinational nature of the workplace, there have been few studies of the convergence and divergence
in beliefs about ethics-based leadership across cultures. This study examines the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership
held by managers in six societies with the goal of identifying areas of convergence and divergence across cultures. More specifically,
qualitative research methods were used to identify the attributes and behaviors that managers from the People’s Republic of
China (the PRC), Hong Kong, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the United States (the U.S.), Ireland, and Germany attribute to
ethical and unethical leaders. Across societies, six ethical leadership themes and six unethical leadership themes emerged
from a thematic analysis of the open-ended responses. Dominant themes for ethical and unethical leadership for each society
are identified and examined within the context of the core cultural values and practices of that society. Implications for
theory, research, and management practice are discussed.
Keywordscross-cultural leadership–ethical leadership–ethics–leadership–unethical leadership
Dimensions of the ethical work climate, as conceptualized by Victor and Cullen (1988), are potentially important influences on individual ethical decision-making in the organizational context. The present study examined the direct and indirect effects of individuals' perceptions of work climate on their ethical judgments and behavioral intentions regarding an ethical dilemma. A national sample of marketers was surveyed in a scenario-based research study. The results indicated that, although perceived climate dimensions did not have a direct effect on behavioral intentions, there were significant moderating effects. Climates perceived as emphasizing social responsibility and rules/codes moderated the individual ethical judgment-behavioral intentions relationship such that individuals were less likely to say that they would engage in a questionable selling practice even when they themselves did not believe the practice to be unethical. Respondents were somewhat more likely to form intentions consistent with their judgment that the questionable practice was morally acceptable when the ethical climate was characterized by an emphasis on team/friendship.
Our literature review focuses on the emerging construct of ethical leadership and compares this construct with related concepts that share a common concern for a moral dimension of leadership (e.g., spiritual, authentic, and transformational leadership). Drawing broadly from the intersection of the ethics and leadership literatures, we offer propositions about the antecedents and outcomes of ethical leadership. We also identify issues and questions to be addressed in the future and discuss their implications for research and practice. Our review indicates that ethical leadership remains largely unexplored, offering researchers opportunities for new discoveries and leaders opportunities to improve their effectiveness.