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CEO Ethical Leadership as a Unique Source of Substantive and Rhetorical Ethical
Signals for Attracting Job Seekers: The Moderating Role of Job Seeker Moral Identity
Babatunde Ogunfowora a, Meena Andiappan b, Madelynn Stackhouse c, Christianne Varty d
Authors’ Notes
a Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
b DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University
c Bryan School of Business and Economics, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
d Schulich School of Business, York University
This research was supported in part by a grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council (430-2014-01098) to the first and second authors.
Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Correspondence:
Tunde Ogunfowora, PhD
Haskayne School of Business
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive, NW Calgary, AB, Canada, T2N 1N4.
Work phone: 403-220-8352
Email: togunfow@ucalgary.ca
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the
copy editing, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this
version and the Version of Record.
Accepted Article
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 2
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Abstract
Research suggests that CSR is increasingly becoming an ambiguous signal of ethical information
for external stakeholders. This is because a variety of firms – including those that are morally
responsible and those that have been implicated in corporate scandals – routinely adopt CSR
policies and invest in CSR initiatives. Not surprisingly, this trend has contributed to rising public
skepticism of CSR. In the current research, we examine the unique role of CEO ethical
leadership (i.e., relative to CSR) as an alternate source of substantive and rhetorical ethical
signals for an important stakeholder group: job seekers. Integrating signaling theory (Spence,
1973) and the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), we argue that CEO ethical
leadership substantively signals how fairly an organization treats its employees and its
commitment to social and environmental responsibility. We further propose that ethical CEOs
serve as a source of rhetorical signal that triggers moral elevation in job seekers. Using a policy
capturing methodology in Study 1, we find that real job seekers place significantly greater weight
on CEO ethical leadership in making job pursuit decisions compared to CSR. CEO ethical
leadership also uniquely predicts job pursuit intentions relative to traditional factors such as
salary, person-job fit, and person-organization fit. In a second, quasi-experimental study (Study
2), we find support for the hypothesized signaling mechanisms through which CEO ethical
leadership influences job seekers. In a third, quasi-experimental study (Study 3), we find that job
seekers with strong (versus weak) moral identities are more likely to weigh the nuanced ethical
information signaled by CEO ethical leadership compared to CSR. We discuss the implications
of proactively advertising CEO ethical leadership during the recruitment process.
Keywords: recruitment, CEO ethical leadership, corporate social responsibility, job pursuit
intentions, organizational attractiveness, moral elevation, job applicants, job seekers.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 3
The persistence of corporate scandals across the globe highlights the overwhelming
challenge of cultivating an ethical workforce. Research shows that corporate scandals heighten
stakeholder mistrust, and diminish organizational reputation and success (Banks et al., 2020;
May et al., 2015; Ogunfowora, 2014). As such, management scholars have sought to understand
the drivers of workplace misconduct (e.g., Kish-Gephart et al., 2010; Ogunfowora et al., 2022;
Treviño et al., 2014). This research offers practical suggestions for building ethical workforces,
such as promoting positive employee moral cognitions, cultivating ethical leadership, ethical
cultures, and enforcing ethical codes. Although informative, this line of scholarly inquiry has
largely focused on the morality of current employees. Yet, research shows that recruitment and
selection are critical first-stage systems that shape workplace morality (Trevino & Nelson, 2017).
To date, there is sizeable work on how to screen and select for (un)ethical tendencies in job
applicants (Berry et al., 2007; Ones & Viswesvaran, 2001). However, these efforts are limited by
an organization’s capacity to attract moral job seekers. To be successful, the organization must
accurately signal its moral values to these job seekers and the message, in turn, must influence
their cognitions, emotions, and ultimate job pursuit decisions (Rynes, 1991; Spence, 1973).
Currently, our understanding of how to attract moral job seekers is limited in at least two
ways. The first issue pertains to information transmission – specifically, the efficacy of the
medium that an organization uses to signal its moral values (Wang et al., 2019). In recent years,
corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become the preeminent strategy for signaling corporate
moral values to job seekers (Rupp, 2011; Rupp et al., 2013; Willness, 2019). However, it is clear
that not all firms that engage in CSR have strong moral values (Willness, 2019). Corporate
scandals often involve companies that, beforehand, espoused strong CSR commitments and had
active CSR initiatives (e.g., Volkswagen, Wells Fargo, Nike, and BP). This observation has
contributed to a rise in public skepticism of CSR (Yoon et al., 2006; Willness, 2019). Thus,
organizations that rely mainly on CSR to signal their moral values are likely to find it
increasingly difficult to separate themselves from their competitors. The second issue pertains to
information processing – that is, how job seekers process and respond to moral-based signaling
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 4
(Wang et al., 2019). Research shows that job seekers differ in their motivation and capacity to
scrutinize signaled information (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Uggerslev et al., 2012). In the current
CSR skepticism climate, moral job seekers – those who seek accurate information about
corporate moral values – are likely to be skeptical of CSR-based signals (e.g., “CSR tells me the
company invests in social causes but less about its intrinsic moral values”). Thus, without more
information, these job seekers may pass on companies that rely solely on CSR-based signaling.
Our goal in this paper is to advance knowledge on how organizations may better signal
their moral values to job seekers. Specifically, we propose that CEO ethical leadership can
function as a unique recruitment tool for attracting job seekers. Importantly, we consider how
effectively CEO ethical leadership accomplishes this task relative to CSR-based moral signaling.
Integrating signaling theory (Spence, 1973) and the elaboration likelihood (EL) model of
persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), we propose that CEO ethical leadership influences
organizational attraction through three ethical signaling mechanisms: expectations of fair
employee treatment, perceived social and environmental responsibility, and experiences of moral
elevation. Third, we propose that job seeker moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002) is a key
boundary condition that captures individual differences in the motivation and ability to process
information signaled by CEO ethical leadership. Figure 1 summarizes our conceptual model.
Our study offers three contributions to the recruitment and behavioral ethics literatures.
First, we propose that, compared to prevalent CSR-based signaling tactics, organizations can
more accurately signal their moral values to job seekers by publicizing the ethical leadership of
their CEOs. This is critical given that CSR is increasingly becoming a limited and ambiguous
signal of ethical information for organizational outsiders (Ogunfowora et al., 2018; Willness,
2019). To date, however, there is limited research on the role of CEO ethical leadership as a
recruitment tool despite past studies showing that the top leader’s ethical leadership is important
to external stakeholders (Ogunfowora et al., 2018), including job seekers (Strobel et al., 2010;
Ogunfowora, 2014). Moreover, there is growing corporate interest in proactively involving
CEOs in recruitment strategies (Feloni, 2015; Trammell, 2013). This is not surprising since
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 5
CEOs play a critical role in representing the organization to outsiders (Hogg, 2001; Love et al.,
2017). For example, many high-profile CEOs (e.g., Intel’s Andrew Grove and Cisco’s John
Chambers) have been active in hiring new recruits (Overman, 2008). The CEOs of Shopify (a
multinational e-commerce firm) and AtriCure (a healthcare technology company) directly appear
in recruitment videos to discuss their organization’s values and their personal expectations of
new recruits. Thus, we contribute to the recruitment literature by shedding light on how CEO
ethical leadership may be utilized as a unique tool, relative to CSR, for attracting job seekers.
Second, drawing on signaling theory (Spence, 1973), we propose three key mechanisms
through which CEO ethical leadership influences job seekers. To date, scholars have largely
focused on how job seekers cognitively evaluate information embedded in “substantive signals”
(i.e., the core message communicated by a signal source; Rynes, 1991). However, Steigenberger
and Wilhelm (2018) note that firms also use “rhetorical” or affective-based signals to attract
attention and convey information. In this paper, we propose that CEO ethical leadership
substantively signals an organization’s concern for both internal (employees) and external
(society) stakeholders, while also serving as a source of rhetorical signaling that elicits moral
elevation in job seekers. Thus, we advance knowledge of nuanced ethical signaling mechanisms
through which CEO ethical leadership influences job seekers.
Third, although signaling theory offers insights into how organizations transmit signals, it
provides limited knowledge of how recipients process signaled information (Wang et al., 2019).
To this end, scholars (Gregory et al., 2013; Larsen & Phillips, 2002; Wang et al., 2019) have
proposed an integration of signaling theory and the elaboration likelihood (EL) model (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986). The EL model provides a framework for understanding individual differences
in receivers’ capacities to effectively process signaled information (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986;
Petty & Wegener, 1998). In our paper, we consider how moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2003)
shapes the motivation and ability of job seekers to scrutinize and process ethical signals from
CEO ethical leadership. Although past studies have explored how moral identity (and related
constructs) influences reactions to ethical messaging (May et al., 2015; Ogunfowora, 2014; Rupp
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 6
et al., 2013), our study highlights the nuanced ethical signaling mechanisms through which CEO
ethical leadership effectively attracts more (versus less) morally oriented job seekers.
Theoretical Background
Signaling theory posits that organizational members possess greater “insider” information
than job seekers since they know more about a firm’s internal functioning (Connelly et al., 2011;
Spence, 1973). To reduce this information asymmetry (Spence, 1973), job seekers constantly
search for information embedded in corporate signals. Signals represent “observable actions that
provide information about unobservable attributes and likely outcomes” (Bergh et al., 2014, p.
1335). Steigenberger and Wilhelm (2018) distinguish between substantive signals (those that
provide specific information about the activities and capabilities of the signaler) and rhetorical
signals (those that appeal to the receivers’ reasoning, perceptions, and emotions). Scholars note
that rhetorical signals (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018) may be especially useful for stimulating
emotions in receivers (Stevens & Seo, 2014).
Signaling theory argues that job seekers may differentiate a high-quality (e.g., ethical)
organization from its competitors through the values it substantively signals (Spence, 1973). To
the extent that the signal is difficult to produce by low-quality (e.g., less morally inclined)
organizations, the source of the signal should be an effective medium for communicating
information to job seekers (Spence, 1973; Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). Although scholars
have used this perspective to explain how CSR influences job seekers, the evidence shows that
organizations of varying ethical orientations engage in CSR (Willness, 2019). As such, CSR-
based messaging is increasingly hampered by signal unreliability – where signalers are dishonest
and signals are misaligned with true organizational attributes (Connelly et al., 2011). In a high-
noise environment where several companies compete for attention by sending multiple signals of
varying reliability, job seekers are likely to seek alternate sources of substantive signals to
inform their decision making (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). To this end, Steigenberger and
Wilhelm (2018) propose that rhetorical signals can help draw attention in high-noise
environments, and in so doing, bolster the substantive signals the organization aims to convey.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 7
Below, we draw on these ideas to explore how CEO ethical leadership uniquely
influences job seekers relative to CSR1, and the underlying substantive and rhetorical signals that
drive this effect. We focus on CEOs because they are often the most visible “faces” of their
organizations and are the top decision makers (Love et al., 2017). Hogg (2001) argues that
leaders of social groups are often seen as the most prototypical group member. For this reason,
their reputation is likely to extend to other members and the group as a whole. As such, job
seekers are likely to consider the CEO a reliable source of information about the organization’s
internal ethical standards. Ogunfowora (2014) argues that “although applicants may obtain such
information from different sources, the ethicality of an organization’s executive leadership may
be an uncommon but especially telling source” (p. 530).
CEO Ethical Leadership, Signaling Theory, and Job Seeker Attraction
Brown and colleagues (2005) define ethical leadership as “the demonstration of
normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and
the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and
decision-making” (p. 120). Using a social learning framework, they propose that ethical leaders
are fair, honest, and trustworthy individuals who set and communicate high ethical standards and
use reinforcement strategies to uphold followers to those standards. Recently, Banks et al. (2020)
proposed a signaling theory-based perspective on ethical leadership. They posit that ethical
leadership behavior can be viewed as signaling behavior directed at internal (e.g., employees)
and external (e.g., suppliers, investors, job seekers) stakeholders. Banks et al. further argue that
prosocial values and moral emotions are two essential ingredients that initiate and sustain the
signaling process. First, ethical leaders send ethical signals through observable acts of
prosocialness, which in turn shape the perceptions of stakeholders. Banks et al. (2020) note that
1 We assume that CEO ethical leadership and CSR are perceptually distinct, but related concepts. While ethical
CEOs are more likely to lead CSR-active organizations (Saha et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2015), stakeholders see top
leaders as distinct from the firm’s CSR activities (Ferns et al., 2008; Saha et al., 2020). Indeed, perceptions of CEO
ethical leadership and CSR tend to correlate modestly (rs = .24 – .31; Pasricha et al., 2018; Wu et al., 2015).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 8
“these signals can take various forms, such as a leader’s presence at a charitable event… [and]
can also emerge from the content in a leader’s speech” (p. 5). Second, ethical leaders signal
ethical information through genuine expressions of moral emotions. For instance, stakeholders
may witness the leader expressing moral emotions, such as other-condemning (e.g., expressing
moral anger at a social issue during a news conference) and other-suffering (e.g., expressing
compassion towards victims of an injustice on social media) emotions (Banks et al., 2020).
Thus, in line with Steigenberger and Wilhelm (2018), CEO ethical leadership has the
potential to function as a source of both substantive and rhetorical signals. When job seekers
observe ethical CEOs speaking and acting ethically across a variety of outlets (e.g., news articles,
social media, and recruitment videos), the substantive and rhetorical signals transmitted by these
actions should foster or signal a trustworthy portrait of the CEO. As such, ethical CEOs should
engender less cynicism compared to “faceless” CSR initiatives (Schnall & Roper, 2012). Indeed,
signals of CEO trustworthiness – which is strongly associated with ethical leadership (Brown et
al., 2005) – decrease cynicism in stakeholders (Kim et al., 2009).
Below, we explore how CEO ethical leadership influences job seekers through three
ethical signals. First, we identify two substantive signals that CEO ethical leadership transmits:
genuine concern for internal and external stakeholders (Brown et al., 2005; Brown & Trevino,
2006; de Hoogh & den Hartog, 2008). The CEO’s concern for internal stakeholders is captured
by signals regarding how current employees are treated, while concern for external stakeholders
is captured by signals about the organization’s social-environmental responsibility. Second, we
propose that the core rhetorical signal transmitted by CEO ethical leadership is moral emotional
in nature. Given our interest in job seekers’ emotional experiences when they observe ethical
CEOs, a review of the moral emotions literature indicates that “other praising” moral emotions
(Greenbaum et al., 2020; Tangney et al., 2007) are most relevant to this context. Specifically, we
explore the role of job seekers’ experiences of moral elevation – positive feelings that arise when
one witnesses another’s moral excellence (Haidt, 2000) – following exposure to ethical CEOs.
The Mediating Role of Fair Employee Treatment
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 9
Research shows that job seekers pay attention to substantive signals that indicate how
they will be treated as employees, with CSR being a key source (Jones et al., 2014). A core
aspect of ethical leadership is a strong concern for the wellbeing of employees, and commitment
to treating them fairly (Brown et al., 2005; Brown & Trevino, 2006). Moreover, ethical leaders
establish high ethical standards and use reinforcement strategies to enforce these standards
(Brown et al., 2005). Thus, ethical CEOs not only profess their ethical treatment of others, but
also model and engrave this value institutionally by holding others accountable to the same
values (Wu et al., 2015; Brown & Trevino, 2006). Recruitment materials that showcase these
CEO behaviors should signal to job seekers that the organization genuinely cares about the
wellbeing of its employees. Ogunfowora (2014) similarly suggests that job seekers use CEO
ethicality as a signal of how they will be treated since the CEO’s moral values and conduct
symbolically represents those of the broader organization and its members (Hogg, 2001). Thus,
we posit that CEO ethical leadership provides a strong substantive signal about fair employee
treatment, which in turn, increases job seekers’ attraction to the organization.
Hypothesis 1. Expectations of fair employee treatment mediates the positive relationship
between CEO ethical leadership and organizational attraction.
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The Mediating Role of Perceived Social-Environmental Responsibility
We further posit that, besides CSR, job seekers may also infer an organization’s
commitment to social and environmental responsibility from the CEO’s ethical leadership
behaviors. Trevino et al.’s (2003) qualitative work highlights that ethical executive leaders adopt
broad ethical awareness, including consideration of the impact of their organization on
stakeholders and society, and are “concerned about serving the greater good” (p. 19). Brown and
Trevino (2006) further argue that ethical leaders care about “people and the broader society” (p.
597), and thus, are likely to extend their sense of moral obligation to include societal concerns.
Other scholars similarly note that ethical leaders often strive to balance the needs of various
stakeholders and are concerned with ensuring the sustainability and long-term impact of their
decisions as they pertain to society and the natural environment (Resick et al., 2011; Yin &
Zhang, 2012; Wu et al., 2015).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 10
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Not surprisingly, ethical CEOs are often champions of social and environmental responsibility
programs (De Roeck & Farooq, 2018; Jones Christensen et al., 2014; Kim & Thapa, 2018). We
therefore posit that external stakeholders are likely to see CEO ethical leadership as a trustworthy
source or signal of a firm’s social and environmental responsibility (de Hoogh & den Hartog,
2008; Ferns et al., 2008). Even when content about CEO ethical leadership does not explicitly
contain information about a firm’s social-environmental responsibility, job seekers likely infer
this commitment via heuristic cues (Uggerslev et al., 2012). Specifically, job seekers are less
likely to see an ethical CEO as someone who is primarily concerned about self-interest, but one
who truly cares about how their decisions and actions affect the wellbeing of others. This
concern extends beyond internal stakeholders to external stakeholders, such as members of the
community and the natural environment (Wu et al., 2015). For instance, job seekers who watch a
CEO talking about the importance of treating people well may infer that the CEO upholds
similar ethical standards in dealing with communities and the environment. In support of these
ideas, research shows that CEO ethical leadership is positively associated with both community
and environmental initiatives, including organizational environmental performance (Kim &
Thapa, 2018; Ren et al., 2021; Wu et al., 2015). Thus, we propose that CEO ethical leadership
signals the company’s commitment to social-environmental issues, which in turn increases job
seekers’ attraction.
Hypothesis 2. Perceived social-environmental responsibility mediates the positive
relationship between CEO ethical leadership and organizational attraction.
The Mediating Role of Moral Elevation
Research suggests that positive and negative emotions experienced during job search
strongly affect job seekers’ decisions (Stevens & Seo, 2014). These findings align with
Steigenberger and Wilhelm’s (2018) argument that organizations may use rhetorical signals to
influence job seekers’ actions. Ethical CEOs send rhetorical signals by engaging in exemplary
moral behaviors and by publicly expressing moral emotions (Banks et al., 2020). When
communicated through recruitment activities, these acts represent strong rhetorical signals that
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 11
may trigger moral elevation in job seekers. Moral elevation captures feelings of warmth,
admiration, affection, and inspiration tied to witnessing uncommon acts of moral excellence
(Aquino et al., 2011; Haidt, 2000, 2003). Extant research shows that consumers experience
moral elevation in reaction to CSR (Xie et al., 2019; Zheng et al., 2019). Given that, relative to
CSR, “public exposure to CEOs remains relatively weak” (Ogunfowora, 2014, p. 538), and
media coverage of CEO ethical conduct is even more uncommon (Ogunfowora et al., 2018),
exposure to an ethical CEO’s moral beliefs and actions should arouse stronger moral elevation in
job seekers. Moreover, research shows that tangible acts of morality that observers can relate to
are better predictors of moral elevation and moral behavior (Schnall & Roper, 2012). Thus, we
posit that CEO ethical leadership messaging triggers moral elevation in job seekers, which in
turn increases organizational attraction.
Hypothesis 3. Experiences of moral elevation during job search mediates the
positive relationship between CEO ethical leadership and organizational attraction.
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The Moderating Role of Job Seeker Moral Identity
According to the EL model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), job seekers differ in the extent to
which they engage in elaboration – “the extent to which a person thinks about the issue-
relevant arguments contained in a message” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986, p. 128) – in reaction to
signaled information. Thus, the effectiveness of a signal partly depends on the attributes of
those on the receiving end. The EL model posits that receivers have varying ability and
motivation to scrutinize social information, which in turn, affects their understanding,
processing, and integration of the information into the decision-making process (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener, 1998). Ability captures the job seeker’s cognitive capacity
to process the information embedded in signals (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty & Wegener,
1998), while motivation captures the drive to carefully analyze the message to determine
whether it is personally salient (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Cacioppo, Petty, & Morris, 1983).
Uggerslev et al. (2012) note that when job seekers have low ability and motivation, the
likelihood of elaboration is low. When such job seekers process information embedded in
recruitment signals, they often use peripheral processing – which relies on simple
environmental cues or heuristics (e.g., “positively worded recruitment messages equate good
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 12
employer”), message length, or the opinions expressed by others (Larsen & Phillips, 2002; Petty
& Cacioppo, 1986). In contrast, capable and motivated job seekers engage in high elaboration by
employing central processing (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) – which is characterized by methodic
processing and careful deliberation of the signaled information to determine its relevance to
one’s self-concept (Rynes, 1991; Uggerslev et al., 2012). Larsen and Phillips (2002) note that
when peripheral processing is used, attitudes are more (vs. less) favorable when positive (vs.
negative) peripheral cues are present. With central processing, “favorable or unfavorable
attitudes and evaluations are formed based on the content of the message itself” (Larsen &
Phillips, 2002, p. 349).
In the current research, we posit that individual differences in moral identity (Aquino &
Reed, 2002) explain job seekers’ differential reactions to CEO ethical leadership. Moral identity
captures the extent to which one’s self concept is centrally organized around being a moral
person (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Specifically, moral identity internalization2 captures the extent
to which one’s moral schemas are persistently accessible, swiftly primed, and easily triggered for
information processing (Aquino & Reed, 2002). A strong internalized moral identity implies that
moral values are central to one’s self-definition and are considered important and relevant in
processing social information (Rupp et al., 2013). In contrast, those with weaker internalized
moral identities do not see moral values as central to how they define themselves, are not readily
primed by moral issues, and consider moral values less important when processing social
information (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Rupp et al., 2013). In other words, job seekers higher on
moral identity internalization have greater ability (readily accessible moral knowledge structures)
2 Similar to past research (e.g., Aquino et al., 2011; Rupp et al., 2013), we focus on internalization, rather than the
symbolization dimension of moral identity. Symbolization captures the extent to which an individual’s self-concept
centers around the public representation and expression of the self as a moral person (Aquino & Reed, 2002). While
job seekers with strong MI symbolization may believe that working for an ethical CEO aligns with their need to
project their morality publicly, these individuals may not critically consider the nuances of the information
embedded in CEO ethical leadership. Rather, they may simply be content with the surface-level image of the ethical
CEO and, in particular, how aligning with (working for) the CEO publicly affirms that they are moral persons.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 13
to carefully process the moral content embedded in recruitment messages and are highly
motivated to ensure that the content is relevant to their self-concepts as moral persons.
Thus, we predict that job seekers with strong moral identities engage in central
processing, which increases the extent to which they pay attention to and critically weigh the
substantive and rhetorical signals conveyed by CEO ethical leadership. When these job seekers
are exposed to recruitment content that showcases the ethical CEO’s genuine concern for internal
and external stakeholders (Brown & Trevino, 2006), they should be more likely to conclude that
the CEO’s organization enacts fairer employee treatment and greater social-environmental
responsibility (e.g., compared to the organization of an ethically neutral CEO). In addition, we
posit that job seekers with strong moral identities experience greater moral elevation in response
to the ethical CEO’s awe-inspiring moral messaging. This is because they better recognize and
appreciate the uncommon and unexpected goodness that the ethical CEO epitomizes. Witnessing
the CEO’s exemplary moral actions should be especially activating for high moral identity job
seekers given the centrality of moral values and conduct to their self-concept (Aquino & Reed,
2002; Aquino et al., 2011). As Haidt (2003) notes, moral elevation “motivates people to do good
or admirable deeds themselves” (p. 276) – goals that are central to the way people with strong
moral identities wish to see themselves.
In contrast, we posit that job seekers with weaker moral identities engage in peripheral
processing and as such, are less likely to carefully evaluate signals from CEO ethical leadership.
As earlier noted, social information that signals morality are afforded less attention by those low
on moral identity (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Rupp et al., 2013). While these job seekers should still
respond favorably to CEO ethical leadership based on simple, peripheral-based heuristics (e.g.,
“good leaders create good workplaces”), their lack of attention and motivation to process the
nuanced message signaled by CEO ethical leadership should lead to relatively lower perceptions
of fair employee treatment and social-environment responsibility (compared to those with
stronger moral identities). Moreover, given that these job seekers place little weight on social
information containing moral content, they should be less likely to react emotionally following
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 14
exposure to CEO ethical leadership. They should find the exemplary moral actions of the ethical
CEO less morally elevating because such actions, and the moral values and beliefs that underlie
them, are not core to their self-concepts. In support of this argument, Aquino et al. (2011) found
that people low on moral identity experience significantly lower moral elevation after learning
about uncommon acts of goodness, compared to those with strong moral identities. Thus:
Hypothesis 4: Job seeker moral identity moderates the relationship between CEO ethical
leadership and job seekers’ a) perceptions of fair employee treatment, b) social-
environmental responsibility, and c) experiences of moral elevation. Specifically, the
positive effects of CEO ethical leadership on these outcomes are stronger for job seekers
high on moral identity, and weaker for those lower on moral identity.
The preceding arguments suggest that the positive impact of CEO ethical leadership on
organizational attraction through the three substantive and rhetorical ethical signals is conditional
on job seeker moral identity (i.e., a first-stage, moderated mediation model). First, we posit that
job seekers high (vs. low) on moral identity should be more strongly attracted to the ethical
CEO’s organization because of the fair employee treatment it substantively signals. These job
seekers should indicate greater organizational attraction because they are more likely to conclude
that they will be treated fairly as employees compared to those who are lower on moral identity.
While low moral identity job seekers should still respond favorably to CEO ethical leadership
based on simple heuristics, their tendency towards low elaboration suggests that they will not
process the nuanced message signaled by the CEO. This should lead to lower (though still
positive) organizational attraction compared to job seekers with stronger moral identities.
Second, we expect that job seekers with high (vs. low) moral identity will indicate greater
attraction in response to CEO ethical leadership messaging because they are more likely to
conclude that organization is truly committed to social and environmental responsibility. In
contrast, those with weaker moral identities should be less likely to be attracted primarily
because of this information, relying instead on heuristics that allocate points for CEO ethical
leadership (i.e., without necessarily considering the nuanced social-environmental responsibility
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 15
message it signals). This suggests that job seekers low on moral identity should also be attracted
to the ethical CEO’s organization, but this reaction is not driven by careful appraisal of the
social-environmental commitment signal it transmits. Third, we posit that job seekers high (vs.
low) on moral identity will indicate greater organizational attraction for an ethical CEO’s
organization because of the positive and strong experience of moral elevation they experience
following exposure to recruitment message highlighting the ethical CEO’s moral actions. In
contrast, those low on moral identity should be less likely to indicate strong attraction for the
ethical CEO’s organization as a result of experiencing moral elevation. As noted earlier, we
predict that low moral identity job seekers are unlikely to experience heightened moral elevation
in response to CEO ethical leadership recruitment messaging because they are less likely to be
interested in and emotionally affected by the CEO’s acts of moral goodness. Thus:
Hypothesis 5: Job seeker moral identity moderates the indirect relationship between CEO
ethical leadership and organizational attraction through a) expectations of fair employee
treatment, b) social-environmental responsibility, and c) experience of moral elevation.
Specifically, these indirect effects are stronger for job seekers high on moral identity, and
weaker for those lower on moral identity.
Overview of Studies
We carried out three studies to test our hypotheses. Our key proposition in this research is
that, compared to CSR-based recruitment efforts, CEO ethical leadership is a unique and useful
recruitment strategy for attracting (morally oriented) job seekers. Thus, it is critical to assess the
proposed effects of CEO ethical leadership on job seekers relative to CSR – especially since
CSR remains the dominant medium used for corporate moral signaling. As such, across all
studies, we measure and control for the effects of CSR to establish the unique effects of CEO
ethical leadership. Given the dearth of research on the utility of CEOs for attracting job seekers,
we began our investigation with a policy capturing study (Study 1) designed to examine the
relative weight that real job seekers place on CEO ethical leadership relative to CSR, as well as
three established recruitment factors: salary, person-job fit, and person-organization fit. We
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 16
included perceived fit and salary to demonstrate the importance of CEO ethical leadership
relative to traditional factors known to predict job pursuit intentions (Chapman et al., 2005;
Uggerslev et al., 2014). In Studies 2 and 3, we test the proposed signal-based mechanisms
underlying the impact of CEO ethical leadership on job seekers, controlling for CSR. Study 3
further tests the strength of these indirect effects, conditional on job seekers’ moral identity. We
operationalized organizational attraction as job pursuit intentions in these studies.
Study 1
Method
Participants and procedure. We recruited business students using multiple strategies at
a mid-sized Canadian university. First, we recruited participants through the job placement co-op
program of the business school. The study was open to those seeking employment through the
co-op program and occurred on days when organizations conducted on-campus interviews. The
ad was sent out by the co-op office prior to the interviews, and we also actively recruited
participants immediately after their interviews. Second, we advertised our study across the
business school and clearly stated that the study was open to students who were graduating soon
and seeking full-time employment. We received interest from both undergraduate and MBA
students. There were 240 senior-level undergraduate students (54.6% female) with an average
age of 21.49 years (SD = 2.42) and work experience of 4.36 years (SD = 2.85). Participants
indicated that they were actively seeking co-ops (13.4%), internships (37.5%), part-time
employment (24.2%), or full-time employment (44.2%). We also recruited 59 MBA students
(33% female), who were older (M = 31.41, SD = 6.07) and had more work experience (M = 7.71,
SD = 5.48). The MBA students indicated that they were actively seeking internships (43.1%),
part-time employment (29.3%), or full-time employment (74.1%).
In sum, we recruited 299 prospective job seekers to participate in a two-part study. We
instructed participants that the study aimed to understand how people make decisions when they
search for jobs. Participants received $5 for completing Part 1 (demographics and basic job
search questions) and $10 for completing Part 2 (policy capturing exercise). We split our study
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 17
into two parts because of the fatigue and strain that policy capturing studies exert on participants
(Aiman-Smith et al., 2002). Those who completed both parts were also entered into a draw to
win a $500 prize. Participants were instructed to complete Part 1 (an online survey) before they
signed up for a timeslot to complete Part 2 at a physical location on campus. The policy
capturing exercise entailed reading a series of employment scenarios with varying levels of cues
regarding the nature of the job (i.e., salary, person-job fit), the organization (i.e., person-
organization fit, CSR activities) and CEO ethical leadership. After each scenario, participants
indicated their interest in the organization described in that scenario.
Materials and measures. We followed recommendations for creating critical incidents
and policy capturing scenarios (Aiman-Smith et al., 2002). Due to space restrictions, we describe
these procedures fully in the supplemental online materials (Appendix A). Participants evaluated
a total of 40 job search scenarios (32 main scenarios, six practice scenarios, and two repeat
scenarios to assess rater consistency). Each scenario provided cues about the ethical leadership
level of the CEO, the company’s CSR engagement, pay, person-job fit, and person-organization
fit. Critical incident statements representing “low” and “high” levels of each cue were
manipulated such that each scenario was completely orthogonal. We provide the complete set of
instructions and sample scenarios in Appendix B of the online supplement.
Job pursuit intentions. To mitigate fatigue, we used three items3 from Highhouse et al.’s
(2003) 5-item measure, rated on a 0-100 slider scale. The items are “I would exert a great deal of
effort to work for this company,” “If this company invited me for a job interview, I would go,”
and “I would accept a job offer from this company” (α = 92).
Analytic Strategy and Levels of Analyses
299 participants provided 9568 (299 * 32 scenarios) job pursuit decision ratings. Given
that job pursuit judgments of the 32 scenarios are nested within each participant (i.e., within-
3 We administered the full 5-item scale in Studies 2 and 3. In these studies, we found strong correlations between the
3-item version and the 5-item version (rs = .97 and .96, respectively).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 18
person scores), multilevel modeling are appropriate for analyzing these data (Rotundo & Sackett,
2002). We carried out multi-level modeling using the Bayes estimator in Mplus (Muthén &
Muthén, 2017). At the within-level, we tested the effects of the five recruitment cues on job
pursuit intentions. This analysis allows us to establish the importance of each cue. We report
standardized estimates because “the standardized regression coefficients can be interpreted as
relative weights” (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002, p. 72) which help to determine the average
importance of each cue to job seekers’ job pursuit decisions. We also tested for possible cue
order effects (we created two dummy variables to capture the three cue orders). The results show
that cue order did not significantly predict job pursuit intentions. We treated the five cues as
strictly “within-person” variables given that they do not vary across participants. In contrast, we
allowed job pursuit intentions to vary both within- and between persons because it demonstrated
significant within and between-person variance (σ2 within= 513.86, p < .001, σ2 between = 202.00, p <
.001, ICC1 = .28, p < .001, ICC2 = .93, p < .001).
Results and Brief Discussion
The results show that job seekers weighed all five cues significantly in their job pursuit
decisions. The five cues accounted for 45% of the variance in pursuit ratings. In order of
importance, job seekers weighed salary (β = .40, p < .001), PJ fit (β = .36, p < .001), PO fit (β =
.30, p < .001), CEO ethical leadership (β = .21, p < .001), and CSR (β = .11, p < .001) in their
decision making. Importantly, participants placed significantly greater weight on CEO ethical
leadership compared to CSR, ∆β = .10, p < .001 [∆B = 4.48, 95% CI: 3.50, 5.38]. Next, we ran
separate analyses for the MBA and undergraduate samples. Although the undergrads (M = 63.58,
SD = 25.14) indicated higher job pursuit compared to the MBAs (M = 56.56, SD = 31.74), β = -
.12, p < .001, the two groups yielded similar relative weights (i.e., order of importance). In sum,
we find that while traditional recruitment factors remain pertinent, job seekers place significant
and unique weight on CEO ethical leadership (relative to CSR) in their decision making.
Exploratory Analyses
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 19
To further establish the distinction between CEO ethical leadership and CSR, we tested
whether and how well they augmented the effects of traditional recruitment predictors. That is,
do PJ fit, PO fit, and salary result in greater job pursuit intentions in the presence of high (vs.
low) CEO ethical leadership (versus CSR)? We tested the interaction effects simultaneously in
Mplus (full results available upon request). We found that CEO ethical leadership significantly
interacted with PO fit (β = .07, p < .001), PJ fit (β = .04, p = .001), and salary (β = .04, p = .004).
In all cases, job pursuit intentions are highest when each respective construct is high and ethical
leadership is high. In contrast, job pursuit intentions are lowest when each construct is low and
ethical leadership is low. In contrast, CSR significantly interacted with salary (β = .03, p = .014),
but not PO fit (β = .01, p = .21) and PJ fit (β = .02, p = .13) in predicting pursuit intentions. Job
pursuit intentions were strongest when CSR and salary are high but weakest when both are low.
These results suggests that CEO ethical leadership has a stronger, more consistent augmenting
effect on the traditional recruitment predictors investigated here. Critically, job seekers see CEO
ethical leadership and CSR as separate sources of ethical information and react uniquely to each.
In sum, we find support for our prediction that job seekers uniquely weigh information
about CEO ethical leadership in their decision making relative to CSR. Next, we proceeded to
test our mediation and moderated mediation hypotheses in Studies 2 and 3.
Study 2
Method
Participants and procedure. We recruited adults from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk
(MTurk). To ensure participants were job seekers, we carried out a pre-screen survey where we
asked a wide array of questions (e.g., years of work experience, job search status, consumer
preferences). We only invited those who indicated that they were seeking employment.
Participants received $3 for their time. We followed best practices for screening online data,
including only inviting high-quality participants (i.e., 95% prior approval rate) and screening IP
addresses to ensure there were no duplicate responses. In addition, we removed eighteen
participants who failed attention check items. The final sample of 299 participants consisted of
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 20
49.5% females, 49.8% males, and 0.7% non-binary individuals. They were 33.90 years on
average (SD = 9.78), and of European (67.9%), mixed (7.4%), African/Caribbean (7.0%), Asian
(9.7%), Hispanic (4.3%) and other (3.7%) descent.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: control (n = 100), CSR
information (n = 101), and CEO ethical leadership information (n = 98). We included the CSR
condition to test the efficacy of a CEO ethical leadership recruitment strategy relative to a CSR
recruitment strategy. Participants were shown the website of a fictitious company called the
Melgreen Group and told it was a real company whose name had been changed. The design,
materials, and webpages were adapted from Ogunfowora et al. (2018). All participants viewed
the landing page of the website, which contained general information about the company (The
Melgreen Group, an Energy corp.), an “About Us” page which introduced the Chief Executive
Officer (John Schmidt), and a “Careers” page, which listed various jobs. Those in the control
condition did not receive any additional information. Those in the CSR condition were presented
with a fourth “social responsibility” page, which described the company’s environmental and
community support initiatives. These initiatives were based on those of real North American
energy companies. In contrast, those in the CEO condition were presented with a fourth “news
release” page. This page highlighted that the CEO had received the Most Influential Leader in
Business Ethics award. It also detailed his social activism, efforts to foster ethical business
practices and nurture an ethical organizational culture (see Appendix C for webpages). After
reviewing the webpages, participants completed measures of the mediators and outcome.
Measures. Unless otherwise specified, all measures4 used a five-point Likert response
scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.
4 We tested our measurement model (three mediators and one DV) with a set of confirmatory factor analyses in
Mplus. We created four parcels for the 17-item moral elevation scale to manage the sample size-to-parameters ratio
which can influence the stability of factor solutions (Landis et al., 2000). Our hypothesized, four-factor model
demonstrated good fit to the data, χ2 (146) = 457.19, p < .01, CFI = .94, TLI = .92, RMSEA = .08, SRMR = .048.
This model was significantly better than a series of alternate models (see Appendix E in the online supplement).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 21
Social and environmental responsibility signal. We used a 5-item measure (ɑ = .94).
Three items are from Walsh et al.’s (2007) ‘social and environmental responsibility’ corporate
reputation sub-scale. The items were adapted to our context: “The information I’ve read about
signals to me that the company would definitely reduce its profits to ensure a clean
environment”, “After learning about this company, I am convinced that the company is truly
environmentally responsible”, and “After learning about this company, I am convinced that the
company expresses a genuine interest in supporting good causes that benefit society”). We added
two items to bolster scale reliability and content validity (“The information I’ve read signals to
me that this company truly cares for society” and “The information I’ve read signals to me that
this company genuinely cares for the environment”). The substantive results (i.e., pattern of
significance) did not change in analyses where we excluded these two new items.
Fair employee treatment signal. We measured fair employee treatment using five items
from Walsh et al.’s (2009) ‘good employer’ corporate reputation sub-scale. The items were
worded to capture the signals conveyed by the information presented on the webpages: “The
information I’ve read about tells me that this company treats its people well,” “After learning
about this company, I am convinced that management pays attention to the needs of employees,”
“After learning about this company, I am absolutely sure this is a good company to work for,”
“The information I’ve read does not signal to me that this company has a genuine interest in the
well-being of employees” (reversed) and “After learning about this company, I am convinced
that the company truly maintains high standards in the way that it treats people” (ɑ = .82).
Moral elevation. We administered Thomson and Siegel’s (2013) scale (ɑ = .91). This
measure includes 15 items from Aquino et al.’s (2011) original scale and five new items
designed to better capture the emotional domain of the construct (Thomson & Siegel, 2013).
Participants completed the moral elevation items immediately after the company webpages (in
the CSR and CEO conditions, this was after the fourth page). They were asked to describe “to
what extent do the words/phrases below describe how you feel right now.” The measure taps
into the three aspects of moral elevation as originally conceived by Aquino et al. (2011),
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 22
including “elevating emotions” (e.g., “awe,” “moved,” “inspired”), “views of humanity” (e.g.,
“the actions of most people are admirable”), and “desire to be a better person.” For the last
aspect, we adapted the items to reference the organization given our interest in how our
manipulations influenced organizational attraction. We excluded three items that did not translate
well to the current context (“what a nice person”, “I want to be more like the person in the
story”, and “the person in the story has shown me how to be a better person”).
Job pursuit intentions. We administered Highhouse et al.’s (2003) 5-item measure. A
sample item is “If this company invited me for a job interview, I would go” (ɑ = .90).
Manipulation checks, participant engagement, and webpage credibility. To test our
manipulations, participants completed Brown et al.’s (2005) 10-item ethical leadership scale (ɑ =
.93). We also asked, “What is the Melgreen Group’s level of corporate social responsibility” (1 =
very low; 5 = very high). We also asked whether they believed the information presented about
the company was “credible,” “trustworthy,” and “reliable” (ɑ = .93). Lastly, we measured
engagement by averaging responses to two items on a 5-point scale (“how much effort did you
put into completing this study” and “how serious were you in completing this survey?”; ɑ = .76).
Results and Brief Discussion
Participants were engaged in the study (M = 4.72, SD = .49, Mode = 5), and perceived the
webpage information to be credible (M = 3.78, SD = .72, Mode = 4). One-way ANOVA results
showed that the CEO ethical leadership (F(2, 296) = 22.17, p < .001) and CSR (F(2, 296) =
24.57, p < .001) manipulations were successful. Planned contrasts showed that those in the
ethical CEO condition rated the CEO higher on ethical leadership (M = 4.19, SD = .57)
compared to those in the CSR (M = 3.69, SD = .65), t(296) = 4.75, p < .001, and control
conditions (M = 3.68, SD = .62), t(296) = 5.81, p < .001. Those in the CSR condition rated the
Melgreen Group higher on CSR engagement (M = 4.33, SD = .62) compared to the CEO
condition (M = 4.13, SD = .73), t(296) = 1.86, p =.033 (one-tailed) and Control condition (M =
3.62, SD = .85), t(296) = 6.79, p < .001. Table 3 shows the correlations among the variables.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 23
A one-way ANOVA showed significant differences among the three conditions on job
pursuit intentions, F(2, 296) = 9.27, p < .001. Planned contrast tests show that participants in the
CEO ethical leadership condition (M = 4.17, SD = .69) indicated greater pursuit intentions
compared to the control condition (M = 3.70, SD = .93), t(296) = 4.08, p < .001. However,
pursuit intentions did not differ between the CEO and CSR conditions, t(296) = .89, p = .386.
Next, we tested our proposed mediation effects using PROCESS in SPSS (Hayes, 2017). We
used the multi-categorical function with indicator coding to fully represent the independent
variable (the control condition being the comparison group). We tested the three mediators
simultaneously (see Table 4). Lastly, we reran the analyses with CSR as the comparison group to
estimate differences between the CEO ethical leadership and CSR conditions.
First, fair treatment expectations mediate the relationship between CEO ethical leadership
(versus control) and pursuit intentions, (B = .15, 95% CI [.07, .25]), providing support for
Hypothesis 1. Fair treatment expectations also uniquely explain the effect of CEO ethical
leadership on pursuit relative to CSR (B = .13, 95% CI [.05, .23]). Second, perceived social-
environmental responsibility mediates the impact of CEO ethical leadership (versus control) on
pursuit intentions, (B = .12, 95% CI [.05, .21]), supporting Hypothesis 2. However, social-
environmental responsibility does not uniquely explain the effect of CEO ethical leadership on
pursuit relative to CSR, (B = -.01, 95% CI [-.07, .05]). Third, moral elevation mediates the
relationship between ethical leadership (versus control) and pursuit intentions, (B = .10, 95% CI
[.03, .19]), providing support for Hypothesis 3. Moral elevation also uniquely explains the effect
of CEO ethical leadership on job pursuit intentions relative to CSR (B = .05, 95% CI [.01, .11]).
In sum, we find that job seekers are attracted to ethical CEOs’ organizations because they
believe they will be treated fairly as employees, perceive greater social and environmental
responsibility, and experience moral elevation when exposed to the CEO. These results support
the substantive and rhetorical signaling effects of CEO ethical leadership. Moreover, compared
to CSR, CEO ethical leadership uniquely influences job pursuit through fair employee treatment
perceptions and moral elevation. In contrast, job seekers judged CEO ethical leadership (M =
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 24
3.80) and CSR (M = 3.83) as equally important signals of social-environmental responsibility.
This indicates that job seekers still consider CSR a useful source of this specific type of ethical
information. However, we also posited that job seekers with strong (versus weak) moral
identities are more likely to attend and respond to messages signaled by CEO ethical leadership.
We test this proposition in Study 3, culminating in a test of our full moderated mediation model.
Study 3
Method
Participants and procedure. We used the same procedures as Study 2 to pre-screen
participants from Mturk. We invited only those currently seeking employment and paid them
$3.50. We used the Cloud Research platform, which integrates with Mturk. This platform has
several data management features, such as the ability to block duplicate IP addresses, identify
low-quality participants, and exclude participants from prior studies. We included five attention
checks and retained those who correctly answered three or more items (Marjanovic et al., 2014).
Ten participants failed and were removed from the data5. The final sample was 475 and consisted
of 54.5% females, 43.6% males, and 1.8% non-binary individuals. They were 35.04 years old
(SD = 10.33 years), and of European (59.6%), African/Caribbean (8.0%), Asian (8.4%), Hispanic
(8.6%), mixed (4.5%), and other (10.6%) descent. Participants were randomly assigned to the
control (n = 161), CSR (n = 156), or CEO ethical leadership (n = 158) conditions. We used
similar materials as Study 2. However, we included additional “filler” information about the
company’s policies and recent news in the control condition to better match the length and
amount of information presented to participants across the three conditions (see Appendix D).
Measures
5 The pattern of results (i.e., significance level) were similar when inattentive respondents were included or excluded
from the analyses.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 25
We used the same measures6 as Study 2 to assess social and environmental responsibility
(α = .94), fair employee treatment (α = .88), moral elevation (α = .93), and job pursuit intentions
(α = .90), as well as participant engagement (α = .79), webpage credibility (α = .94), and
manipulation checks for CSR perceptions (single item) and ethical leadership (α = .93). We also
used Aquino and Reed’s (2002) 5-item moral identity internalization scale (α = .80).7
Results and Brief Discussion
Participants were engaged in the study (M = 4.80, SD = .42, Mode = 5) and perceived the
webpages’ information to be credible (M = 3.69, SD = .81, Mode = 4). Further, the CEO ethical
leadership (F(1, 474) = 40.99, p < .001) and CSR (F(1,474) = 47.15, p < .001) manipulations
were successful. Participants in the ethical CEO condition rated the CEO significantly higher on
ethical leadership (M = 4.10, SD = .56) compared to those in the CSR [(M = 3.80, SD = .69),
t(312) = 4.24, p < .001] and Control [(M = 3.59, SD = .69), t(317) = 7.26, p < .001] conditions.
Also, participants in the CSR condition rated the Melgreen Group significantly higher on CSR
engagement (M = 4.29, SD = .81) compared to the ethical CEO [(M = 4.00, SD = .85), t(312) =
3.14, p = .002] and Control [(M = 3.25, SD = 1.14), t(315) = 9.26, p < .001] conditions. The
correlations among the study variables are presented in Table 5.
A one-way ANOVA shows significant differences among the three conditions on job
pursuit intentions, F(2, 482) = 14.11, p < .01. Participants in the CEO ethical leadership
condition (M = 3.92, SD = .69) indicated greater job pursuit intentions compared to those in the
control condition (M = 3.40, SD = 1.01), t(482) = 5.34, p < .001, but not the CSR condition (M =
3.76, SD = .88), t(482) = 1.72, p = .09. Next, we ran mediation (Model 4) and moderated
6 Similar to Study 2, we tested our measurement model with a set of confirmatory factor analyses in Mplus. Our
hypothesized, four-factor model demonstrated great fit to the data, χ2 (146) = 619.99, p < .01, CFI = .95, TLI = .94,
RMSEA = .08, SRMR = .047. This model was significantly better than alternate models (see Appendix E).
7 For comprehensiveness, we tested MI symbolization as an alternative moderator in our theoretical model. The
results showed that MI symbolization was not a significant moderator of the indirect effects of CEO ethical
leadership on job pursuit intentions through any of the three mechanisms. These results indicate that it is the chronic
accessibility of moral schemas (MI internalization), rather than the public manifestations of moral schemas (MI
symbolization), which shapes job seekers’ pursuit intentions in this context.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 26
mediation (Model 8) analyses in PROCESS (Hayes, 2017). We again used the multi-categorical
function with indicator coding (Control condition as comparison) and simultaneously tested the
three mediators (see Table 6). Next, we ran a second set of analyses with CSR as the comparison
group to estimate differences between the ethical CEO and CSR conditions.
Mediation hypotheses. We found that fair treatment expectations mediate the impact of
CEO ethical leadership (versus control) on pursuit intentions, (B = .23, 95% CI [.15, .34]),
supporting Hypothesis 1. Fair treatment expectations also uniquely explain the effect of CEO
ethical leadership on pursuit intentions relative to CSR (B = .09, 95% CI [.03, .16]). Perceived
social-environmental responsibility also mediates the positive impact of CEO ethical leadership
(versus control) on pursuit intentions, (B = .16, 95% CI [.08, .27]), supporting Hypothesis 2.
However, contrary to Study 2, we found that perceived social-environmental responsibility was a
stronger mediator of the effect of CSR on pursuit intentions relative to CEO ethical leadership (B
= -.07, 95% CI [-.12, -.02]). Lastly, moral elevation mediates the effect of CEO ethical
leadership (versus control) on pursuit intentions, (B = .07, 95% CI [.02, .13]), providing support
for Hypothesis 3. In this sample, moral elevation did not uniquely explain the effect of CEO
ethical leadership on job pursuit intentions relative to CSR (B = .01, 95% CI [-.03, .06]).
Moderation and moderated mediation hypotheses. The results are shown in Table 7.
Note that interactions involving a three-level categorical variable are captured by two interaction
terms: the moderator multiplied by the two dummy variables that capture the categorical variable
(Hayes & Montoya, 2017). Hypothesis 4a posits that moral identity moderates the relationship
between CEO ethical leadership and fair treatment expectations. The results show that the moral
identity × [CEO ethical leadership vs. Control] effect on expectations of fair employee treatment
is significant (B = .46, p < .001). A graphical depiction of the interaction is shown in Figure 2A.
The graph reveals that individuals high on moral identity perceived fairer employee treatment in
the ethical CEO versus Control condition (simple slope, B = .93, p < .01, 95% CI [.70, 1.16]).
Job seekers low on moral identity also perceived fairer employee treatment in the ethical CEO
versus Control conditions, albeit to a lesser extent (simple slope, B = .38, p = .001, 95% CI [.15,
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 27
.61]). Thus, Hypothesis 4a is supported. However, the moral identity × [CEO ethical leadership
vs. CSR] interaction effect was not significant (B = .19, p = .17).
Next, the index of moderated mediation for the [CEO ethical leadership vs. Control]
contrast was significant (index = .17, 95% CI [.08, .28]). Follow-up tests show that expectations
of fair employee treatment strongly mediate the link between the [CEO ethical leadership vs.
Control] contrast and job pursuit intentions for those high (B = .35, 95% CI [.23, .48]) versus low
(B = .14, 95% CI [.06, .24]) on moral identity. These results provide support for Hypothesis 5a.
However, the index for the [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR] contrast was not significant (index
= .07, 95% CI [-.03, .17]). Further probing (simple indirect slopes) showed that fair employee
treatment significantly mediates the link between the [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR] contrast
and job pursuit for those high on moral identity (B = .15, 95% CI [.07, .24]) but not for those low
(B = .06, 95% CI [-.02, .17]) on moral identity (see Figure 2B). The trend suggests that high (but
not low) moral identity job seekers indicate greater job pursuit intentions in response to CEO
ethical leadership versus CSR because of the CEO’s stronger fair employee treatment signaling.
Hypothesis 4b posits that job seeker moral identity moderates the relationship between
CEO ethical leadership and perceived social-environmental responsibility. The results show that
the moral identity × [CEO ethical leadership vs. Control] dummy variable effect on perceived
social-environmental responsibility was significant (B = .41, p = .009). Figure 3A shows that job
seekers high on moral identity perceive greater social-environmental responsibility in the CEO
ethical leadership condition compared to the Control (simple slope, B = .84, p < .01, 95% CI
[.57, 1.11]). Individuals low on moral identity also perceived greater social-environmental
responsibility in the CEO ethical leadership condition, albeit to a lesser extent (simple slope, B =
.35, p = .01, 95% CI [.08, .63]). These results support Hypothesis 4b. However, the moral
identity × [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR] interaction was not significant (B = -.14, p = .39).
Next, the index of moderated mediation pertaining to the [CEO ethical leadership vs.
Control] contrast was significant (index = .11, 95% CI [.02, .23]). Follow-up tests show that
social-environmental responsibility strongly mediates the link between the [CEO ethical
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 28
leadership vs. Control] contrast and job pursuit intentions for those high (B = .23, 95% CI [.12,
.37]) versus low (B = .10, 95% CI [.02, .20]) on moral identity. These results provide support for
Hypothesis 5b. However, the index for the [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR] contrast was not
(index = -.04, 95% CI [-.13, .04]). Further probing (simple indirect slopes) revealed that social-
environmental responsibility mediates the link between the [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR]
contrast and job pursuit intentions for those high (B = -.08, 95% CI [-.16, -.02]) on moral identity
but not for those low (B = -.04, 95% CI [-.11, .04]) on moral identity (see Figure 3B).
Importantly, the trend shows that high moral identity job seekers indicate greater job pursuit
intentions in response to CSR versus CEO ethical leadership because of CSR’s stronger social-
environmental responsibility signaling.
Hypothesis 4c posits that job seeker moral identity moderates the relationship between
CEO ethical leadership and experiences of moral elevation. The moral identity × [CEO ethical
leadership vs. Control] effect on moral elevation was significant (B = .53, p = .002). A graphical
depiction of the interaction is shown in Figure 4A. The graph reveals that individuals high on
moral identity reported significantly stronger experiences of moral elevation in the ethical CEO
condition compared to the Control condition (simple slope, B = .71, p < .01, 95% CI [.41, 1.01]).
In contrast, job seekers low on moral identity did not report experiencing stronger moral
elevation in the ethical CEO versus Control conditions (simple slope, B = .08, p = .62, 95% CI [-
.22, .38]). This provides support for Hypothesis 4c. However, the moral identity × [CEO ethical
leadership vs. CSR] interaction was not significant (B = .16, p = .39).
Next, the index of moderated mediation for the [CEO ethical leadership vs. Control]
contrast was significant (index = .10, 95% CI [.03, .20]). Follow-up tests show that moral
elevation significantly mediates the link between the [CEO ethical leadership vs. Control]
contrast and job pursuit intentions for those high (B = .14, 95% CI [.07, .23]) versus low (B =
.01, 95% CI [-.05, .09]) on moral identity. These results provide support for Hypothesis 5c.
However, the index for the [CEO ethical leadership vs. CSR] contrast was not significant (index
= .03, 95% CI [-.05, .10]). Moral elevation did not mediate the link between the [CEO ethical
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 29
leadership vs. CSR] contrast and job pursuit intentions for those high on moral identity (B = .04,
95% CI [-.01, .11]) or low (B = .006, 95% CI [-.06, .08]) on moral identity (see Figure 4B).
In sum, Study 3 provides broad support for our prediction that individual differences in
moral identity shape how well job seekers scrutinize and weigh the nuanced ethical information
signaled by CEO ethical leadership. These results provide important qualifications to those
obtained in Study 2. Specifically, we show that job seekers with stronger (versus weaker) moral
identities perceive fairer employee treatment, greater social-environmental responsibility, and
experienced stronger moral elevation in reaction to CEO ethical leadership, compared to the
Control condition. These substantive and rhetorical signaling effects in turn, positively
influenced their job pursuit intentions. Interestingly, while strong moral identity job seekers
perceived fairer employee treatment in the ethical CEO (versus CSR) condition, they perceived
greater social responsibility in the CSR condition. These trends support our argument that high
moral identity job seekers employ greater elaboration strategies, which allow them to carefully
evaluate and interpret the unique ethical message signaled by CEO ethical leadership and CSR,
respectively. In contrast, those low on moral identity were not as nuanced in their reactions as
they showed small (and often insignificant) signaling-based effects in the ethical CEO condition,
compared to the Control and CSR conditions. This supports our contention that low moral
identity job seekers employ low elaboration strategies and as such, are less likely to perceive and
utilize the nuanced ethical information signaled by CEO ethical leadership and CSR.
General Discussion
Theoretical Implications
Our findings contribute to the literature in multiple ways. First, we show that
organizations can better attract job seekers by proactively advertising CEO ethical leadership in
their recruitment activities. To date, academic and practitioner efforts have shown the positive
impact of CSR on job seekers. However, scholars have begun to highlight the potential for CSR
skepticism to override this positive effect (Willness, 2019). In contrast, our research shows that
recruitment messaging that incorporates CEO ethical leadership is not redundant with CSR, and
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 30
functions as its own independent source of “insider” information about an organization’s moral
values. Moreover, we find that job seekers weigh information about CEO ethical leadership more
strongly than CSR. Exploratory findings from Study 1 further illustrate that CEO ethical
leadership more strongly augments the appeal of traditional factors such as pay and perceived fit.
Thus, our research adds to the growing body of theoretical and empirical work that suggests that
CEO ethical leadership can serve as a unique signal of ethical information to organizational
outsiders (Banks et al., 2020; Ogunfowora et al., 2018).
Second, we contribute to the literature by highlighting three unique signaling mechanisms
that explain why job seekers respond positively to CEO ethical leadership. Specifically, we show
that organizations that actively promote their ethical values through CEO ethical leadership
messaging positively influence job seekers by sending substantive (fairer employee treatment
and greater social-environmental responsibility) and rhetorical (moral elevation) signals.
Moreover, we find some evidence that, compared to CSR, CEO ethical leadership uniquely
influences job seekers through fair employee treatment (Studies 2, 3) and moral elevation (Study
2). The moral elevation effects are unique to the recruitment literature and warrant further
exploration. Our finding suggests that job seekers respond more positively (i.e., via moral
elevation) when they learn about the good deeds of a person that embodies the organization
compared to CSR activities attributed to a “faceless” corporate entity (Schnall & Roper, 2012).
However, since these findings were not consistent across our two studies, future research is
needed to better understand the role of moral elevation in the recruitment context.
Third, we advance the literature by exploring individual differences in job seeker
capacity and motivation to evaluate ethical information from CEO ethical leadership. Our
findings show that job seekers with stronger (versus weaker) moral identities react positively to
organizations that are led by an ethical CEO because they believe the organizations will treat
them fairly as employees and will also give back to society and the environment. Our findings
align with evidence that moral identity is relevant to understanding job seekers’ actions (May et
al., 2015; Rupp et al., 2013). However, we advance prior knowledge by showing that moral
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 31
identity shapes the extent to which individuals process and react to the nuanced ethical
information signaled by CEO ethical leadership, relative to CSR. We found that those higher on
moral identity perceived CEO ethical leadership as a stronger signal of fair employee treatment,
while CSR was a stronger signal of information about the organization’s social-environmental
responsibility commitment. In contrast, those lower on moral identity did not detect these
nuances, although they continued to show strong job pursuit intentions for ethical CEOs’
organizations. These findings support the EL model proposition that those with less capacity or
motivation to screen information (i.e., low moral identity) may still react positively to signaled
information based on simple heuristic cues, while those who engage in high elaboration (i.e.,
high moral identity) carefully weigh signaled information in making their decisions (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1986; Uggerslev et al., 2012). These findings are insightful because they suggest that
organizations can use CEO ethical leadership to signal unique cues about their moral values to
specifically attract moral job seekers who can help build and sustain ethical workforces.
We further found that organizations may also attract moral job seekers through rhetorical
signals that appeal to their emotions. We found that high moral identity job seekers experienced
greater moral elevation in response to CEO ethical leadership versus CSR. In contrast, those
lower on moral identity did not show differences in moral elevation across the three conditions.
However, the positive effects of this rhetorical moral signaling were relatively weak in
influencing job pursuit intentions compared to the substantive signals. It is possible that the key
contribution of rhetorical signals, such as moral elevation, lies in their capacity to amplify
substantive signals (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). Moral elevation may draw attention to the
core message from CEO ethical leadership and bolster how job seekers emotionally process
information about the organization’s moral values and actions. Future research is essential to
clarify how moral job seekers react to ethical signaling from a moral emotional lens.
Practical Implications
The present research has useful implications for job seekers and recruitment officers. Our
study indicates that job seekers respond favorably to information about CEO ethical leadership.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 32
This information may be disseminated through videos of the CEO speaking publicly, the CEO’s
social media platforms, and publicized ethics-specific awards. However, awareness and easy
access to information remains pivotal. Just as job seekers need to be aware of CSR initiatives to
respond to them (Du et al., 2010), the same is true for CEO ethical leadership. Individuals must
be aware of the CEO’s ethicality if a company hopes to use it to attract high quality (i.e., morally
oriented) candidates. Companies should consider investing in communication practices that
convey the CEO’s moral standards, principles, and ethical actions to prospective job seekers and
job candidates during the interview process. A significant challenge, however, will be
convincing job seekers that the CEO is truly ethical in order to avoid similar issues that currently
plague CSR advertising. That is, the simple act of advertising the CEO’s ethicality might
engender skepticism in job seekers regarding the firm’s motives.
Our strategy in this paper was to use external sources (e.g., the Ethisphere list; the
Botwinick prize in ethics) to corroborate the CEO’s ethical leadership. Practically, industry
reliance on such external sources in recruitment materials may become devalued over time as
more organizations attempt to get their CEOs nominated, regardless of their true moral
orientations. As such, successful (i.e., convincing) integration of CEO ethical leadership into a
firm’s recruitment strategy will require careful planning and long-term commitment. We suggest
that the ideal recruitment campaign would rely not only on ethical leaders speaking of their
accomplishments and values but putting those values into action – through clear demonstrations
of their ethicality. For instance, during moments of public crises, ethical CEOs may speak up for
fairness and ethical conduct even when doing so might be considered “risky” to the bottom-line.
Lastly, we acknowledge that despite increasing skepticism, job seekers still care about
and respond positively to CSR. This means that organizations must continue to allocate time and
resources to CSR activities and ensure that they reliably communicate these initiatives in order to
attract job seekers. Our findings suggest that job seekers are likely to react positively to
recruitment content that showcases CSR and CEO ethical leadership since they each signal
unique ethical messages to organizational outsiders.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 33
Limitations and Future Research
First, a limitation of this research is that we did not measure the full range of ethical
signals that could affect job seekers’ organizational attraction. For example, scholars have
demonstrated the importance of perceived fairness and anticipated pride about being affiliated
with the organization (Jones et al., 2014). Thus, we encourage future research to examine a wider
range of ethical signals that may play a role in the recruitment process. Moreover, we asked job
seekers to consider CEO ethical leadership (and CSR) along with three traditional recruitment
cues (P-O fit, P-J fit, and pay). Our policy capturing study showed that CEO ethical leadership
and CSR receive relatively lower weight. In future research, it would be valuable to understand
how these two criteria rank among other factors, such as location, recruiter characteristics, and
procedural fairness (Uggerslev et al., 2012). Future studies should further examine the potential
interactive effect between CEO ethical leadership and CSR in shaping job seekers’ perceptions
of signals regarding corporate moral values and subsequent outcomes. For instance, skepticism
of a company’s CSR activities may be mitigated by recruitment information on CEO ethical
leadership, leading to better perceptions and acceptance of the firm’s moral messaging.
Second, we did not assess more nuanced dimensions of CSR that may have yielded
different results in our studies. For example, it is unclear how CEO ethical leadership would
have performed if we separately measured different forms of CSR (e.g., environment,
community, economic, and governance-focused initiatives). Although our assumption is that job
seekers see CSR as operating universally, future research may wish to explore whether different
CSR dimensions play unique roles. Another limitation pertains to our operationalization of moral
elevation. We did not anchor moral elevation items on our manipulations. Specifically, we did
not reference the “CEO” or the “organization’s CSR” when participants responded to the moral
elevation items (e.g., “I am in awe of the CEO of Melgreen” or “the actions of Melgreen’s CSR
initiatives are admirable”). This decision might have contributed to the observed weak and
inconsistent results regarding the mediating effects of moral elevation in Studies 2 and 3.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 34
Third, our focus in this study was on job seekers during a single point in time. However,
future studies may wish to expand the scope of study with a temporal view. That is, exploring
how the effects of moral signaling may evolve over the duration of the hiring process. As job
seekers move through the phases of recruitment, their knowledge of the hiring organization
grows and thus their response to signals may change. At later stages of recruitment, job seekers
intentions are likely to be strongly influenced by information about the ethicality of their
prospective immediate supervisors. Thus, future studies should assess the effects of supervisor
ethical leadership and explore the strength of its effects in relation to CEO ethical leadership.
Moreover, studying the effects of CEO ethical leadership when organizational outsiders become
insiders (e.g., moving from job seeker to employee) during the socialization process could also
provide novel insights. Lastly, although we focus on CEOs, it is critical to note the potential role
that other organizational leaders may play. For instance, it is unclear whether recruitment content
that showcases the ethical leadership of the chief human resources officer or other mid-level
managers would be as effective as those based on the CEO. Alternatively, ethical leadership-
based recruitment messages from different organizational leaders, including the direct
supervisor, may have a multiplicative effect on job seekers. We encourage future research to
shed light on these interesting possibilities.
Conclusion
We set out to explore the possibility that promoting CEO ethical leadership uniquely
influences the attraction of job seekers. We also aimed to show that providing information on
CEO ethical leadership is particularly important to job seekers with stronger moral characters.
Our findings indicate that CEO ethical leadership influences job seekers’ organizational
attraction through unique substantive and rhetorical ethical signals, especially for those with
strong moral identities. We conclude that genuinely developing CEO ethical leadership and
responsibly promoting this information to job seekers will help organizations send clearer ethical
signals to prospective job seekers in hopes of cultivating a more ethical workforce.
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 35
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 39
Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, Internal Consistency Estimates, and Correlations among Study Variables (Study 2)
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. N = 299. Cronbach’s alphas are in parentheses. CSR = Corporate social responsibility. CEO = CEO ethical
leadership. Dummy variables are coded as contrasts against the control group. Correlations involving the dummy variables are non-
parametric correlations.
Control
CSR
CEO
Overall
M (SD)
M (SD)
M (SD)
M (SD)
1
2
3
4
5
6
1. CEO EL dummy
2. CSR dummy
-.49**
3. Fair treatment signal
3.68 (.67)
3.72 (.79)
4.05 (.65)
3.81 (.72)
.23**
-.09
(.82)
4. Social-environment signal
3.37 (.86)
3.83 (.84)
3.80 (.72)
3.66 (.84)
.11
.14*
.73**
(.91)
5. Moral elevation
3.14 (.74)
3.52 (.98)
3.88 (.94)
3.51 (.94)
.27**
.01
.53**
.55**
(.91)
6. Job pursuit intentions
3.70 (.93)
4.07 (.69)
4.17 (.69)
3.98 (.82)
.16**
.07
.64**
.64**
.51**
(.90)
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 40
Table 2
Results of Mediation Analyses Predicting Job Pursuit Intentions (Study 2)
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. N = 299. Model 1: CEO EL versus Control contrast. Model 2: CEO EL versus CSR contrast. Values in bold
indicate significant mediation. “CI: Low” and “CI: High” capture 95% confidence intervals.
Model 1
Model 2
Study variables
Fair
treatment
Social
env.
Moral
elevation
Job
Pursuit
Fair
treatment
Social
env.
Moral
elevation
Job
pursuit
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
Contrast 1: Control vs. CEO EL
.37[.10]**
.43[.12]**
.74[.13]**
.09[.09]
-
-
-
-
Contrast 2: Control vs. CSR
.04 [.10]
.46[.11]**
.38[.13]*
.17[.19]
-
-
-
-
Contrast 1: CSR vs. CEO EL
-
-
-
-
-.33[.10]**
.03[.12]
-.36[.13]**
.07[.09]
Contrast 2: CSR vs. Control
-
-
-
-
-.37[.10]**
-.43[.12]**
-.74[.13]**
-.09[.09]
Fair treatment signal
.40[.07]**
.40[.07]**
Social-environment signal
.27[.06]**
.27[.06]**
Experienced moral elevation
.14[.05]**
.14[.05]**
∆R2
.23**
.25**
.32**
.71**
.23**
.25**
.32**
.71**
Indirect Effects
B
SE
CI: Low
CI: High
Model 1: Control vs. CEO ethical leadership
A. Fair treatment signal
.15
.05
.07
.25
B. Social-environment signal
.12
.04
.05
.21
C. Experienced moral elevation
.10
.04
.03
.19
Model 2: CSR vs. CEO ethical leadership
A. Fair treatment signal
.13
.05
.05
.23
B. Social- environment signal
-.01
.03
-.07
.05
C. Experienced moral elevation
.05
.03
.01
.11
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 41
Table 3
Means, Standard Deviations, Internal Consistency Estimates, and Correlations among Study Variables (Study 3)
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. N = 475. Cronbach’s alphas are in parentheses. CSR = Corporate social responsibility. CEO = CEO ethical
leadership. Dummy variables are coded as contrasts against the control group. Correlations involving the dummy variables are non-
parametric correlations.
Control
CSR
CEO
Overall
M (SD)
M (SD)
M (SD)
M (SD)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1. CEO condition dummy
2. CSR condition dummy
-.49**
3. Social-environment signal
3.10 (1.04)
3.95 (.86)
3.69 (.83)
3.58 (.98)
.05
.24**
(.94)
4. Fair treatment signal
3.47 (.83)
3.86 (.77)
4.10 (.76)
3.81 (.83)
.21**
.04
.74**
(.88)
5. Moral elevation
3.22 (1.07)
3.52 (.98)
3.59 (1.04)
3.44 (1.04)
.09*
.04
.61**
.55**
(.93)
6. Job pursuit intentions
3.41 (1.01)
3.76 (.88)
3.92 (.90)
3.69 (.89)
.13**
.04
.68**
.69**
.60**
(.90)
7. Moral identity
4.45 (.62)
4.48 (.56)
4.36 (.67)
4.43 (.62)
-.05
.02
.12*
.22**
.22**
.14**
(.80)
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 42
Table 4
Results of Mediation and Moderated Mediation Analyses Predicting Job Pursuit Intentions (Study 3)
Model 1 (Control vs. CEO ethical leadership)
Model 2 (CSR vs. CEO ethical leadership)
Study variables
Fair
treatment
Social
env.
Moral
elevation
Job
Pursuit (D)
Fair
treatment
Social
env.
Moral
elevation
Job pursuit
(D)
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
B[SE]
Contrast 1: Control vs. CEO EL
.67[.09]**
.61[.10]**
.41[.11]**
.05[.07]
-
-
-
-
Contrast 2: Control vs. CSR
.37[.09]**
.83[.10]**
.27[.11]*
-.08[.07]
-
-
-
-
Contrast 1: CSR vs. CEO EL
-
-
-
-
.29[.09]**
-.22[.10]*
.13[.11]
.13[.07]a
Contrast 2: CSR vs. Control
-
-
-
-
-.38[.09]**
-.83[.10]**
-.27[.11]*
.08[.14]
Moral Identity (W)
.06[.10]
-.13[.11]
.07[.13]
-
.22[.11]**
.42[.13]**
.44[.14]**
-
Contrast 1 × Moral Identity
.46[.13]**
.41[.16]**
.53[.17]**
-
.19[.14]
-.14[.17]
.16[.19]
-
Contrast 2 × Moral Identity
.27[.15]a
.55[.17]**
.37[.19]*
-
-.27[.15]a
-.55[.17]**
-.37[.19]*
-
Fair treatment signal
.37[.05]**
.37[.05]**
Social-environment signal
.27[.05]**
.27[.05]**
Experienced moral elevation
.20[.03]**
.20[.03]**
∆R2
.42**
.41**
.30**
.76**
.42**
.41**
.30**
.76**
Indirect Effects
B
SE
CI: Low
CI: High
Model 1: Control vs. CEO ethical leadership
A. Fair treatment signal
.23
.05
.16
.32
B. Social and environment signal
.16
.05
.09
.25
C. Experienced moral elevation
.07
.03
.03
.12
Model 2: CSR vs. CEO ethical leadership
A. Fair treatment signal
.09
.04
.04
.15
B. Social and environment signal
-.07
.03
-.12
-.03
C. Experienced moral elevation
.01
.02
-.02
.05
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 43
Table 4 Continued
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. a p < .07. N = 475. W = moral identity. Values in bold indicate significant mediation. CEO EL = CEO ethical
leadership. The moderated mediation analyses reported here were carried out in PROCESS (Model 7). However, the indirect effect
estimates are from a separate analysis modeled in PROCESS (Model 4). “CI: Low” and “CI: High” capture 95% confidence intervals. A =
Fair treatment signal; B = Social and environment signal; C = Experienced moral elevation; D = Job pursuit intentions.
Conditional Indirect Effects
B
SE
CI: Low
CI: High
Model 1: Control vs. CEO ethical leadership
[Control vs. CEO EL] A D, when W is low
.14
.05
.06
.24
[Control vs. CEO EL] A D, when W is high
.35
.07
.23
.48
Index of moderated mediation
.17
.05
.08
.28
[Control vs. CEO EL] B D, when W is low
.10
.05
.02
.20
[Control vs. CEO EL] B D, when W is high
.23
.07
.12
.37
Index of moderated mediation
.11
.05
.02
.23
[Control vs. CEO EL] C D, when W is low
.01
.04
-.05
.09
[Control vs. CEO EL] C D, when W is high
.14
.04
.07
.23
Index of moderated mediation
.10
.04
.03
.20
Model 2: CSR vs. CEO ethical leadership
[CSR vs CEO EL] A D, when W is low
.06
.05
-.02
.17
[ CSR vs CEO EL] A D, when W is high
.15
.05
.07
.24
Index of moderated mediation
.07
.05
-.04
.17
[ CSR vs CEO EL] B D, when W is low
-.04
.04
-.11
.04
[ CSR vs CEO EL] B D, when W is high
-.08
.04
-.15
-.02
Index of moderated mediation
-.04
.04
-.13
.04
[ CSR vs CEO EL] C D, when W is low
.007
.03
-.06
.08
[ CSR vs CEO EL] C D, when W is high
.04
.03
-.01
.11
Index of moderated mediation
.03
.04
-.05
.10
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 44
Figure 1
Conceptual Model
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 45
Figure 2
Job Seekers’ Moral Identity and Exposure to CEO Ethical Leadership, CSR, and Control Conditions in Predicting Expectations of
Fair Employee Treatment (A) and Job Pursuit Intentions (B) – Study 3
Note. CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility. Low and high levels of moral identity capture ±1SD from the mean. Figure 2B
represents the effects of CEO ethical leadership and CSR on job pursuit intentions, indirectly through expectations of fair employee
treatment, for high versus low moral identity job seekers (controlling for the two other mediation paths).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 46
Figure 3
Job Seekers’ Moral Identity and Exposure to CEO Ethical Leadership, CSR, and Control Conditions in Predicting Perceived Social-
Environmental Responsibility (A) and Job Pursuit Intentions (B) – Study 3
Note. CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility. Low and High levels of moral identity capture ±1SD from the mean. Figure 3B
represents the effects of CEO EL and CSR on job pursuit intentions indirectly through social-environmental signal for high versus
low moral identity job seekers (controlling for the two other mediation paths).
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CEO ETHICAL LEADERSHIP AND JOB SEEKERS 47
Figure 4
Job Seekers’ Moral Identity and Exposure to CSR activities and CEO Ethical Leadership in Predicting Experienced Moral Elevation
(4A) and Job Pursuit Intentions (4B) – Study 3
Note. CSR = Corporate Social Responsibility. Low and high levels of moral identity capture ±1SD from the mean. Figure 4B
represents the effects of CEO ethical leadership and CSR on job pursuit intentions, indirectly through experienced moral elevation,
for high versus low moral identity job seekers (controlling for the two other mediation paths).
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ONLINE SUPPLEMENT
Appendix A (Study 1)
Policy Capturing Study Profile Development Procedure
We followed three major steps in developing these profiles in line with past research (Aiman-
Smith et al., 2002; Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). First, using construct descriptions from the literature, we
created a list of critical incidents for four recruitment cues: CEO ethical leadership, CSR, P-O fit, and P-
J fit. We ensured that the incidents reflected a mix of lower and higher levels of each cue and were
representative in terms of construct domain breadth. For instance, the CSR cues captured community-
oriented and pro-environment initiatives (Willness, 2019), while the CEO ethical leadership incidents
captured key moral manager behaviors such as communicating ethical standards, encouraging
employees to speak up when they witness wrongdoing, and using rewards/punishment to recognize
employees who act morally/immorally (Brown et al., 2005). Through this process, we created a total of
99 critical incidents, including 18 P-O fit, 21 P-J fit, 27 CSR, and 33 CEO ethical leadership statements.
Second, we randomized the list of incidents and administered them to a sample of seven subject matter
experts (three graduate students and four professors in I/O psychology and organizational behavior).
Participants were given detailed definitions of the four constructs and asked to use only these definitions
in completing the exercise. We asked our panel of SMEs to classify each critical incident in terms of the
recruitment cue/dimension it best represents. Thus, this sample provided inter-rater agreement data for
each statement. Next, we administered the items to 107 senior-level undergraduate business students in a
pilot study. Participants were given detailed definitions of the four constructs (we informed them that
these were work characteristics that are important to employees). We also provided information on
which of the four characteristics each statement belonged to and subsequently asked them to rate how
well each statement represented a high of the characteristic on a 5-point scale (1 – very low (represents a
very low level of this work characteristic); 5 – very high (represents a very high level of this work
characteristic)). Hence, we obtained means and standard deviations for each statement with respect to
how well it captured the respective recruitment cue. We used the data from the SMEs and pilot study
data to refine our list of incidents. We selected only critical incidents that had strong agreement among
SMEs regarding cue classification. Specifically, we selected those that were classified as representing
the same recruitment cue by 6 out of the 7 SMEs (31%) or 7 out of 7 SMEs (69%). For statements that
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did not receive 100% agreement, the six SMEs identified the statement as belonging to the cue that we
originally developed it for. Further discussion confirmed that the statement did in fact represent the
intended cue. We selected incidents that were clearly indicative of high (average of 4 or higher) and low
(average of 2 or below) levels of each cue. We further chose cues with standard deviations less than 1.5
(Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). Lastly, we sought to ensure construct domain breadth by prioritizing
diversity in the content of the chosen incidents (e.g., in some cases, in lieu of incidents with very low
SDs or 100% SME agreement). Overall, 33 incidents were selected to represent each of the four
recruitment cues (9 incidents for CEO ethical leadership and 8 each for the remaining cues). Appendix C
in the online supplement shows that the incidents were quite similar in terms of participants’ perceptions
of how well they represented high versus low levels of their respective cues (see Table 6 below for the
means and standard deviations). To determine high and low levels of the fifth cue (i.e., pay), we
obtained real salary data for the most recent graduating class of MBA and undergraduate students from
the business school’s career centre. Given that salaries for undergrads and MBAs differed significantly,
we presented each group with figures specific to their education level. We informed participants of the
average salary in the instructions (see Appendix D in the online supplement) and used values of -1SD
($42,000 for undergrads; $71,433 for MBAs) and +1SD ($61,875 for undergrads; $112,412 for MBAs)
to represent low and high salaries in the profiles.
Lastly, we constructed 32 separate profiles, ensuring a random selection (without replacement)
of incidents from each pool of the five dimensions. The random sampling procedure created roughly
independent profiles, whose presentation order were randomized to minimize primacy or recency bias
effects (We created three order presentation versions with the following orders: CEO EL-CSR-POfit-
PJfit-Pay; POfit-CSR-CEO EL-Pay-PJfit; and Pay-PJfit-CSR-POfit-CEO EL). We created orthogonal
cues by completely crossing all possible combinations of each cue, resulting in 25 or 32 scenarios. We
included six “practice” profiles at the beginning of the exercise to familiarize participants with the
procedure (Aiman-Smith et al., 2002). Lastly, we repeated two profiles to assess within-rater
consistency (Aiman-Smith et al., 2012; Kristof-Brown et al., 2002).
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Table 6
Means and Standard Deviations of Critical Incidents Used in Creating Policy Profiles
CEO Ethical Leadership (High)
Mean
SD
1
The CEO of Company [ ] always encourages employees to speak out when they
witness morally-questionable behaviours at work.
4.50
0.69
2
The CEO of Company [ ] always communicates clear ethical standards by which
employees must adhere.
4.45
0.76
3
The CEO of Company [ ] always disciplines employees who engage in unethical
behaviors.
4.44
0.76
4
The CEO of Company [ ] always recognizes employees who engage in ethical conduct
at work (e.g., through praises or rewards).
4.28
0.83
CEO Ethical Leadership (Low)
5
The CEO of Company [ ] never encourages employees to speak out when they witness
morally-questionable behaviours at work.
1.32
0.67
6
The CEO of Company [ ] never communicates clear ethical standards by which
employees must adhere.
1.32
0.68
7
The CEO of Company [ ] never disciplines employees who engage in unethical
behaviors.
1.32
0.70
8
The CEO of Company [ ] never recognizes employees who engage in ethical conduct
at work (e.g., through praises or rewards).
1.73
1.00
9
The CEO of Company [ ] never talks about ethical business values and practices with
employees.
1.41
0.70
CSR (High)
10
Company [ ] always makes its products from sustainable materials.
4.15
1.05
11
Company [ ] always tries to limit its impact on climate change.
4.10
1.06
12
Company [ ] always contributes financial resources to the development of local
communities in which it operates.
4.36
0.94
13
Company [ ] always allows its employees to allocate some of their work hours toward
community support programs of their choosing.
4.07
1.01
CSR (Low)
14
Company [ ] rarely contributes financial resources to the development of local
communities in which it operates.
1.93
0.98
15
Company [ ] rarely allows its employees to allocate some of their work hours toward
community support programs of their choosing.
1.96
0.85
16
Company [ ] rarely tries to use recycled products in its offices.
2.00
0.97
17
Company [ ] rarely makes its products from sustainable materials.
2.03
0.95
P-O Fit (High)
18
The culture of Company [ ] strongly supports your beliefs and values.
4.35
0.87
19
Working with Company [ ] will help you achieve all of your career goals.
4.35
0.91
20
Company [ ]'s values are well aligned with your own personal values.
4.18
0.78
21
Company [ ]'s strategic goals are aligned with your career goals.
4.17
0.90
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P-O Fit (Low)
22
The culture of Company [ ] does not support your beliefs and values.
1.56
0.89
23
Working with Company [ ] will not help you achieve your career goals.
1.59
0.99
24
Company [ ]'s strategic goals are incompatible with your career goals.
1.71
1.04
25
Company [ ]'s values are in conflict with your own personal values.
1.76
1.00
P-J Fit (High)
26
Your skills and abilities fit extremely well with the requirements of this job.
4.47
0.69
27
This job completely fulfills your desires in terms of the personal growth you seek in a
job.
4.43
0.90
28
This position offers you all the things you desire in a job (e.g., preferred work hours,
work-life balance, etc).
4.38
0.87
29
You find the tasks that you will be performing on this job to be very interesting and
challenging.
4.29
0.87
P-J Fit (Low)
30
This position does not offer you the things you desire in a job (e.g., preferred work
hours, work-life balance, etc).
1.64
0.90
31
This job does not fulfill your desires in terms of the personal growth that you seek in a
job.
1.82
0.87
32
Your skills and abilities do not really fit well with the requirements of this job.
1.88
0.86
33
You find the tasks that you will be performing on this job to be boring and
unchallenging.
1.97
1.03
Pay (High)
34
The starting annual salary for this job is $61,875 ($112,412 for the MBA group).
-
-
Pay (Low)
35
The starting annual salary for this job is $42,000 ($71,433 for the MBA group).
-
-
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Appendix B (Study 1)
Screenshot of Policy Capturing Exercise Instructions and Sample Profiles
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Appendix C (Study 2)
Experimental Manipulation Materials
As a reminder, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: the control condition, the
CEO condition, and the CSR condition. Participants in the control condition only viewed the pages
labeled as “Who We Are” and “Join Us.” Participants in the experimental conditions reviewed these
pages, as well as information about the organization’s CEO (CEO ethical leadership condition) or social
responsibility activities (CSR condition), respectively.
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We Generate and Distribute Energy
Life takes Energy. The Melgreen Group generates the energy it takes you to live your lives –
whether it is the fuel that takes you on family vacations, the fresh food that arrives at your grocery
store, or the heating of your homes and businesses. We have a large network of generating and
transporting crude oil and liquids and also specialize in natural gas and electricity.
Who We Are
The Melgreen Group is a privately held energy supply and delivery company operating out of the
Central and Western United States. We operate a large crude oil and liquids pipeline supply
network and are a nationally recognized retail electricity and energy provider of electricity and
natural gas. With more than a decade of experience as an affordable energy supplier, we work
consistently to supply reliable, low-cost electricity and a better customer experience to hundreds
of thousands of satisfied customers across 21 states.
The Melgreen Group is currently based out of Dallas, Texas. We have operations across the
Central and Western United States. We have grown steadily over the past few years and are
currently expanding our offices across the United States.
Our Senior Leadership
John Schmitt, Chief Executive Officer
>>WHO WE ARE
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News Releases
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Careers
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[Ethical CEO Condition]
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Our Commitment to
Corporate Social Responsibility
Our commitment to corporate social responsibility is founded on our values of integrity, mutual respect for
all those who interact with our business, community support, and ethical operations. At The Melgreen
Group, conducting business in a responsible manner means:
doing business in an ethical manner
protecting the environment and the safety of people
providing economic and other social benefits to the communities in which we operate
supporting universal human rights
employing a variety of policies, programs and practices to manage corporate governance and
ensure fair, full and timely disclosure.
The MelGreen Group strives to be involved in the communities that it serves through a variety of
community support programs. We have supported over 50 community programs in the past ten years, and
continue to find ways to give back to our communities.
How Melgreen Supports the Community
Community Support
Melgreen provides funding for community projects that are located near our
facilities and exploration interests across the United States. Priority is given to
social, health, environmental, and other local concerns. Not-for-profit
organizations in communities neighbouring Melgreen operations are eligible
to apply for grants from $10,000 to $250,000 per year. Applications are
December 1 and April 1 of each year. To learn more, visit funding guidelines
and process.
Green Energy
Since 2010, we have invested more than $50 million into renewable energy
products, including wind, solar, geothermal, and power transmission, and
emerging technology. In total, we have invested over 2 thousand metawatts of
green power capacity – enough to supply more than 700,000 homes across
the United States.
Melgreen commits to environmental sustainability through our partnership
with the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF) to support the Monarch Butterfly population. This butterfly
uses the milkweed plant for all of its lifecycle stages, but the butterfly has been decreasing at an alarming
rate throughout the United States due to the reduction of habitat and the milkweed plant. With our
support, the NWF plans to plant a large habitat to grow this species’ population. From 2015-2020
Melgreen has committed to donate $500,000 to the project
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>>MELGREEN AND THE COMMUNITY
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[CSR Condition]
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APPENDIX D (Study 3)
Experimental Manipulation Materials
As with Study 3, participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: the control condition, the
CEO condition, and the CSR condition. The “Who we are” and “Join Us” web pages were identical to
those used in Study 3. To rule out the possibility that those in the CSR and CEO conditions were simply
provided with more information (3 pages total) compared to those in the Control condition (2 pages total),
participants in Study 4 were exposed to 4 pages total each. The breakdown is as follows:
Control Condition Web Pages: “Who we are”, “Join Us” “Documents and policies”, “New releases”
CEO Condition Web Pages: “Who we are” “Join Us”, “CEO Ethical Leadership Award”, and either
“Documents and policies” or “News releases” web pages (randomly assigned).
CSR Condition Web Pages: “Who we are” “Join Us”, “CSR Information and Award”, and either
“Documents and policies” or “News releases” web pages (randomly assigned).
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[Ethical CEO Condition]
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[CSR Condition]
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Appendix E
Table 7
Results of confirmatory factor analyses (Studies 2 and 3)
χ2
df
Δχ2
Δdf
RMSEA
CFI
TLI
SRMR
Study 2
Hypothesized four-factor model
457.19**
146
-
-
.08
.94
.92
.048
Three-factor model: Expected employee treatment and Perceived social-
environment responsibility combined
602.03**
149
144.84**
3
.10
.91
.89
.051
Three-factor model: Expected employee treatment and Moral Elevation
combined
1138.22**
149
681.03**
3
.15
.79
.76
.14
Three-factor model: Perceived social-environment responsibility and
Moral Elevation combined
1262.85**
149
805.66**
3
.16
.77
.73
.09
Two-factor model: All mediators combined
1404.10**
151
946.91**
5
.17
.74
.70
.09
One-factor model
1746.51**
152
1289.32**
6
.19
.67
.62
.10
Study 3
Hypothesized four-factor model
619.99**
146
-
-
.08
.95
.94
.047
Three-factor model: Expected employee treatment and Perceived social-
environment responsibility combined
1012.26**
149
392.27**
3
.11
.90
.89
.054
Three-factor model: Expected employee treatment and Moral Elevation
combined
1805.08**
149
1185.09**
3
.15
.81
.78
.13
Three-factor model: Perceived social-environment responsibility and
Moral Elevation combined
2096.81**
149
1476.82**
3
.16
.78
.74
.08
Two-factor model: All mediators combined
2467.32**
151
1847.33**
5
.18
.74
.70
.09
One-factor model
2843.43**
152
2223.44**
6
.19
.69
.65
.09
Note. **p < .01.
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