We are very pleased to announce the recent work by Armin Pircher Verdorfer and Claudia Peus accepted for publication in Business Ethics: A European Review (BEER).
In this study, Pircher Verdorfer and Peus investigate a key question of ethical leadership theory: Are ethical leaders able to gain followers’ openness to their ethical influence? When describing ethical leadership, they distinguish between leaders’ moral person behavior (i.e., behaviors that are normatively appropriate) and moral management (i.e., using position power to reinforce ethical standards). The authors then draw on mechanisms of social learning and social exchange and test a moderated mediation model. It is predicted that the effect of leaders’ moral person behavior on followers’ openness to ethical influence is mediated by leader-follower ethical value congruence. Moreover, the authors examine whether moral management amplifies the effects of moral person behavior. For hypothesis testing, existing measures from the literature are integrated to operationalize four underlying normative reference points of leaders’ moral person behavior: humane, justice, responsibility/sustainability, and moderation orientation. After establishing the psychometric properties of this integrative measure, the main hypotheses are tested in two separate studies.
While results showed a positive effect of leaders’ moral person behavior on followers’ openness to ethical influence through ethical value congruence, the moderating effect of moral management was, contrary to the authors' expectation, negative. With this, this study contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms of ethical leadership.