Ethical Leadership and Reporting of Ethical Problems: The Roles of Moral Potency and Moral Identity

Abstract

Abstract:

Given the prevalence and concealment of unethical behaviors in organizations, reporting of ethical problems to management represents an important ethical management resource for organizations. Based on social learning theory and moral conation perspective, we examine the relationship between ethical leadership and followers' reporting of ethical problems, and especially explore the mediating role of moral potency and the moderating effect of moral identity between them. Through a two-stage survey-based study of 326 employees in multiple organizations, hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap are applied to test our hypotheses. The results reveal that ethical leadership has a positive effect on employees' reporting of ethical problems and moral potency partially mediates the relationship between the two. When employee has higher moral identity, ethical leadership is more positively related to reporting of ethical problems. For the employee with low moral identity, ethical leadership is more positively related to moral potency. In addition, the mediating effect of moral potency between ethical leadership and reporting of ethical problems is stronger among the employees with low moral identity. The conclusions provide a new perspective for understanding how ethical leadership triggers followers' reporting of ethical problems and has important practical implications for enhancing ethical management in organizations.

Key words: ethical leadership, reporting of ethical problems, moral potency, moral identity

Zhang Fawang, Liao Jianqiao. Ethical Leadership and Reporting of Ethical Problems: The Roles of Moral Potency and Moral Identity[J]. , 2017, 29(12): 94-105.

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