Ethical Leadership as Antecedent of Job Satisfaction, Affective Organizational Commitment and Intention to Stay Among Volunteers of Non-profit Organizations

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate among a group of non-profit organizations: (a) the effect of ethical leadership (EL) on volunteers’ satisfaction, affective organizational commitment and intention to stay in the same organization; (b) the role played by job satisfaction as a mediator in the relationship between EL and volunteers’ intentions to stay in the same organization, as well as between EL and affective commitment. An anonymous questionnaire was individually administered to 198 Italian volunteers of different non-profit organizations. The questionnaire contained the Ethical Leadership Scale, the Volunteers Satisfaction Index, the Affective organization Scale, as well as questions regarding the participants’ age, sex, type of work, level of education, length of their volunteer works, intention to volunteer in the following months in the same organization. The construct as well the effects of EL on volunteers is approached in light of the Social Exchange Theory and the Social Learning Theory. Structural equation models were used to test hypothesized relationships. The results confirm the role of mediation of volunteer satisfaction in the relationships between the variables studied. In particular, EL was found to be positively associated both with volunteers’ intention of staying and with their affective commitment. In the first case this relationship is fully explained by the mediation of the volunteers’ satisfaction, while the latter is explained by both direct and indirect factors. To the authors’ knowledge, this the first attempt to understand the role played by EL on volunteers’ behavior and, more in general, in the management of non-profit organizations. Findings are relevant both for practitioners and managers of non-profit organization, since they suggest the relevance of the perception of EL by volunteers, as well as for scholars, since they further deepen the knowledge on EL and its effects on the followers. Limits of the study: the questionnaire was administered only among a group of non-statistical sample of volunteers. Furthermore, the study reached only volunteers from Italian non-profit organization.

The Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS): Italian adaptation and exploration of the nomological network in a health care setting

“…The results also extend research on ethical leadership in different ways. First, this study confirms that, as already observed in the literature, the ethical leadership construct is related to work engagement (Ahmad & Gao, ; Asif et al, ), job satisfaction (Benevene et al, ; Qing, Asif, Hussain, & Jameel, in press) and leader–member exchange (Walumbwa et al, ), extending the existence of these associations to a health care setting. In particular, the positive relationship with leader–member exchange confirms that ethical leadership, although different, shares some characteristics with other leadership styles, which in this case is the positive orientation towards employees in order to share and implement moral and ethical behaviours (Den Hartog, ).…”

“…Regarding the effects of ethical leadership, the literature suggests that they are related, among others, to an enhanced sense of meaning and well‐being in the workplace (Avey, Wernsing, & Palanski, ), organisational commitment to the organisation (Lotfi, Atashzadeh‐Shoorideh, Mohtashami, & Nasiri, ; Neves & Story, ), trust in organisations (Xu, Loi, & Ngo, ), and organisational ethical climate (Demirtas & Akdogan, ; Treviño et al, ). Furthermore, ethical leadership seems to be positively associated with work engagement (Ahmad & Gao, ; Asif, Qing, Hwang, & Shi, ), job satisfaction (Benevene et al, ; Qing, Asif, Hussain, & Jameel, in press) and leader–member exchange (Walumbwa et al, ), and it seems to be negatively associated with employee burnout (Mo & Shi, ).…”

“…In addition, the scale has good reliability, with Cronbach's α s close to or above .90 (Brown et al, ; Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, ; Walumbwa et al, ). In Italy, to our knowledge, only one study has been published using a version of the ELS adapted to the context of volunteering (Benevene et al, ). Thus, it is an important priority to make available an Italian version of the ELS validated in a study in health care organisations.…”

Direct and Indirect Effects of Transformational Leadership on Volunteers’ Intention to Remain at Non-profit Organizations

“…However, as with other organizational variables, there are few studies that address the relationship between volunteer coordinators' leadership style and volunteers' retention (Smith, 2017). Extant studies also focus on very specific leadership styles: ethical leadership (Benevene et al, 2018), autonomy-supportive leadership (Oostlander et al, 2014), and servant leadership (Hines, 2017;Schneider & George, 2011).…”

Authentic leadership, job satisfaction and organizational commitment: The moderating effect of nurse tenure

“…In turnover research, work attitudes have been frequently investigated; for example, job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been reported to be connected to quality nursing performance and job retention (Ahmad, Ahmad, & Shah, ; Halter et al, ). Nurses who are satisfied with their tasks, their work environments and the ways they are treated by their organizations are likely to feel a deeper connection to their organizations and accordingly increase their organizational commitment (Benevene et al, ; Chang, ). In contrast, low levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been linked to negative work outcomes, such as missed nursing care, poor‐quality nursing care, decreased organizational citizenship behaviour and high turnover (Gillet et al, ; Rose, ).…”