Ethical Leadership Behavior and Employee Justice Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Trust in Organization

Abstract

Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees' evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the linkage between ethical leadership behavior and the above two types of organization-focused justice. We further suggest trust in organization as a key mediating mechanism in the linkage. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership behavior engenders employees' trust in their employing organization, which in turn promotes their justice perceptions toward the organization. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested.

Exploring Intervening Influence of Interactional Justice between Procedural Justice and Job Performance: Evidence from South Asian Countries

“…Ripley et al (2006), Komendat and Didona (2016) found that an employee's perception of the work environment influences behaviour and predict their performance. The perception among employees is an outcome of procedures being executed, hence the loyalty and motivation to work is the reflection of fairness (Xu, Loi and Ngo, 2016). Procedural justice as a dimension of organizational justice has been studied both negatively and positively (Vermunt and Steensma, 2016).…”

Are Managers in Slovakia Ethical Leaders? Key Findings on the Level of Ethical Leadership in the Slovak Business Environment

“…Studies focusing on the positive consequences of ethical leadership are also numerous (for e.g. Xu et al, 2014;Babalola et al, 2014;Mayer et al, 2012;Elci et al, 2012;Den Hartog and Belschak, 2012;Neubert et al, 2009;Toor and Ofori, 2009).…”

The Effect of Ethical Leadership on Organizational Learning: Evidence from a Petroleum Company

“…Ethical leaders demonstrate accountability, fairness, honesty and concerned for others and set standards for their followers (Brown & Treviño, 2006;Brown et al, 2005;Kalshoven et al, 2011;Xu et al, 2016). In this study, we focused on accountability and fairness as the aspects of ethical leadership and the links of these constructs with organizational learning.…”

“…Resick et al (2011) suggest that honesty, integrity, trustworthiness, sincerity, authenticity, self-discipline and courage and good intentions are important aspects of ethical leadership. In this study, following Brown & Treviño (2006) and Xu et al (2016), we focus on two aspects of ethical leadership -fairness and accountability -given the importance of these aspects for employee motivation, performance and productivity. Our choice of accountability is inspired by the argument that accountability is a key aspect that can overcome destructive practices and can contribute to economic and social development (Aguilera & Adera, 2008).…”

“…It is argued that lack of ethics and ethical leadership has contributed to such failure scandals (Brown & Treviño, 2006;Eisenbeiß & Brodbeck, 2014;Knights & O'Leary, 2005;Martin, Keating, Dickson, Kwan & Peng, 2011;Xu, Loi & Ngo, 2016). The importance of ethical behavior of the leaders has been acknowledged for the improved performance and growth of a range of different organizations and institutions such as business organizations, sports teams and religious institutions (Brown & Treviño, 2006;Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2006;Tseng & Wu, 2017).…”