Leadership integrity and the role of human resource management in Greece: Gatekeeper or bystander?

Abstract

With ethical misconduct commonplace in organizations and with the touting of competitive advantage associated with ethical organizational practices, considerable attention has turned to leadership integrity. Leaders are uniquely situated to influence the behavior of organizational members, and integrity has been shown to be instrumental in supporting ethical behavior and decision-making. This article explores the role and influence of human resources management (HRM) in supporting leadership integrity among a group of large organizations operating in crisis-stricken Greece. Although the institutional and cultural context of Greece appears to exacerbate role tensions confronted by human resources (HR) professionals, its forces are not deterministic; findings from in-depth interviews with 12 HR directors indicate that the HR potential to secure ethical influence at the top level is primarily contingent on the nature of the organization's culture. Cultures of integrity enable HR executives to influence integrity and ethical behavior in top management teams (TMTs). In contrast, compliance-based organizational cultures appear to breed a fickle HR presence: fostering integrity and ethical behavior for the middle and lower levels of an organization, while turning a blind eye to integrity violations at the top.

The impact of servant leadership and perceived organisational and supervisor support on job burnout and work–life balance in the era of teleworking and COVID-19

“…Our study provided empirical evidence in this direction, adding to studies portraying servant leadership as a factor that helps employees reduce job burnout (Bakker and de Vries, 2021). This is an important finding given that a significant proportion of employees in Greece has experienced significant problems related to work-life balance, mental health and job security (Eurofound, 2021), following a prolonged crisis that deeply affected workplaces (Tasoulis et al, 2019).…”

“…Long working hours, poor work-life balance, high levels of job insecurity and deteriorations in various health and well-being indicators (Eurofound, 2021) could be buffered through various mechanisms at the national and organisational levels. We suggest that nurturing servant leadership and POS are instrumental in ameliorating such indicators, limiting some of the problems observed in the labour market, such as undeclared work and unpaid overtime (Tasoulis et al, 2019).…”

Weathering the storm: talent management in internationally oriented Greek small and medium-sized enterprises

“…We have already noted that organisations respond to institutional pressure in different ways (Oliver, 1991), and as Boon et al (2009) assert, how they implement TM is largely determined by the role of human agency, as well as additional factors such as leadership, the company's financial health and the modus operandi of the HR managers. This was true for the Greeks SMEs in our study, whodespite the challenging business environment of economic hardships and ethical breakdown (Tasoulis et al, 2019) chose to invest in inclusive TM practices rather than downsizing and laying off employees. This shows that although institutional pressures matter, they were not entirely deterministic in this case.…”

Employees’ Psychological Characteristics and Sustainable Leadership in Firms With High and Low Entrepreneurial Orientation

“…It means that individuals make decisions based on the same principles and similarly resolve them in similar situations. Integrity is established early in life and influenced by the family and the immediate environment (Tasoulis et al, 2019).…”

“…Integrity helps with having healthy, sustainable organizations that operate in favor of all stakeholders. Leadership sets the entire company's tone and expectations (Tasoulis et al, 2019). Furthermore, McCann and Sweet (2014) claim that "if leaders lack integrity and sustainable leadership behaviors, they may be unable to achieve the strategic goals of the organization and may place their organizations in challenging situations that result in compliance issues, poor decision making, morale problems, and communication issues" (p. 381).…”