IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v158y2019i4d10.1007_s10551-017-3771-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Boundary Conditions of Ethical Leadership: Exploring Supervisor-Induced and Job Hindrance Stress as Potential Inhibitors

Author

Listed:
  • Matthew J. Quade

    (Baylor University)

  • Sara J. Perry

    (Baylor University)

  • Emily M. Hunter

    (Baylor University)

Abstract

It is widely accepted that ethical leadership is beneficial for the organization, the leader, and followers. Yet, little has been said about potential limitations of ethical leadership, particularly boundary conditions involving the same person perceived to display ethical leadership. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we argue that supervisor-induced hindrance stress and job hindrance stress are factors linked to the supervisor and work environment that may limit the positive impact of ethical leadership on employee deviance and turnover intentions. Specifically, we expect that high levels of hindrance stress drain resources, specifically perceptions of social support, by inhibiting the completion of work, particularly in combination with the high expectations of ethical leaders. We test our model across two time-lagged field studies (N = 310 and N = 299). Our results demonstrate that supervisor-induced hindrance stress mitigates some of the beneficial impact of ethical leadership and that job hindrance stress further strains these relationships. Overall, our results suggest that both forms of hindrance stress jointly impact the effectiveness of ethical leadership on important outcomes, and do so partly because of their influence on perceived social support. We discuss theoretical contributions to the ethical leadership and stress bodies of literature, as well as practical implications for managers and organizations wishing to develop ethical leaders.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthew J. Quade & Sara J. Perry & Emily M. Hunter, 2019. "Boundary Conditions of Ethical Leadership: Exploring Supervisor-Induced and Job Hindrance Stress as Potential Inhibitors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(4), pages 1165-1184, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3771-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3771-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3771-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-017-3771-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Avey & Michael Palanski & Fred Walumbwa, 2011. "When Leadership Goes Unnoticed: The Moderating Role of Follower Self-Esteem on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Follower Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 98(4), pages 573-582, February.
    2. Jeroen Stouten & Elfi Baillien & Anja Broeck & Jeroen Camps & Hans Witte & Martin Euwema, 2010. "Discouraging Bullying: The Role of Ethical Leadership and its Effects on the Work Environment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(1), pages 17-27, September.
    3. Frederick, Robert E. & Hoffman, W. Michael, 1995. "Environmental Risk Problems and the Language of Ethics," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(4), pages 699-711, October.
    4. Perry, Sara Jansen & Hunter, Emily M. & Currall, Steven C., 2016. "Managing the innovators: Organizational and professional commitment among scientists and engineers," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(6), pages 1247-1262.
    5. K. Kacmar & Martha Andrews & Kenneth Harris & Bennett Tepper, 2013. "Ethical Leadership and Subordinate Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Organizational Politics and the Moderating Role of Political Skill," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 33-44, June.
    6. Q. Miao & A. Newman & J. Yu & L. Xu, 2013. "The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Linear or Curvilinear Effects?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 641-653, September.
    7. Shenjiang Mo & Junqi Shi, 2017. "Linking Ethical Leadership to Employee Burnout, Workplace Deviance and Performance: Testing the Mediating Roles of Trust in Leader and Surface Acting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 293-303, August.
    8. Kubilay Gok & John J. Sumanth & William H. Bommer & Ozgur Demirtas & Aykut Arslan & Jared Eberhard & Ali Ihsan Ozdemir & Ahmet Yigit, 2017. "You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees’ Moral Awareness Minimizes Ethical Leadership’s Positive Impact on Workplace Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(2), pages 257-277, December.
    9. A. Newman & G. Schwarz & B. Cooper & S. Sendjaya, 2017. "How Servant Leadership Influences Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Roles of LMX, Empowerment, and Proactive Personality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 49-62, September.
    10. Mayer, David M. & Kuenzi, Maribeth & Greenbaum, Rebecca & Bardes, Mary & Salvador, Rommel (Bombie), 2009. "How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-13, January.
    11. Rubin, Robert S. & Dierdorff, Erich C. & Brown, Michael E., 2010. "Do Ethical Leaders Get Ahead? Exploring Ethical Leadership and Promotability," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 215-236, April.
    12. Taylor, Shannon G. & Pattie, Marshall W., 2014. "When Does Ethical Leadership Affect Workplace Incivility? The Moderating Role of Follower Personality," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(4), pages 595-616, October.
    13. Ozgur Demirtas & A. Akdogan, 2015. "The Effect of Ethical Leadership Behavior on Ethical Climate, Turnover Intention, and Affective Commitment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 59-67, August.
    14. Brown, Michael E. & Trevino, Linda K. & Harrison, David A., 2005. "Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 117-134, July.
    15. Shamas-ur-Rehman Toor & George Ofori, 2009. "Ethical Leadership: Examining the Relationships with Full Range Leadership Model, Employee Outcomes, and Organizational Culture," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 90(4), pages 533-547, December.
    16. Nahum-Shani, Inbal & Bamberger, Peter A., 2011. "Explaining the variable effects of social support on work-based stressor-strain relations: The role of perceived pattern of support exchange," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 114(1), pages 49-63, January.
    17. Pedro Neves & Joana Story, 2015. "Ethical Leadership and Reputation: Combined Indirect Effects on Organizational Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 165-176, March.
    18. Michael Palanski & James Avey & Napatsorn Jiraporn, 2014. "The Effects of Ethical Leadership and Abusive Supervision on Job Search Behaviors in the Turnover Process," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 121(1), pages 135-146, April.
    19. S. Hansen & Bradley Alge & Michael Brown & Christine Jackson & Benjamin Dunford, 2013. "Ethical Leadership: Assessing the Value of a Multifoci Social Exchange Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 435-449, July.
    20. Mayowa T. Babalola & Jeroen Stouten & Martin Euwema, 2016. "Frequent Change and Turnover Intention: The Moderating Role of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 311-322, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hao Zhou & Xinyi Sheng & Yulin He & Xiaoye Qian, 2020. "Ethical Leadership as the Reliever of Frontline Service Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Sang-Hoon Lee & Won-Moo Hur & Yuhyung Shin, 2023. "Struggling to Stay Engaged During Adversity: A Daily Investigation of Frontline Service Employees’ Job Insecurity and the Moderating Role of Ethical Leader Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 281-295, April.
    3. Jie Zhong & Qiuxiang Wen & Chao Ma & Ying Zhang & Li Zhang, 2024. "When Humble is Humbled: The Moderating Role of Leader Underestimation in the Dual Relationship Between Employee Humility and Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 1-31, August.
    4. Muhammad Qasim & Muhammad Irshad & Mehwish Majeed & Syed Tahir Hussain Rizvi, 2022. "Examining Impact of Islamic Work Ethic on Task Performance: Mediating Effect of Psychological Capital and a Moderating Role of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 283-295, September.
    5. Lantican, Carl Anthony O., 2020. "The Influence of Ethical Leadership on Employees’ Work-Related Stress and Organizational Commitment: Evidence from a Developing Country," Journal of Economics, Management & Agricultural Development, Journal of Economics, Management & Agricultural Development (JEMAD), vol. 6(1), June.
    6. Jue Wang & Hae-Ryong Kim & Byung-Jik Kim, 2021. "From Ethical Leadership to Team Creativity: The Mediating Role of Shared Leadership and the Moderating Effect of Leader–Member Exchange Differentiation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-19, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Akanksha Bedi & Can M. Alpaslan & Sandy Green, 2016. "A Meta-analytic Review of Ethical Leadership Outcomes and Moderators," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 517-536, December.
    2. Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa & Sam Farley & Monica Zaharie, 2021. "Examining the Boundaries of Ethical Leadership: The Harmful Effect of Co-worker Social Undermining on Disengagement and Employee Attitudes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 355-368, November.
    3. Sean R. Martin & Kyle J. Emich & Elizabeth J. McClean & Col. Todd Woodruff, 2022. "Keeping Teams Together: How Ethical Leadership Moderates the Effects of Performance on Team Efficacy and Social Integration," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 127-139, February.
    4. Jin Cheng & Haiqing Bai & Xijuan Yang, 2019. "Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing: A Mediated Moderation Model," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 115-130, March.
    5. Zhen Wang & Lu Xing & Haoying Xu & Sean T. Hannah, 2021. "Not All Followers Socially Learn from Ethical Leaders: The Roles of Followers’ Moral Identity and Leader Identification in the Ethical Leadership Process," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 449-469, May.
    6. Shenjiang Mo & Junqi Shi, 2017. "Linking Ethical Leadership to Employee Burnout, Workplace Deviance and Performance: Testing the Mediating Roles of Trust in Leader and Surface Acting," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 293-303, August.
    7. Muel Kaptein, 2019. "The Moral Entrepreneur: A New Component of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1135-1150, June.
    8. Julena M. Bonner & Rebecca L. Greenbaum & David M. Mayer, 2016. "My Boss is Morally Disengaged: The Role of Ethical Leadership in Explaining the Interactive Effect of Supervisor and Employee Moral Disengagement on Employee Behaviors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 137(4), pages 731-742, September.
    9. Q. Miao & A. Newman & J. Yu & L. Xu, 2013. "The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Linear or Curvilinear Effects?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 641-653, September.
    10. Kubilay Gok & John J. Sumanth & William H. Bommer & Ozgur Demirtas & Aykut Arslan & Jared Eberhard & Ali Ihsan Ozdemir & Ahmet Yigit, 2017. "You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees’ Moral Awareness Minimizes Ethical Leadership’s Positive Impact on Workplace Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(2), pages 257-277, December.
    11. Xiu Jin & Chenglin Qing & Shanyue Jin, 2022. "Ethical Leadership and Innovative Behavior: Mediating Role of Voice Behavior and Moderated Mediation Role of Psychological Safety," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-24, April.
    12. Jie Feng & Yucheng Zhang & Xinmei Liu & Long Zhang & Xiao Han, 2018. "Just the Right Amount of Ethics Inspires Creativity: A Cross-Level Investigation of Ethical Leadership, Intrinsic Motivation, and Employee Creativity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 645-658, December.
    13. Pedro Neves & Joana Story, 2015. "Ethical Leadership and Reputation: Combined Indirect Effects on Organizational Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 165-176, March.
    14. Vishag Badrinarayanan & Indu Ramachandran & Sreedhar Madhavaram, 2019. "Mirroring the Boss: Ethical Leadership, Emulation Intentions, and Salesperson Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 897-912, October.
    15. Miao Qing & Muhammad Asif & Abid Hussain & Arif Jameel, 2020. "Exploring the impact of ethical leadership on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in public sector organizations: the mediating role of psychological empowerment," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1405-1432, December.
    16. Alexander Newman & Kohyar Kiazad & Qing Miao & Brian Cooper, 2014. "Examining the Cognitive and Affective Trust-Based Mechanisms Underlying the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Organisational Citizenship: A Case of the Head Leading the Heart?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 113-123, August.
    17. DeConinck, James B., 2015. "Outcomes of ethical leadership among salespeople," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1086-1093.
    18. Nathan Eva & Alexander Newman & Qing Miao & Dan Wang & Brian Cooper, 2020. "Antecedents of Duty Orientation and Follower Work Behavior: The Interactive Effects of Perceived Organizational Support and Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 627-639, January.
    19. Kai Chi Yam & Ryan Fehr & Tyler C. Burch & Yajun Zhang & Kurt Gray, 2019. "Would I Really Make a Difference? Moral Typecasting Theory and its Implications for Helping Ethical Leaders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 675-692, December.
    20. David Pastoriza & Miguel Ariño, 2013. "Does the Ethical Leadership of Supervisors Generate Internal Social Capital?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 1-12, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:158:y:2019:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3771-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.