Ethical leadership influences proactive and unethical behavior: the perspective of person-environment fit

ABSTRACT

An increasing number of studies explore the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinates’ work behavior. However, it remains unclear whether ethical leadership affects subordinates’ perceptions of the person-job fit and perceived person-organization fit. We examine the effects of ethical leadership on subordinates’ sense of person-environment fit in terms of its effect on displays of positive and negative behaviors. We collected data from 414 employees from various industries over three time periods. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The SEM results show that person-job fit and person-organization fit mediate the effects of ethical leadership on proactive, and unethical behavior. Person-organization fit mediates the effects of ethical leadership on proactive behavior by the organization and unethical behavior by the organization. These results have implications for management.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethical leadership
• proactive behavior
• unethical behavior
• person-job fit
• person-organization fit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ Our results show that the inclusion of the control variables does not change any of the principal findings of the study. The control variables do not significantly correlate with most of the primary variables. Therefore, to achieve a greater degree of parsimony the control variables were not included in the SEM.