Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T02:39:09.565Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The relationship between ethical leadership and employee voice: The roles of error management climate and organizational commitment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2019

Jin Cheng
Affiliation:
School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Haiqing Bai*
Affiliation:
School of Journalism and Communication, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Caixia Hu
Affiliation:
School of Management, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Abstract

Studies have shown that voice could be utilized as an effective method to improve organizational effectiveness. This study explores the relationship between ethical leadership and employee voice behavior by focusing on the mediating role of the error management climate and the moderating role of the employee's organizational commitment. Analysis of data collected in three phases in China indicates that the error management climate partly mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior. Also, organizational commitment is found to moderate the relationship between the error management climate and voice behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., & Begley, T. M. (2003). The employment relationships of foreign workers versus local employees: A field study of organizational justice, job satisfaction, performance, and OCB. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(5), 561583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Argyris, C., & Schôn, D. (1987). Reasoning, action strategies, and defensive routines: The case of OD practitioners. Research in Organizational Change and Development, 1(1), 89128.Google Scholar
Avery, D. R., & Quiñones, M. A. (2002). Disentangling the effects of voice: The incremental roles of opportunity, behavior, and instrumentality in predicting procedural fairness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(1), 8186.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bai, Y., Lin, L., & Liu, T. J. (2017): Leveraging the employee voice: A multi-level social learning perspective of ethical leadership. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Advance online publication. 10.1080/09585192.2017.1308414.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1989). Social foundations of thought and action: A social-cognitive view. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Brislin, R. W. (1980). Cross-cultural research methods. In Environment and culture (pp. 4782). Springer, Boston, MA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, M. E., Trevino, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97(2), 117134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cannon, M. D., & Edmondson, A. C. (2001). Confronting failure: Antecedents and consequences of shared beliefs about failure in organizational work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22(2), 161177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardona, P. (2000). Transcendental leadership. Leadership and Organization Development Journal. 21(4), 201206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chen, A. S. Y., & Hou, Y. H. (2016). The effects of ethical leadership, voice behavior and climates for innovation on creativity: A moderated mediation examination. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, J., Bai, H., & Yang, X. (2019). Ethical Leadership and Internal Whistleblowing: A Mediated Moderation Model. Journal of Business Ethics, 155(1): 115130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, J. W., Chang, S. C., Kuo, J. H., & Cheung, Y. H. (2014). Ethical leadership, work engagement, and voice behavior. Industrial Management and Data Systems, 114(5), 817831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cigularov, K. P., Chen, P. Y., & Rosecrance, J. (2010). The effects of error management climate and safety communication on safety: A multi-level study. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 42(5), 14981506.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeConinck, J. B. (2015). Outcomes of ethical leadership among salespeople. Journal of Business Research, 68(5), 10861093.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demirtas, O., & Akdogan, A. A. (2015). The effect of ethical leadership behavior on ethical climate, turnover intention, and affective commitment. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(1), 5967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 869884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Detert, J. R., & Trevino, L. K. (2010). Speaking up to higher-ups: How supervisors and skip-level leaders influence employee voice. Organization Science, 21(1), 249270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Vries, G., Jehn, K. A., & Terwel, B. W. (2012). When employees stop talking and start fighting: The detrimental effects of pseudo voice in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 105(2), 221230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duan, J., Li, C., Xu, Y., & Wu, C. H. (2017). Transformational leadership and employee voice behavior: A Pygmalion mechanism. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(5), 650670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J. E., Ashford, S. J., O'neill, R. M., Hayes, E., & Wierba, E. E. (1997). Reading the wind: How middle managers assess the context for selling issues to top managers. Strategic Management Journal, 18(5), 407423.3.0.CO;2-J>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eisenbeiss, S. A. (2012). Re-thinking ethical leadership: An interdisciplinary integrative approach. The Leadership Quarterly, 23(5), 791808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erdogan, B., Ozyilmaz, A., Bauer, T. N., & Emre, O. (2018). Accidents happen: Psychological empowerment as a moderator of accident involvement and its outcomes. Personnel psychology, 71(1), 6783.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, D. (1983). Exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect as responses to job dissatisfaction: A multidimensional scaling study. Academy of Management Journal, 26(4), 596607.Google Scholar
Fast, N. J., Burris, E. R., & Bartel, C. A. (2014). Managing to stay in the dark: Managerial self-efficacy, ego defensiveness, and the aversion to employee voice. Academy of Management Journal, 57(4), 10131034.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frazier, M. L., & Bowler, W. M. (2015). Voice climate, supervisor undermining, and work outcomes: A group-level examination. Journal of Management, 41(3), 841863.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frese, M., Brodbeck, F., Heinbokel, T., Mooser, C., Schleiffenbaum, E., & Thiemann, P. (1991). Errors in training computer skills: On the positive function of errors. Human-Computer Interaction, 6(1), 7793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frese, M., & Keith, N. (2015). Action errors, error management, and learning in organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 661687.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fry, L.W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 693727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gold, A., Gronewold, U., & Salterio, S. E. (2013). Error management in audit firms: Error climate, type, and originator. The Accounting Review, 89, 303330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, J. Z., & Sanzgiri, J. (1996). Towards an ethical dimension of decision making in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(12), 12751285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gu, Q., Tang, T. L. P., & Jiang, W. (2015). Does moral leadership enhance employee creativity? Employee identification with leader and leader–member exchange (LMX) in the Chinese context. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), 513529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guchait, P., Paşamehmetoğlu, A., & Lanza-Abbott, J. (2015). The importance of error management culture in organizations: The impact on employee helping behaviors during service failures and recoveries in restaurants. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality and Tourism, 14(1), 4567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guenter, H., Schreurs, B., van Emmerik, I. J., & Sun, S. (2017). What does it take to break the silence in teams: Authentic leadership and/or proactive followership?. Applied Psychology, 66(1), 4977.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hair, J. F., Anderson, R. E., Tatham, R. L., & Black, W. C. (1998). Multivariate Data Analysis, 5th ed. NY: Prentice Hall International.Google Scholar
Hansen, S. D., Dunford, B. B., Alge, B. J., & Jackson, C. L. (2016). Corporate social responsibility, ethical leadership, and trust propensity: A multi-experience model of perceived ethical climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 137(4), 649662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Heron, J., & Reason, P. (1997). A participatory inquiry paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(3), 274294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, A. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organization, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hsiung, H. H. (2012). Authentic leadership and employee voice behavior: A multi-level psychological process. Journal of Business Ethics, 107(3), 349361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsiung, H. H., & Tsai, W. C. (2017). The joint moderating effects of activated negative moods and group voice climate on the relationship between power distance orientation and employee voice behavior. Applied Psychology, 66(3), 487514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, L., & Paterson, T. A. (2017). Group ethical voice: Influence of ethical leadership and impact on ethical performance. Journal of Management, 43(4), 11571184.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Javed, B., Rawwas, M. Y., Khandai, S., Shahid, K., & Tayyeb, H. H. (2018). Ethical leadership, trust in leader and creativity: The mediated mechanism and an interacting effect. Journal of Management and Organization, 24(3), 388405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kacmar, K. M., Bachrach, D. G., Harris, K. J., & Zivnuska, S. (2011). Fostering good citizenship through ethical leadership: Exploring the moderating role of gender and organizational politics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 633.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kanungo, R. N., & Conger, J. A. (1993). Promoting altruism as a corporate goal. The Academy of Management Executive, 7(3), 3748.Google Scholar
Kaptein, M. (2011). From inaction to external whistleblowing: The influence of the ethical culture of organizations on employee responses to observed wrongdoing. Journal of Business Ethics, 98(3), 513530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kehoe, R. R., & Wright, P. M. (2013). The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), 366391.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keith, N., & Frese, M. (2011). Enhancing firm performance and innovativeness through error management culture. Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate, 9, 137157.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kish-Gephart, J. J., Detert, J. R., Treviño, L. K., & Edmondson, A. C. (2009). Silenced by fear: The nature, sources, and consequences of fear at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 29, 163193.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ko, C., Ma, J., Kang, M., English, A. S., & Haney, M. H. (2017). How ethical leadership cultivates healthy guanxi to enhance OCB in China. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 55(4), 408429.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lam, L.W., Loi, R., Chan, K.W., & Liu, Y. (2016). Voice more and stay longer: how ethical leaders influence employee voice and exit intentions. Business Ethics Quarterly, 26(03), 277300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, D., Choi, Y., Youn, S., & Chun, J.U. (2017). Ethical leadership and employee moral voice: The mediating role of moral efficacy and the moderating role of leader–follower value congruence. Journal of Business Ethics, 141(1), 4757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lepine, J. A., & Van Dyne, L. (2001). Voice and cooperative behavior as contrasting forms of contextual performance: Evidence of differential relationships with Big five personality characteristics and cognitive ability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(2), 326336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Li, Y., & Sun, J.M. (2015). Traditional Chinese leadership and employee voice behavior: A cross-level examination. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(2), 172189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liang, J., Farh, C. I., & Farh, J. L. (2012). Psychological antecedents of promotive and prohibitive voice: A two-wave examination. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 7192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, C. H. (2007). Transactional, Transformational, Transcendental Leadership: Motivation Effectiveness and Measurement of Transcendental Leadership. In Paper presented at ‘Leading the Future of the Public Sector: The Third Transatlantic Dialogue’ (pp. 126). Newark: University of Delaware.Google Scholar
Liu, W., Zhu, R. H., & Yang, Y. K. (2010). I warn you because i like you: Voice behavior, employee identifications, and transformational leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 21, 189202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
May, D. R., Gilson, R. L., & Harter, L. M. (2004). The psychological conditions of meaningfulness, safety, and availability and the engagement of the human spirit at work. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 77(1), 1137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, D. M., Aquino, K., Greenbaum, R. L., & Kuenzi, M. (2012). Who displays ethical leadership, and why does it matter? An examination of antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 151171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, D. M., Kuenzi, M., & Greenbaum, R. L. (2010). Examining the link between ethical leadership and employee misconduct: The mediating role of ethical climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(1), 716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1), 6189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, J.P., Allen, N.J., & Smith, C.A. (1993). Commitment to organizations and occupations: Extension and test of a three-component conceptualization. Journal of applied psychology, 78(4), 538551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milliken, F. J., Morrison, E. W., & Hewlin, P. (2003). An exploratory study of employee silence: Issues that employees don't communicate upward and why. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6), 14531476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, E. W. (2011). Employee voice behavior: Integration and directions for future research. The Academy of Management Annals, 5(1), 373412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 706725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, E. W., & Phelps, C. C. (1999). Taking charge at work: Extra role efforts to initiate workplace change. Academy of Management Journal, 42(4), 403419.Google Scholar
Morrison, E.W., Wheeler-Smith, S.L., & Kamdar, D. (2011). Speaking up in groups: A cross-level study of group voice climate and voice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(1), 183191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mowday, R., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (1982). Employee-organization linkages. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Near, J. P., Rehg, M. T., Van Scotter, J. R., & Miceli, M. P. (2004). Does type of wrongdoing affect the whistle-blowing process? Business Ethics Quarterly, 14(02), 219242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neubert, M. J., Wu, C., & Roberts, J. A. (2013). The influence of ethical leadership and regulatory focus on employee outcomes. Business Ethics Quarterly, 23(2), 269296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ng, T. W., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). How broadly does education contribute to job performance? Personnel Psychology, 62(1), 89134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oc, B., Bashshur, M. R., & Moore, C. (2015). Speaking truth to power: The effect of candid feedback on how individuals with power allocate resources. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(2), 450.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Perlow, L., & Williams, S. (2003). Is silence killing your company? Ieee Engineering Management Review, 31(4), 1823.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Piccolo, R. F., Greenbaum, R. L., & Hartog, D. N. D. (2010). The relationship between ethical leadership and core job characteristics. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(2–3), 259278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ryan, K. D., & Oestreich, D. K. (1998). Driving fear out of the workplace: Creating the high-trust, high-performance organization. Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, J. E., Hopkins, W. E., & Geroy, G. D. (2003). From transactional to transcendental: Toward an integrated theory of leadership. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 9(4), 2131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaubroeck, J. M., Hannah, S. T., Avolio, B. J., Kozlowski, S. W., Lord, R. G., Treviño, L. K., & Peng, A. C. (2012). Embedding ethical leadership within and across organization levels. Academy of Management Journal, 55(5), 10531078.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, J., & Wald, M. L. (2003). The Nation: NASA's curse? ‘Groupthink’ is 30 years old, and still going strong. New York Times, March 9: 5.Google Scholar
Seifert, D. L., Sweeney, J. T., Joireman, J., & Thornton, J. M. (2010). The influence of organizational justice on accountant whistleblowing. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 35(7), 707717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shin, Y., Sung, S. Y., Choi, J. N., & Kim, M. S. (2015). Top management ethical leadership and firm performance: Mediating role of ethical and procedural justice climate. Journal of Business Ethics, 129(1), 4357.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, M. S., Tracy, K. B., & Renard, M. K. (1995). Due process in performance appraisal: A quasi-experiment in procedural justice. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(3), 495523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treviño, L. K., Brown, M., & Hartman, L. P. (2003). A qualitative investigation of perceived executive ethical leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human relations, 56(1), 537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Dyck, C., Frese, M., Baer, M., & Sonnentag, S. (2005). Organizational error management culture and its impact on performance: A two-study replication. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 12281240.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walumbwa, F. O., Hartnell, C. A., & Misati, E. (2017). Does ethical leadership enhance group learning behavior? Examining the mediating influence of group ethical conduct, justice climate, and peer justice. Journal of Business Research, 72: 1423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walumbwa, F. O., Mayer, D. M., & Wang, P. (2011). Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader–member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 204213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walumbwa, F.O., Morrison, E. W., & Christensen, A. L. (2012). Ethical leadership and group in-role performance: The mediating roles of group conscientiousness and group voice. Leadership Quarterly, 23(5): 953964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walumbwa, F.O., & Schaubroeck, J. (2009). Leader personality traits and employee voice behavior: Mediating roles of ethical leadership and work group psychological safety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(5), 12751286.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wu, L. Z., Kwan, H. K., Yim, F. H. K., Chiu, R. K., & He, X. (2015). CEO ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility: A moderated mediation model. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(4), 819831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zapf, D., Brodbeck, F. C., Frese, M., Peters, H., & Prümper, J. (1992). Errors in working with office computers: A first validation of a taxonomy for observed errors in a field setting. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 4(4), 311339.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhao, B., & Olivera, F. (2006). Error reporting in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 10121030.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhu, W., He, H., Treviño, L. K., Chao, M. M., & Wang, W. (2015). Ethical leadership and follower voice and performance: The role of follower identifications and entity morality beliefs. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(5), 702718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar