Big Five personality traits and ethical climate: A test of antecedents of unethical behaviour (original) (raw)
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The ethical dimension of executive leadership is thought to be uniquely important because of the executive's potential to influence employee and organizational behavior. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the link between five factor personality traits and ethical leadership. Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness were hypothesized to predict ethical leadership. The results revealed that Neuroticism have negative effect on ethical leadership perception of employees. Results did not show any significant relationship between extraversion and ethical leadership. However, as proposed Openness to experience, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness are found to be important antecedents for ethical leadership.
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Journal of Business Ethics, 2011
Most research on ethical leadership to date investigates the consequences of ethical leadership rather than its antecedents. Here, we aim to contribute to this field by studying leader personality as a potential antecedent of ethical leader behavior. In two multisource studies, we investigated the relationships between personality traits and ethical leader behavior. Leader personality was measured through self-ratings using the five-factor personality framework. Two subordinates rated their leaders' ethical behavior. Study 1 used a unidimensional Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS). In study 2 we used this scale as well as an instrument distinguishing three different ethical leader behaviors, namely, fairness, role clarification, and power sharing. Further, in study 2 we controlled for the influence of the relationship between leader and followers (LMX). As expected, conscientiousness and agreeableness were most consistently related to ethical leadership. In study 1, after controlling for the other personality traits, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership. In study 2, after controlling for other traits and LMX, conscientiousness related positively with ethical leadership and the behavior role clarification, and agreeableness with power sharing and fairness. Also, emotional stability related positively with ethical leadership and role clarification after controlling for LMX. As expected, openness to experience and extraversion were unrelated to ethical leader behaviors.
International Journal of Service Management and Sustainability, 2020
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