Ethical Leadership And Group Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Ethical leaders may not only influence the construction of ethical climate and normalization of business activities in an organization, but also affect the conducts of individuals and groups, and hence, ethical leadership currently becomes an important concept which is new for and concerned by scholars and managers. This research, firstly, based on social learning theory (SLT) and social exchange theory (SET), hypothesizes that ethical leadership enhances group organizational citizenship behavior (GOCB). Secondly, via introducing psychological ownership theory, I reveal the mechanism by which ethical leadership have effect on GOCB from psychological cognitive perspective. I also contribute to the existing theories through comparing the proposed mechanism with the trust processes. In addition, from the perspective of cognitive congruence between leader and members, I examine the positive moderating effect of group-level moral identity. Lastly, two integrative mediated moderation models are systematically built. Using the data from a sample of81work groups (include395members and81leaders) from several Chinese companies, this research provides the supporting evidence for all of its hypotheses:1) ethical leadership predicts GOCB positively;2) group-level psychological ownership and trust in leadership fully mediate the relation between ethical leadership and GOCB;3) The effect of ethical leadership on GOCB is more positive when group-level moral identity is high than when it is low;4) the moderating effect of moral identity is mediated by psychological ownership and trust in leadership. Finally, theoretical values, practical implications, and limitations of my study are discussed.