UNETHICAL BEHAVIORAL CONTAGION:
THE ROLE OF THE LEADER AND TRANSFORMATIONAL AND
TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE
Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
November 2011
Maaike van Oppenraaij Meeuwerderweg 105
9724 ER Groningen +31 640282530
m.van.oppenraay@student.rug.nl Student number: 1463144
UNETHICAL BEHAVIORAL CONTAGION:
THE ROLE OF THE LEADER AND TRANSFORMATIONAL AND TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP STYLE
ABSTRACT
TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ………..……….1 TABLE OF CONTENTS ……….………..2 INTRODUCTION ……….3 Unethical leader ………..…5 Leadership style ………..7 Trust ……….11 METHOD ………...……13
Participants and Design ………13
Procedure ………13
Measurements ……….15
Manipulation Check Leadership Style ………15
Manipulation Check Unethical Leader ………15
Unethical Behavior ………15
Trust ……….16
RESULTS ………..17
Manipulation Check Leadership Style ………17
Manipulation Check (Un)ethical Condition ………..17
Unethical Behavior ………..17
Moderation by Leadership Style ………..………18
Moderated Mediation by Trust ……….18
DISCUSSION ………..19
Practical Implications ……….……..20
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research ………21
Conclusion ………...…….22
REFERENCES ………..24
INTRODUCTION
“Press Release September 7, 2011: The Executive Board of Tilburg University has decided to set prof. dr. D.A. Stapel on non-active immediately. Prof. dr. Stapel, professor of Cognitive Social Psychology and Dean of Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, has made a serious violation of scientific integrity by using fictitious data in his publications.”
That unethical behavior is everywhere, nearby and closer than you think, proves this fraud case of a professor. He has made-up research results in several scientific publications. For us, being connected to the university, and collecting research results ourselves, it is a reality check that unethical behavior is in all places. This case stands not alone; there are a lot of other examples where an important person or leader acts unethical. This is not strange, as the tendency to act unethical seems to grow when individuals obtain more power (Lammers, Stapel & Galinsky, 2010).
The term unethical behavior has been given many different names, like antisocial behavior, misbehavior, deviance, and counterproductive behavior (Treviño & Brown, 2004). These different terms all capture the harmful nature of these acts: they all have the potential to cause harm to individuals or organizations (Giacalone & Greenberg, 1996). Behavioral ethics refers to individual behavior that is subject to or is to be judged according to generally accepted moral norms of behavior (Treviño, Weaver & Reynolds, 2009). As such, unethical behavior is defined as any individual action that violates generally accepted moral norms. It can include behavior such as sexual harassment, stealing, fraud, and sabotage but also includes less serious, yet still harmful actions such as cheating, lying, spreading rumors, and absenteeism.
Research on unethical behavior in organizations has noted a number of reasons why employees might engage in unethical acts: to benefit themselves (Greenberg, 2002; Terpstra, Rozell & Robinson, 1993), to retaliate against or harm the organization (Skarlicki & Folger, 1997), or to harm coworkers (Thau, Aquino & Poortvliet, 2007). The explanations include individual characteristics as well as situational characteristics. Treviño (1986) proposed a “person-situation interactionist model” to explain ethical decision-making behavior in organizations. To explain ethical decision making, Treviño proposes individual variables (locus of control, ego strength, field dependence) and situational variables (immediate job context, organizational culture, characteristics of the work) that moderate an individual‟s level of moral development. Ethical or unethical behavior is not simply a product of fixed individual characteristics, but results from an interaction between the individual and the situation. For instance, the individual variable of self-interest could explain why people behave in an unethical manner. When humans are confronted with conflicting interests, the self-interest prevails automatically, viscerally compelling and typically unconscious. Paying attention to ethical concerns is a more thoughtful process, so the automatic nature of focusing on self-interest makes it difficult for people to eliminate its influence (Moore & George, 2004). Moreover, a situational variable that explains ethical decision making behavior is outside pressure. The likelihood of unethical behavior increases when people feel outside pressure to perform. For example, managers may be pressured by shareholders to boost the corporation‟s performance. Fearful of losing their jobs, they may engage in unethical behavior to increase the value of the company‟s stock.
unethically themselves. And although research shows that that we take over behavior of others and that we do take over unethical behavior, no study has researched if people also copy the unethical behavior of the leader. The current study aims to do this. Also, we want to look if the style of the leader has an influence on the degree in which individuals take over the unethical behavior of the leader. Some researchers argue that leaders who express ethical leadership can shape the ethical climate in a favorable manner (Schminke, Ambrose & Neubaum, 2005). But none of these studies have focused on the influence that leadership style has on the inclination of employees to copy behavior when leaders act unethical. No prior studies have considered how these two factors interact. Therefore, the research questions in this study are:
How will people behave when faced with an unethical leader? What role does leadership style play in this relationship?
In order to find an answer to this research questions, we first explain our hypotheses and the rational behind these hypotheses in detail below. We clarify how we tested these hypotheses in an experiment amongst students. Then, results are presented and discussed.
Unethical leader
People influence each other through processes of behavioral modeling. Employees observe others‟ behavior and learn what to do as well as what not to do. This is through a process of social learning, by which we acquire new information, forms of behavior, or attitudes from other persons (Baron & Byrne, 2004). Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986) maintains that people can acquire new attitudes and behaviors vicariously by observing and imitating others‟ actions. In terms of ethical decision-making behavior, the presence of a model can serve to elicit ethical and unethical behavior (Rosenhan, Moore & Underwood, 1976).
There are different underlying mechanisms that support this assumption. First of all, some define leadership as involving exerting influence over other members of group or organization (Yukl, 1989). This definition assumes that there is one person, the leader, who has much more influence than other members. Some theorists believe that leadership is due to role specialization, including a specialized leadership role within a group. The leader is one of the first roles to emerge in a newly formed group (Forsyth, 2006), and members create leaders both interpersonally and psychologically (Emrich, 1999). Roles help to clarify the responsibilities and obligations of group members. So the leader has the role to lead, and the employees have the role to follow the leader, even when the leader acts unethically.
Secondly, different roles or positions in a group are often associated with different levels of status (Baron & Byrne, 2004). Status is the position or rank within a group; a leader has a higher status than his employees. People are often extremely sensitive to status because it is linked to a wide range of desirable outcomes (Baron & Byrne, 2004). People pay attention to the leader because of his status, and copy his behavior, even when the behavior is unethical.
A third reason why individuals are eager to copy a leader‟s behavior is because leaders are the ones who have the greatest power. Simply put, power is the ability to have things done your way. Leaders have power because they have control over resources important to their followers, such as money, equipment, space, and information (Keltner, Gruenfeld & Anderson, 2003). People who effectively wield influence make it clear that you will get rewarded if you help them. Alternatively, problems will arise if you do not. Leaders have the power to shape the behavior of their followers through rewards and punishments. That is why behavior contagion of the leader takes place: if employees act like the leader does, they will not get punished, even if the behavior is unethical.
to seek out and join other humans. Those who are deprived of human contact will experience discomfort and loneliness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Employees want to belong to other employees, because group members fulfill a generic need to establish positive enduring relationships with other people (Rook, 1984). So, people take over the behavior of the leader because the leader sets the norms. When these norms are unethical and when the leader performs in an unethical manner, employees will match his values and actions to conform to the norms.
To recap, there are numerous of reasons why an employee pays attention to the leader and copies his behavior, even when the leader does something unethical. Because of the leaders exerting influence, role, status, power and because the leader sets the norms, employee copy the leaders‟ behavior. Therefore, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 1: Individuals behave in more unethical ways when faced with an unethical leader than without an unethical leader
Leadership style
However, we should acknowledge that leaders differ greatly in terms of their leadership style or approach. Findings suggest that leaders‟ style or behavior can exert strong effects on the groups they lead (Lewin, Lippitt & White, 1939). We hypothesized earlier that when the leader behaves in unethical ways, employees will behave in more unethical ways than without such an unethical leader. But has the style of leadership any influence on the degree in which the employees take over the unethical behavior of the leader?
investigated in scores of research studies. Transformational leadership has proven to be particularly popular in research studies. A search in materials published revealed that there have been more studies on transformational than on all other popular theories of leadership combined (Judge & Piccolo, 2004).
Bass (1997) identified four components that transformational leaders show: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. Idealized influence – leaders express their conviction clearly and emphasize the importance of trust; they take stands on difficult issues: present their most important values, and emphasize the importance of purpose, commitment, and the ethical consequences of decisions. Such leaders are admired as role models generating pride, loyalty, confidence, and alignment around a shared purpose. Inspirational motivation – leaders articulate an appealing vision of the future; they challenge followers with high standards, talk optimistically with enthusiasm, and provide encouragement and meaning for what needs to be done. Intellectual stimulation – leaders question old assumptions, traditions, and beliefs; they stimulate in other new perspectives and ways of doing things, and they encourage the expression of ideas and reason. Individualized consideration – leaders deal with others as individuals; they consider individual needs, abilities, and aspiration; they listen attentively and further individual members‟ development; they advise, teach, and coach (Bass, 1997).
The three dimensions of transactional leadership that Bass (1997) acknowledged are contingent reward, management by exception-active, and management by exception-passive. Contingent reward – leaders sets up constructive transactions or exchanges with followers: the leader clarifies expectations and establishes the rewards for meeting these expectations. Active management by exception – leaders monitor followers‟ behavior, anticipate problems, and take corrective actions before the behavior creates serious difficulties. Passive management by exception – leaders wait until the behavior has created problems before taking action.
(Lammers, Stapel, & Galinsky, 2010). The literature mentions little about transactional leaders and ethics. There is not much attention for transactional leaders and their unethical behavior. In contrast, transformational leader has much more aspects in their definition about ethics. In general, the literature states that transformational leaders do not behave unethical. But, although integrity is a trait expected to be more closely related to transformational leadership, some have suggested that transformational leaders can be unethical too (Bass, 1985). Transformational leaders become unethical if motivated by selfishness rather than altruism (Howell, 1988; Howell & Avolio, 1992), and if they use power inappropriately (House & Aditya, 1997; McClelland, 1975). When transformational leaders fail ethically, they must mistakenly believe that their behavior is ultimately justified because the importance of the good that can be achieved for the group, organization, or society for which they feel responsible outweighs the moral costs of deviating from generally acceptable moral requirements (Price, 2003).
Therefore, we argue that transformational leadership has an increased impact on unethical behavioral contagion of the leader beyond transactional leadership. Research studies show a lot of support in favor of behavioral contagion of transformational leaders instead of transactional leaders. First, research demonstrates that a leadership style whereby the leader is significantly engaged in both personal and on-task group members, exerted the greatest influence on ethical conformity (Schminke, Wells, Peyrefitte & Sabora, 2002). Ethical conformity means the adaption of a member of a group to the (un)ethical beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors of the leader (Kiesler & Kiesler, 1969). The leadership style that achieves this is the transformational one, because the transformational leader is especially personally and task committed to employees. The component individualized consideration of transformational leaders show that leaders deal with others as individuals (Bass, 1997). The component inspirational motivation shows that transformational leaders are engaged on-task group members because they provide encouragement for what needs to be done (Bass, 1997). In contrast however, the transactional leader is not engaged with his employees to the same extent and results are of more importance. So, transformational leadership style has the greatest influence on ethical conformity and therefore employees will copy the unethical behavior of the transformational leader.
see him as a role model, and therefore employees copy the leader‟s behavior. In contrast, transactional leadership occurs when a leader motivates followers purely by exchanging rewards for good performance while reprimanding subordinates for mistakes and substandard performance (Bass, 1985). The leader and follower influence one another reciprocally so that each derives something of value (Yulk, 1981). As such, transformational leaders have an increased tendency to be viewed as role models than transactional leaders. As such, people will be more inclined to take over unethical behavior of a transformational leader than a transactional leader.
Thirdly, behavior contagion takes place under transformational leadership because transformational leaders express their end values and employees adopt these values. Transformational leaders operate out of deeply held personal value systems that include values such as liberty, equality, justice and integrity (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). This is referred to as end values; those values cannot be negotiated or exchanged between individuals. Presenting their most important values is part of the component idealized influence of transformational leadership (Bass, 1997). By expressing their personal standards, leaders are able to unite followers and to change their goals and beliefs (Bass, 1985). Transformational leadership is made possible when leaders‟ end values are adopted by followers, thereby producing changes in followers‟ attitudes, goals, and beliefs. When the leader has unethical end values, he will act accordingly to these end values, leading to unethical behavior. These will also be adopted by the employees who, consequently, will behave unethically as well. On the contrary, transactional leaders are not operating out of end values. Transactional leadership is more concerned with values of means such as honesty, responsibility, fairness, and the honoring of commitments (Burns, 1978). The transaction between leaders and followers result in realizing the individual goals of each. The relationship is based on a series of exchanges or implicit bargains between leaders and followers. The transactional leader will not present their values with the aim to produce change in the employees‟ goals and beliefs. So, transformational leaders express their end values more explicit than transactional leaders and therefore, employees adopt these values and act according to them, even when these are unethical.
unethical, employees will follow the behavior because they identify with the leader and they see him as a role model. Moreover, transformational leaders express their personal standard more than transactional leaders, and by doing so, they are able to produce changes in employees‟ attitudes and beliefs, even when these values are unethical. Therefore, we hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 2: The extent to which people behave unethical when faced with an unethical leader is moderated by the leadership style. When the unethical leader is transformational, individuals will have a more pronounced inclination to take over unethical behavior than when the unethical leader is transactional.
Trust
Then, given the fact that a relation has been proposed between an unethical leader and the unethical behavior of the observer (Hypothesis 1), and the moderating influence of leadership style (Hypothesis 2), we here argue that trust mediates the relation between an (un)ethical leader and unethical behavior of the observer, even more when the leadership style is transformational.
rewards or to avoid punishment. There is no concerted need to develop a deep sense of trust and commitment to the leader. As such, the mediating influence of trust will be less pronounced for transactional leaders than for transformational leaders and can serve as a clear mediator in behavioral contagion. Therefore, the extent to which people behave (un)ethical after witnessing an unethical leader is mediated by trust when the enacted leadership style is transformational: employees have more trust in the transformational leader than the transactional leader, and therefore will not question his (unethical) actions, and become more unethical themselves too.
Hypothesis 3: Leadership style will moderate the relation between an unethical leader and unethical behavior of the follower. Specifically, trust will mediate the degree in which individuals take over unethical behavior when the leadership style is transformational but not when the leadership style is transactional.
The hypothesized model is shown in figure 1.
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METHOD
Participants and Design
A 2 (leadership style: transformational vs. transactional leadership) x 2 (leader: ethical vs. unethical) between participants design was used. The participants were Dutch students from the University of Groningen and the Hanze Hogeschool. To recruit participants, we made a flyer that we dispersed in the faculty of Economics and Business. Also, we posted a message on Facebook were we asked people to participate in the study.
We had a total of 108 participations, (65 male, 43 female). They were ranging from the age 18 till 27, with an average age of 20 years (SD = 2.22). Participants have different study backgrounds, but most people study International Business and Management (52%), and Business (29%). The majority of the students (66%) started their study in 2010.
Participants received either course credits toward a research participation requirement or money for taking part in the study. The participants got 4 euro‟s for doing this research for half an hour.
Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions. The four conditions were divided in two conditions were the leadership style was either transformational or transactional, and two conditions were the leader acted ethical or unethical.
Procedure
sentence: „Chris knows how to inspire confidence among his employees and people see him as an ethical role model‟. In the other condition, Chris is described as a transactional leader. The component contingent reward of transactional leadership (Bass, 1985) is incorporated in the story, for example: „Chris emphasizes the importance of achieving good sales‟, and „Who delivers good work will be rewarded‟. To verify the intended leadership style, a manipulation check was done. After the manipulation check, participants had to indicate in what degree they trusted Chris. Then, the story about Chris continues: it turns out that the leader “Chris” has a problem with the budget. In the unethical leadership condition, Chris was induced by „creative accounting‟. He behaves unethical by shifting the numbers. He adds the unclosed sponsorship deals on the balance sheet of this year, so that he has a positive year result. In the ethical condition, Chris handles this problem in an ethical way by being honest and by not shifting the numbers. A manipulation check was conducted to check if the participants perceived Chris as more ethical in the ethical condition than in the unethical condition and more unethical in the unethical condition than in the ethical condition. The participants were now finished with envelope assignment 1, and they had to return the paper in the envelope and close it.
Then, participants opened the assignment 2 envelope. The participants read that they had to do a task with a six-sided dice. The task with the dice was used to see if participants cheated, to see if they behaved in more unethical ways in one of the four conditions. In the task instructions, the participants read that they could win prizes with this task. They would take part in a lottery, with one prize of €25 and one prize of €50. Depending on the number of tickets they won, they would have more or less change to win a prize. They had to roll a dice, and the higher the number of eyes they rolled, the more tickets they won. The number of tickets they could win increased exponentially. Participants used a six-sided dice that they rolled once and determined the resulting number themselves. It was explicitly stated that participants could roll the dice as often as they want to check that the dice was not manipulated. We explicitly made clear that only the first role counted. The procedure offered participants ample opportunity to cheat: they sat alone in a closed cubicle and they could use a plastic mug with a small hole in the bottom, so that only they could see what number they rolled. Participants could easily say that that they rolled a higher number than they actually did and take more tickets. After rolling the dice, participants rewarded themselves with the lottery tickets. When they were finished, they also had to return the paper to the envelope, close it, and begin with the third envelope.
more insight in possible unethical behavior of the participant: „How many tickets did you take? Did you cheat? Why did you or why did you not?‟ Also, a few demographic variables were asked, like the participant‟s gender, age, study etc. When the participants were finished, they had to take the three envelopes to the experimenter. Participants were then credited or paid, debriefed, and thanked for participating in the study.
Measurements
Manipulation Check Leadership Style. To verify the intended leadership style
manipulation, participants indicated their perceptions of the group leader by responding to items adapted from the questionnaire LQ from Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter (1990). There were eight items (α = .75) about transactional leadership and sixteen items (α = .93) about transformational leadership on a 7-point scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). Sample items for transactional leadership were: „Chris always gives me positive feedback when I perform well‟, and „Chris commends me when I do a better than average job‟. Sample items for transformational leadership were: „Chris inspires others with his plans for the future‟, and „Chris shows respect for my personal feelings‟.
Manipulation Check Unethical Leader. To see if the manipulation of the unethical
leader had worked, two questions were asked on a 7-point scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). The two items were: „Chris has shuffled with the expected sponsorship deals in the accounting‟, and „Chris was not totally honest about when the sponsorship deals are being received‟. These items formed a reliable scale (α = .90).
Unethical Behavior. Unethical behavior was measured by looking at the cheating
Trust. Trust was measured by the questionnaire of McAllister (1997). Cognitive trust
RESULTS
Manipulation Check Leadership Style
To determine whether participants perceived the appropriate leadership behaviors, post experimental manipulation checks were conducted. A One-Way ANOVA was run to determine whether participants perceived the intended leadership style in each leadership condition. Results indicated that ratings of transformational (F(1,103) = 144.47, p < .001) and transactional (F(1,105) = 125.00, p < .001) leadership were significantly different. As expected, participants perceived Chris more transformational (M = 5.64, SD = .80) than transactional (M = 3.57, SD = .95) in the transformational leadership condition. They also rated Chris more transactional (M = 5.87, SD = .62) than transformational (M = 4.48, SD = .67) in the transactional leadership condition. The leadership manipulation was successful.
Manipulation Check (Un)ethical Condition
A One-Way ANOVA was run to find out whether the there were any differences between each description of the ethical and unethical leader. The results indicated that there is a significant difference in ratings of the ethical and unethical leader (F(1,105) = 240.45, p < .001). Participants perceived Chris in the unethical condition more unethical (M = 6.50, SD = .88) than ethical (M = 2.93, SD = 1.43). Thus, the ethical and unethical manipulation worked.
Unethical Behavior
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Moderation by Leadership Style
Then, in order to test the moderating effect of transformational and transactional leadership style on (un)ethical behavior, a One-Way ANOVA was run. ANOVA (see Table 4) indicates that there is no significant interaction effect of (un)ethical leader condition and leadership condition (F(1,104) = .35, p = .55). This implies that the leadership style of a leader does not have impact on the degree in which individuals take over the unethical behavior of the leader. Means and standard deviations of the numbers of eyes rolled for the four conditions are displayed in Table 3. See Table 4 for the results of the ANOVA analysis.
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Moderated Mediation by Trust
We tested the moderated mediation hypotheses using an SPSS macro provided by Preacher, Rucker and Hayes (2007). We predicted that trust would mediate the role of the moderator unethical leader condition. The results show (see Table 5) that there is no indirect relationship between a transformational leader, cognitive trust, and unethical behavior for either ethical leader condition (-1 SD, 95% CI = -0.124, 0.055) or either unethical leader condition (1 SD, 95% CI = -0.126, 0.066). Also, no indirect relationship is found between a transformational leader, affective trust, and unethical behavior for either ethical leader condition (-1 SD, 95% CI = -0.418, 0.094) or unethical leader condition (1 SD, 95% CI = -0.362, 0.059). This implies that there is no mediating effect for unethical behavioral contagion when the leader is transformational.
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DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to explore how people respond when faced with an unethical leader. Also, we want to investigate what role leadership style plays in this relationship and how this relationship was mediated by trust.
It was hypothesized that individuals would behave in more unethical ways when faced with an unethical leader than without such an unethical leader, because of the leaders‟ exerting influence, role, status, power and because the leader sets the norms. The results of this study do not support the above mentioned assumption: people do not behave in more unethical ways when faced with an unethical leader than without an unethical leader. A possible explanation may be that people do not copy the unethical behavior of the leader as they see the leader as an out-group member. Although it is established that individuals follow the unethical behavior of in-group peers (Gino, Ayal & Ariely, 2009), the manager may not be seen as an in-group peer because the identification with the leader is not strong enough to see him as an in-group member. Identification is the process in which an individual comes to see an individual as being definitive of oneself and forms a psychological connection with that person (Connaughton & Daly, 2004). The degree to which individuals identify with others might influence the degree to which people are affected by the unethical behavior of others around them. This is in line with research results from Gino, Ayal & Ariely (2009) which found that observing an out-group peer engaging in unethical behavior reduced participants‟ likelihood of acting unethically themselves.
Moreover, the literature mentions another other kind of leadership style as well, namely unethical leadership. Unethical leadership focuses to the unethical acts of leadership. Research shows that these leaders are oppressive, abusive, manipulative, and calculatingly undermining (Tepper, 2007). Their actions are perceived as intentional and harmful (Tepper, 2007). This is different from our investigation, where transformational and transactional leaders are characterized as being “good” leadership styles but can make a mistake by being unethical. The styles are characterized by traits such as for example motivating, individualized influence, stimulation and reward. Transformational and transactional leaders behave unethical with no harm intended, as opposed to unethical leadership which involves leaders who are consistently unethical. Research shows that unethical leadership positively influences deviant and unethical work behavior among employees (Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007; Tepper, Carr, Breaux, Geider, Hu & Hua, 2009; Thau, Bennett, Mitchell & Marrs, 2009). Perhaps, the unethical leadership style toward employees has much more influence on the unethical conduct of the workers than an unethical act of a transformational or transactional leader.
Furthermore, it was hypothesized that trust would mediate the degree in which individuals would take over unethical behavior when the leadership style is transformational but not when the leadership style is transactional. The results did not confirm the assumption that trust has a mediating role in the unethical behavior contagion of transformational leaders. An explanation could be that not only transformational leaders are trusted by employees, but that transactional leaders are also trusted by employees. This was found by Tremblay (2010). By assessing the two different leadership styles, they were able to establish that both transactional and transformational leadership styles are related to leader trust. Transformational and transactional leadership styles of military leaders were assessed by using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire from Avolio and Bass (2002). They found that subordinates trusted both the transactional and transformational military leaders.
Practical implications
the role that leaders play in the prevalence of unethical conduct. Further research and investigation are required before practical implications can be drawn.
Limitations and suggestions for future research
This research has some limitations that should be mentioned. First, the result may not be applicable to the general population. We derived the results through an experiment. The leadership manipulation is done by letting the participants read a story about manager Chris. Although the results of the experiment showed successful manipulations, the situation however is not real. Participants were required to imagine that Chris was a real leader in a real situation. The controlled study is not a “real world” scenario though. Perhaps participants could not visualize the leadership style and the situation they were supposed to be in. In real life, their reaction and feelings toward the leader could be different from what they feel and act in response to this research experiment and imaginary leader. Artificial results may result, making generalizing from the results of the study questionable. Also, we utilized students as research participants who may not be representative of an entire work force. Although most students have a part-time job in addition to their study, it is unlike fulltime employment. We did not have another opportunity to ensure a representative sample. For future research, an investigation within a company would be more suitable. This because a more realistic target population will be studied, with results that can be applied to the general population and work force.
leader, and that leadership style does not have an influence on that, raises the question which variables do influence unethical behavior contagion. Treviño (1986) proposed that there are individual as well as situational characteristics that explain ethical decision making. We investigate what role the leader plays in the ethical decision making of the individual, which is a situational variable. A limitation of our study is that we could not include all situational variables, like for example the culture of the organization. Ethical culture is a subset of an overall organizational culture which is the formal and informal system of behavioral control that guides employees‟ moral reasoning and ethical behavior (Treviño & Weaver, 2003). The formal cultural systems include factors such as policies, leadership, reward and discipline systems. Informal cultural systems refer to factors such as coworker attitudes, behavior and ethical norms. These systems have the potential to influence ethics and integrity to the degree that they are actually supportive. Thus, ethical organizational culture helps to establish what is considered ethical or unethical in an organization and is thought to provide directions for daily employee behavior (Treviño & Weaver, 2003). Again, research within a company would be a solution to this problem, because the culture would be a variable for investigation. Another limitation of our study is that we did not include individual characteristics of participants in our study. Each individual has a different personality and brings unique personality traits to the decision making process. Therefore, all individuals react differently to observed unethical behavior. For example, Hegarty and Sims (1978, 1979) found that the personality factor Machiavellian explained significant variance in ethical behavior. Machiavellians are the people who share a general negative estimation of others, treat other people instrumentally and accept manipulation as a means of attaining their own goals. They lack emotional orientation and empathy in a relationship (Christie & Geis, 1970). Machiavellianism was positively associated with unethical behavior (Hegarty & Sims, 1978). Unethical decision behavior was studied in a role-play business context. Business graduate students were required to make a series of decisions on whether to stop the payment of kickbacks to purchasing agents and run the risk of losing profits. Machiavellianism was associated with advocating the payment of kickbacks. Future research could investigate how this or other personal characteristics are linked to unethical behavior contagion.
Conclusion
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APPENDIX
Figure 1
The proposed conceptual model
Table 1
Mean and standard deviation of numbers of eyes rolled
M (SD) Ethical 4.07 (0.22) (Un)ethical condition Unethical 4.22 (0.22) Note. n = 108. Table 2
Analysis of Variance for unethical behavior
Table 3
Mean and standard deviation of numbers of eyes rolled
Leadership condition Transformational Transactional M (SD) M (SD) Ethical 3.96 (1.73) 4.18 (1.47) (Un)ethical condition Unethical 3.93 (1.69) 4.52 (1.67) Note. n = 108. Table 4
Analysis of Variance for unethical behavior
Source df MS F p
(Un)ethical condition 1 0.63 0.23 0.631
Leadership condition 1 4.42 1.64 0.203
(Un)ethical condition x leadership condition 1 0.95 0.35 0.553
Error 104 2.69
Table 5
Conditional indirect effect
Cognitive trust Sobel z Sobel SE Sobel p Boot 95% LCI Boot 95% UCI
- 1 SD ethical leader condition -0.21 0.04 0.835 -0.124 0.055
+ 1 SD unethical leader condition -0.22 0.04 0.808 -0.126 0.066
Affective trust Sobel z Sobel SE Sobel p Boot 95% LCI Boot 95% UCI
- 1 SD ethical leader condition -1.20 0.14 0.232 -0.418 0.094
+ 1 SD unethical leader condition -1.17 0.11 0.24 -0.362 0.059
Note. n = 106. Unstandardized regression coefficients are reported. Bootstrap sample size = 5,000. LCI = lower
