Modeling ethical leadership in banking: followers perception of organizational culture, compasion and work alienation in the city of London

2 3 TESIS DOCTORAL Escuela de doctorado de ULPGC Programa de Doctorado: Turismo, Economía y Gestión MODELING ETHICAL LEADERSHIP IN BANKING: FOLLOWERS PERCEPTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, COMPASION AND WORK ALIENATION IN THE CITY OF LONDON Tesis Doctoral presentada por Dª María Mercedes Viera Armas Dirigida por el Dr. D. Pablo Zoghbi Manrique de Lara El Director La Doctoranda Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, a 2 de Diciembre 2016 4 5 6 7 AGRADECIMIENTOS La realización de este trabajo ha sido posible gracias a la colaboración inestimable y desinteresada de personas e instituciones cuyo aporte ha permitido que esta tesis haya llegado a un feliz término. Quiero expresar mi más sincero agradecimiento y de manera especial y sincera al profesor Pablo Zoghbi Manrique de Lara por aceptarme para realizar esta tesis doctoral bajo su dirección. Su apoyo y confianza en mi trabajo y su capacidad para guiar desde lejos nuestras ideas ha sido un aporte invaluable en el desarrollo de esta tesis. Las ideas siempre enmarcadas en su orientación y rigurosidad, han sido la clave del buen trabajo que hemos realizado juntos, el cual no se puede concebir sin su siempre oportuna participación. Y por supuesto, el agradecimiento más profundo y sentido va para mi familia por ser una parte importante de mi vida y representar la unidad familiar. En especial a mis padres Benito y Ofelia, sin su apoyo, colaboración e inspiración habría sido imposible llevar a cabo esta dura empresa. Muchas gracias papá y mamá por vuestro ejemplo de lucha y honestidad. 8 Dedicado a todos los futuros líderes, a todos esos hombres y mujeres jóvenes que sin duda, en un futuro serán los que con sus acciones escribirán los capítulos de nuestra historia. Mercedes Viera-Armas 9 INDEX INTRODUCTION Thesis general introduction ………………………………….……………………11 CHAPTER I Ethical leadership as a mediator of the relationship between corporate culture and personal Internet use .………………………………………………………………23 CHAPTER II Does ethical leadership motivate followers to participate in delivering compassion? .……………………………………………………………………………………...57 CHAPTER III The impact of ethical leadership on the firm performance. Does the work alienation of followers matter? .…………………………………………………….…………97 FINAL CONCLUSIONS …………………………………..……………………133 SUMMARY IN SPANISH ……………………………...………………………140 16 (McGaw, 2004). It is therefore pertinent to remember the concept of an ethical company offered by McGaw: a company working for the greater good and which can be a starting point for other traditional corporate organisations, encouraging them to implement quality practices and to lead by example. At present, and in light of certain corporate scandals, some countries (mostly European countries and the United States) impose operational and practical procedures for the management of ethics in both public and private companies, the aim being to promote ethical conduct and decision-making processes. This enables companies, whose economic focus is on maximising profitability, to incorporate an ethical and humanist vision, thus laying the groundwork for corporate humanism and the long-term sustainability of the business (Livingstone, 2004). These mechanisms, again according to Livingstone, may involve the company obtaining - either through their own free will or through imposition from the government - certification of quality in corporate ethics management, awarded for compliance with a set of rules and procedures established by an external organisation. There are, of course, clear advantages to adopting models of management which incorporate ethical aspects into the structure of the organisation: they allow for corporate ethics to be continuously improved and, most importantly, they enable the identification of areas in which ethical practices need to be implemented. Similarly, organisations that develop systems for ethics management need a high degree of involvement with, and commitment to, humanity from all members. They also require clear criteria for ethical quality, management indicators, a way to evaluate the moral performance of those involved and a way to regularly assess processes to inspire, if needed, the necessary changes, while always seeking continuous ethical improvement in the organisation (Baker, 2004). The expansion of ethics programmes has undoubtedly transformed the practice of ethics management in many countries. Today, an ever-increasing number of corporate organisations are adopting compliance initiatives to resolve their issues. Not surprisingly, it is increasingly common for organisations to hire private companies specialising in implementing this type of programme and guaranteeing its future (Brightline Compliance, 2009). 17 The management of ethics and conduct not only concerns the supervision and surveillance of conduct; it also involves reaching an agreement as to what constitutes acceptable behaviour and giving employees direction as to how they should act, make decisions and use discretion in their day-to-day work (PUMA, 1996). In other words, these programmes must also focus on improving both the ethics and the culture of the organisation. Many modern organisations tend to underline the importance of harmony and unity, and of putting the well-being of the organisation above the well-being of individuals. They invite individuals to distance themselves from the ‘I’ mentality (Shahinpoor & Matt, 2007). 18 THESIS STRUCTURE AND OBJECTIVES In this thesis, the concept of leadership will be reviewed and a definitive proposal incorporating certain ethical principles into dehumanised corporate management will be formulated. Based on a principle that has, in recent years, been widely accepted in the analysis of the global financial crisis, it appears evident that conventional methods of applying leadership are not compatible with our ethical standards. It seems more honest to suggest new manners of exerting leadership than to redefine those ethical standards. The problem raised in this study, then, is one of basing leadership, with all its complexities, on ethics. Leadership is one of the most widelyused terms in the social sciences. It is our opinion, however, that there is a lack of studies which systematically link corporate leadership with ethics, while the relationship between the two is intuitively seen as being very close. This thesis will approach that issue. To do so, it will begin with an attempt to devise a concept of leadership which encompasses the findings of the most significant studies undertaken to date on leadership and ethics and, in so doing, lay the foundations for a model of ethical corporate leadership which is suitable for the new millennium. Corporate governance is one of the axes around which economic success and, therefore, the development of an increasingly globalised world revolve. It is also, however, a fundamental driving force behind an ethically-responsible, more habitable and fairer world that we must not give up on. That is precisely what this study is devoted to. The objectives of this research are to consider the following: 1. Ethical leadership as a mediator in the relationship between corporate culture and personal internet use. 2. Does ethical leadership encourage followers to show compassion? 3. The impact of ethical leadership on the performance of the company. Does work alienation of followers have an impact? The methodology centres around an empirical study comprising a survey aimed at an international group of executives from the finance sector in the City of London. 400 employees from 100 investment banks in London responded to the survey, 19 which was based on the work of Cameron & Quinn (1999) on corporate culture, ethical leadership, cyberloafing and e-citizenship. The study unquestionably brings to light countless ethical dilemmas faced by corporations in a world which has become irreversibly globalised. As suggested by the context described above, this doctoral thesis is structured in three chapters which will deal with theoretical, methodological and empirical aspects linked to the aforementioned aims. Chapter I will deal with the growing importance of new technologies and how they give rise to new issues, including with regard to how they are used. Little is known about the relationship between corporate culture and the personal use of internet at work and what makes it possible. This study proposes the hypothesis that the nature of the corporate culture which moulds supervisors' day-to-day work influences the ethical performance and the involvement of the employees in the UPI. Specifically, personal internet use at work, or cyberloafing , and e-citizenship. With that in mind, this study suggests that ethical leadership be used as a mediator with the aim of discovering why employees act against the corporate culture by means of personal Internet use. Little is known about whether followers who perceive leadership to be ethical are more likely to be compassionate with their colleagues. As such, in Chapter II, four types of compassion to mediate in the relationship between ethical leadership and civil interpersonal behaviour towards colleagues are proposed: a) empathic concern, an emotional response to another person, elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of someone in need; b) full attention, a state of consciousness in which attention is focused on what is happening at the present moment; c) kindness, understanding the pain or suffering of colleagues; d) common humanity, considering that experience of colleagues are part of the human experience. Finally, chapter III examines the extent to which ethical leadership is either directly or indirectly - via the aspects of work alienation (i.e. powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement) — linked to two important aspects of the economic performance of a company, its profitability and its growth. In the study, techniques pertaining to models of structural equations, and from Hayes (2013), were used in order to perform a factorial analysis of the data and calculate the proposed links based on the answers given by respondents. The conclusion of the thesis will include a summary where the hypotheses, arising from the research undertaken for the three articles which comprise this thesis, will be presented. 20 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bennis, W., & Nanus, B. (1985). The strategies for taking charge. Leaders, New York: Harper. Row. Brighline Compliance ( 2009), Navex Global, www.brightlinecompliance.com. Cameron, K. S., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). An introduction to changing organizational culture. Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework, 1-17. Conger, J. A., & Fulmer, R. M. (2003). Developing your leadership pipeline. Harvard business review, 81(12), 76-85. Daly, H. E., Cobb, J. B., & Cobb, C. W. (1989). For the common good: redirecting the economy toward community, the environment, and a sustainable future. Beacon Press. Debeljuh, P. (2009). Ética empresarial: en el núcleo de la estrategia corporativa. Cengage Learning. Fulmer, R. M., & Conger, J. A. (2004). Growing your company’s leaders. Washington DC: Amacom. Gallie, W. B. (1955, January). Essentially contested concepts. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian society (Vol. 56, pp. 167-198). Aristotelian Society, Wiley. Grint, K. (2004). What is leadership? From hydra to hybrid. In paper presented at the EIASM Workshop on Leadership Research, Oxford, December. Guillén, M. F., & Tschoegl, A. (2008). Building a global bank: the transformation of Banco Santander. Princeton University Press. 21 Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Press. Kellerman, B. (2004). Thinking about... leadership. Warts and all. Harvard Business Review, 82(1), 40-5. Livingstone, L. (2004), Dean of The Graziadio School of Business and Management, 4th Annual Executive learning Forum. McGaw, N. (2004), “Aspen Institute initiative for Social Progress, 4th Edition”. Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration: A sociological interpretation. Berkeley. Cal. Puma (1996), “Ethics in the public Service: Current Issues and practices”. Public Management Occasional n.º 14 (29 of June). www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/24/189 8992.pdf. Shahinpoor, N., & Matt, B. F. (2007). The power of one: Dissent and organizational life. Journal of Business Ethics, 74(1), 37-48. Stech, E. L. (2004), “Psychodynamics Approach”, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 3rd Edition,, London: Sage. Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature. New York. Free Press, 35-111. Verschoor, C. C. (2002). Corporate performance is closely linked to a strong ethical commitment. Business and Society Review, 104(4), 407-415. 22 Yukl, G. A. (2002). Leadership in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ PrenticeHall, 5th Ed. Zaleznik, A. (1977). Managers and leaders: Are they different. Harvard Business Review Case Service, 67-78. 23 CHAPTER I Ethical leadership as a mediator of the relationship between corporate culture and personal Internet use 24 25 Abstract: Although extensive prior research has examined factors that influence personal Internet use (PIU) at work, little is known about whether there is a relationship between corporate culture and personal Internet use (PIU) and why this is possible. This study hypothesises that characteristics of corporate culture under which supervisors work daily influence their ethical performance and employees’ engagement in PIU; in particular cyberloafing and e-citizenship. This study then proposed ethical leadership to act as a mediator to explain why employees react to corporate culture with personal Internet use (PIU). Questionnaire data obtained from 300 employees at 100 investment banks in the City of London on Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) corporate cultures, ethical leadership, cyberloafing and e-citizenship were analyzed. Results found that adhocracy was the only culture type that, by eliciting ethical leadership, significantly increased e-citizenship and reduced cyberloafing. The findings advise managers of the advantages of managing personal Internet use (PIU) by inspiring the values and principles of adhocracy culture and ethical leadership. Keywords: Corporate culture; Cyberloafing; E-citizenship; Personal Internet use; Ethical leadership Resumen: A pesar de la amplia investigación previa que se ha realizado a la hora de analizar los factores que influyen en el uso personal de Internet en el trabajo (UPI), poco se sabe acerca de la relación que existe entre cultura corporativa y uso personal de Internet en el trabajo, y sobre las razones que la hacen posible. Este estudio plantea diversas hipótesis sobre el hecho de que las características de la cultura corporativa en las que se desarrolla el trabajo diario de los supervisores influyen en su desempeño ético y en la implicación de los empleados en el UPI. En concreto, en el uso de Internet en el trabajo para fines personales o cyberloafing y en el civismo digital (e-citizenship). Por ello, este estudio propone el uso del liderazgo ético como mediador con el fin de explicar la razón por la que los empleados actúan contra la cultura corporativa mediante el uso personal de Internet. Se analizaron los datos obtenidos de un cuestionario realizado a 300 empleados en 100 bancos de inversión de Londres basado en el trabajo de Cameron y Quinn (1999) sobre cultura corporativa, liderazgo ético, cyberloafing y civismo digital. Los resultados mostraron que la adhocracia fue el único tipo de cultura que, promoviendo el liderazgo ético, aumentó significativamente el civismo digital y redujo el cyberloafing. 32 Figure 1: Hypothesized Model of Ethical leadership as a Mediator of the Link between Corporate Culture and Personal Internet Use (PIU) The market culture appears in organisations that are oriented to the exterior and need to achieve. These organisations maintain a sense of unity due to the importance they place on success and goal achievement, inculcating the employees with a focus on competition and clear objectives (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). Market culture can encourage individual ambition to achieve goals (Cullen, Parboteeah, & Hoegl, 2004) but preferential treatment of individuals and emphasis on personal worth may weaken social bonds and engagement with others (Trompenaars & HampdenTurner, 1998). As such, market cultures can lead in-house employees to an individual sense of distrust among group members and, therefore, negatively affect collective employee attitudes (Hartnell et al., 2011). This thus ignores necessary cooperation and interaction with peers (Doran et al., 2003) and goal achievement will likely refrain staff from performing e-citizenship activities (see Figure 1). Furthermore, Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara (2006:588) states that the motives of a cyber loafer are to find “refuge (a protection bubble) in cyberloafing in order to cope with fear; or […] as a consolation for his/her selfharming fear (a vicious circle).” Therefore. H3a: Market cultures will increase cyberloafing. H3b: Market cultures will reduce e-citizenship. H5abcd H3ab OCAI corporate culture Clan (1) Adhocracy (2) Market (4) Hierarchy (3) H4ab Internal focus and External focus and integration differentiation Flexibility and discretion Stability and control E-citizenship or Cybercivism (b) Cyberloafing (a) Personal Internet Use (PIU) H2ab H1ab Ethical leadership H6ab H6ab 33 Finally, hierarchical culture focuses on internal aspects requiring control and stability. The employees can perceive their bank as structured and controlled, with formal procedures generally ruling the actions taken. This formalism can produce task conflict between employees, as there is a loss of necessary flexibility in procedures (Cameron and Freeman, 1991). In fact, prior work on group engagement models of procedural justice postulates that unit members who have little opportunity to be involved in the decision-making process carry out negative actions toward their respective units and peers (Tyler and Blader, 2003). Therefore, this need for functional harmony, routine, and consistency may favour friction which could end up negatively affecting the way employees behave toward the bank as a whole and mutual trust with peers. In turn, this harms the bank by increasing cyberloafing and decreasing e-citizenship (see Figure 1). Therefore, H4a: Hierarchical cultures will increase cyberloafing. H4b: Hierarchical cultures will reduce e-citizenship. The mediating role of ethical leadership In a study of anomic managers, Cullen, Parboteeah, and Hoegl (2004) found that culture values can weaken the moral standards of leaders, leaving them without moral guidance. This means that leaders are more willing to justify behaviours generally considered ethically dubious. As such, just as Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) market and hierarchical cultures were proposed as influencing questionably ethical activities, as cyberloafing, organisational leaders can also be immorally influenced by these culture types. Under market and hierarchical cultures, therefore, the leaders may elicit perceptions of unethical leadership, exaggeratedly focusing on his or her individual ambition to achieve goals. This then withholds principled decision-making, and/or thwarts the ethical expectations of followers. In the end, as Treviño et al. (2000, 2003) suggests, leader behaviour that shows little or no concern for employees, contributes to perceptions of unethical leadership on the followers’ part. By contrast, Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) flexibility and cooperative culture values can positively influence ethical leadership by inspiring moral values and beliefs that strengthen leader morale to think about their followers’ problems and mishaps. Therefore, 34 H5ab: Corporate culture will positively influence ethical leadership. H5cd: Corporate culture will negatively influence ethical leadership. As we discussed earlier, Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) Clan, Ad-hoc, Market, and Hierarchy corporate cultures can weaken in staff their concern and desire to help the company (and hence increase cyberloafing) or inspire good morale to help coworkers (and hence increase e-citizenship) (Bowler and Brass, 2006; Hoon and Tan, 2008; Van Dyne et al., 1994). However, it is unclear what are the steps that corporate culture makes employees take in order to they participate in cyberloafing and/or e-citizenship. As employees may view cyberloafing as socially proscribed acts of misconduct that significantly harm the organisation and e-citizenship as exceeding moral minimums, we argue that ethical dilemmas can be present in the underlying processes that lead organisational culture to cyberloafing and ecitizenship. The leader’s performance is one issue at work that may influence employees to be morally motivated to respond to organisational culture. Acting ethically, supervisors can ‘set a good or bad example’ for followers, and due to proximity to their employees may be a key source of moral guidance and influence on subordinates (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Yukl, 2002). By helping followers to settle these ethical dilemmas, ethical leadership can thus play a mediating role in explaining why organisational culture leads employees to be morally motivated to engage in cyberloafing and e-citizenship. In sum, this study suggests that corporate culture predicts cyberloafing and ecitizenship as different types of corporate culture elicit different extents of ethical leadership, and consequently causes employees to be morally motivated in the engagement of cyberloafing and/or e-citizenship. Therefore, H6a: Ethical leadership will mediate the relationships between Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) corporate cultures and cyberloafing. H6b: Ethical leadership will mediate the relationships between Cameron and Quinn’s (1999) corporate cultures and e-citizenship. 35 Method Procedure and Sample Characteristics The hypotheses were examined by collecting data from 300 colleagues working in 3-member work units each at 100 investment banks in the City of London during the autumn of 2015. Once the research project received official approval, we emailed team leaders the questionnaires with the request that they ask 3 of their followers to fill out the survey. Lower-level managers, 46%, middle managers, 40%, and top managers, 14%, were requested to choose followers randomly during their time at work, in different functions and situations within the bank. Leaders also had to choose employees who met the criteria of having worked six months or more, so as to ensure a socialisation period at the bank. The sample comprised 69.7% men and 30.3% women. 35% were 34 years of age or younger, and 16% were 55 years of age or older. In addition, the respondents showed different percentages of tenure over six years concerning the sector (82.7%), current bank (69.3%), and present position (37%). Furthermore, only 26.7% of those responding were undergraduate level. Lastly, of the 300 responses none were considered invalid and all of them were retained for further analysis. Measures Ethical leadership items were scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)—and in the case of cyberloafing and ecitizenship, from 1 (never) to 7 (constantly), and these are presented in Figure 1. Cronbach’s alpha values appear on the main diagonal of the correlations matrix (Table 1). Corporate culture. We used the Organisational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) by Cameron and Quinn (1999) to measure the four OCAI types of corporate culture: clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy all of which are based on the two previously mentioned dimensions (interior-exterior and flexibility-control). The OCAI contains six questions about the bank: a) dominant characteristics, b) leadership, c) how employees are managed, d) the type of “glue” that unites them, e) strategic profile, and f) criteria for success. For each question, the employees surveyed were asked to distribute 100 points among four possible alternatives, depending on the degree to which a specific alternative described their bank. Thus, 36 for each question, if they thought alternative A strongly described the bank, while B and C were similar and alternative D contributed very little, they could have assigned 55 points to A, 20 points to B, 20 points to C, and five points to D. The points corresponded to each type of culture averaged for each employee in the sample. Ethical leadership. A 10-item measure developed by Brown, Treviño and Harrison (2005) was employed. Cyberloafing. We used a five-item scale adapted from that proposed by Lim (2002), which included eight items referring to browsing activities and three to e-mailing activities. We selected four of the former, and one of the e-mail activities, which combined Lim’s ‘send’ and ‘read’ e-mail. Lim’s third item, ‘check’ e-mail, was omitted, since we believe it overlaps with ‘read’ e-mail. The scale is expected to be one-dimensional. TABLA I: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) F1 – ETHICAL LEADERSHIP (Eigenvalue = 7.045; Explained variance % = 35.224; α =.939) F1 F2 F3 Y05 Makes fair and balanced decisions .849 -.042 .070 Y04 Has the best interests of employees in mind .834 -.136 .094 Y07 Discusses business ethics or values with employees .826 -.038 .085 Y02 Disciplines employees who violate ethical standards .802 -.044 .117 Y06 Can be trusted .791 -.080 .035 Y03 Conducts h/h personal life in an ethical manner .786 -.127 .049 Y10 When making decisions, asks “what is the right thing to do? .774 .009 .057 Y09 Defines success not just by results but also the way that they are obtained .753 -.032 .086 Y01 Listens to what employees have to say .730 -.031 .174 Y08 Sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics .679 -.163 .089 37 F2 – CYBERLOAFING (Eigenvalue = 3.599; Explained variance % = 17.994; α =.935) I acknowledge have used at work the Internet from my company to ... F1 F2 F3 Y14 Visit websites and digital newspapers to seek personal information -.091 .914 -.071 Y13 Visit the website of my bank to consult my current account -.044 .887 -.015 Y11 Read or send personal (non-work) e-mails -.071 .873 .008 Y12 Download software or files for personal or family use -.073 .866 -.051 Y15 Surf the Net and so escape a little -.155 .815 -.133 F3 – E-CITIZENSHIP (Eigenvalue = 2.3; Explained variance % = 15.715; α =.740) When I'm connected to the Internet, voluntarily ... F1 F2 F3 Y19 I send on Web information to help peers with queries .115 -.133 .863 Y18 I respond to online queries or requests of peers with problems .173 -.061 .862 Y17 I send emails to peers to congratulate some success .115 -.004 .854 Y16 I reply to misdirected e-mails if I can help my peers .071 .052 .827 Y20 I send emails to support peers who suffered a setback .072 -.112 .777 Factor loadings in bold are above the cutoff of .5 in absolute value Total Explained variance % = 64.933 Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin = .863 Varimax Rotation E-citizenship or cybercivism. To assess cybercivism we used the Zoghbi-Manriquede-Lara’s (2007) 3-item scale, expanded to 5-item. The author drew on the con¬ventional OCBI studies by Lee and Allen (2002), and we constructed two additional items based on this author and others in the literature (Konovsky & Organ, 1996). 38 Control variables. Based on the literature, we took into account the gender (1=man, 2=woman) and the age (1=up to 25 years old; 2=between 25 and 34; 3= between 35 and 44; 5=between 45 and 54; 5=between 55 and 65; 6=over 65 year old), as they could co-vary with our dependent and independent variables (e.g., Aquino et al., 2004). The control variables were incorporated directly into the model as standalone variables (not as cause or effect indicators), allowing a structural path to all exogenous and endogenous factors within the structural portion of the model, but not that of the measurement portion (Hancock and Mueller, 2006). TABLA II: Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations and Reliabilities M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1. Gender 1.18 0.38 ---- 2. Age 3.64 0.52 -.376*** ---- 3. Clan Culture 21.5 5.67 .053 -.050 ---- 4. Ad-hoc Culture 24.0 5.91 -.026 .019 .681*** (.722) 5. Market Culture 29.2 4.75 .046 .103 -.635*** -.367*** (.706) 5. Hierarchical Culture 27.8 8.36 -.050 .050 -.751*** -.733*** .312*** (.751) 7. Ethical leadership 4.9 0.93 .118* -.091 .548*** .506*** -.330*** –.473*** (.761) 8. Cyberloafing 3.7 1.78 .085 -.045 -.111 -.260*** .019 .176** -.260*** (.709) 9. E-Citizenship 4.8 1.03 .004 -.062 .197*** .285*** -.106 –.116* .313*** -.125* (.768) Note: Gender (1 = male, 2 = female); age (1= up to 25 years; 2 = more than 25 and up to 40; 3 = more than 40 and up to 55; 4 = more than 55 and up to 70; 5 = 70 and older). N = 300. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. Statistical Analysis The collected data was analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). SEM was used to assess the validity of the measures and to test the hypothesized relationships using the statistical package AMOS 22.0. We included tenure, gender, and age as control variables. The descriptive statistics included the means and standard deviations of the four types of OCAI corporate cultures studied: clan, adhocracy, market and hierarchy. These will also include the means and 39 standard deviations of the constructs of ethical leadership, cyberloafing, and ecitizenship. The Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to rate the reliability of the scales. The mediation tests followed the approach of Baron and Kenny (1986), sequential chi‐squared difference tests (SCDT) (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988), and the Sobel test and Preacher’s et al. (2007) bootstrapping method. To ensure that the dependent variables (ethical leadership, cyberloafing, and e-citizenship) were three distinct constructs, a confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) was performed to check that all the data loaded according to the factor structure proposed. CFA tests of construct validity included the good-fit (GFI), comparative-fit (CFI), normed-fit (NFI), Tucker-Lewis (TLI), incremental-fit (IFI) indices, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). Table 1 displays the CFA results that show how the threefactor solution is insufficient (c2 = 4,747.995, p<.001, df=190, GFI=.780, CFI=.854, IFI=.855, TLI=.834, NFI=.825, RMSEA=.115), with a GFI index below .90 and RMSEA over .05. Since the fit of CFA for the three-factor solution is low, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was also performed. The EFA results displayed in Table 1 support the three-factor solution. As such, all items loaded as predicted in the expected factors, confirming three factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and no cross-loadings over .5. Results Table 1 shows the scale means, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations (r) among all the variables. Results encounter significant inter-correlations among the variables in the expected directions, suggesting initial support for the hypotheses in this study. SEM was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the variables in this study. Figure 2 and 3 are path diagrams that show the relationships between the observed variables (survey answers, in rectangles) and the unobserved latent variables (circles). To test the relationships established in the hypotheses, we first considered a SEM model where the four types of culture (clan, ad-hoc (adhocracy), market, and hierarchy) were entered, along with the control variables and cyberloafing and e-citizenship (Figure 2) as the criterion variables. In Figure 3 we considered a SEM model for testing mediation in addition to the four types of culture, cyberloafing, and e-citizenship and along with the control variables, ethical leadership was entered as a mediator. The control variables were incorporated directly into the model as stand-alone variables (Hancock and Mueller, 2006). The items provided in Table 1 and the OCAI’s scores were averaged, and they define the variables of the observed model. The various fit indices used, as shown in Figure 2, reveal a low but tolerable fit of the model (Hair et al., 2006), with CFI=.911 and 40 RMSEA=.096. Support for H1 is only provided for H1b, by the significant main path from adhocracy to cyberloafing (β=–.434; p<.01). Additionally, H2a, H2b and H2c are supported by the significant main effects from clan (β=.356; p<.05), adhocracy (β=.357; p<.05) and hierarchy (β=.399; p<.01) to e-citizenship, which, in the case of market culture in H2c, were non-significant (β=.185; p ns.). Figure 2: Accepted Model of the relationship between Corporate Culture and Personal Internet Use (PIU). Note #1: N = 300. *p<.05, **p<.01. c2 [244, 300] = 363.246, p<.001, df=96, GFI=.863, CFI=.911, IFI=.912, TLI=.889, NFI=884, RMSEA=.096). Note #2: The betas of the main effects once ethical leadership was entered as a mediator are shown between parentheses. As can be seen, except for the ClanCyberloafing link that increased (from B=.130 to B=.231), the betas of the remaining links decreased, even to be no longer significant. Cybercivism e7 e8 e9 Y16 Y17 Y19 Y18 .71 .67 .75 .84 .87 .81 .76 .130 (.231) e12 .08 e6 .58 e2 e3 e4 Y12 Y14 Y13 .84 .66 .76 .92 .87 .81 e11 .06 e5 Y15 .63 .79 Cyberloafing Clan Adhocracy Market Hierarchy X1 X4 X2 .68* –.64* .31* –.75 –.73* –.37* X3 –.434** (–.309*) –.098 (–.071)–.082 (–.032) e10 Y20 .52 .73 e1 Y11 .69 .83 .356* (.237) .357* (.214) .185 (.154) .399** (.341*) 41 Figure 3: Accepted Model of Corporate Culture, Ethical Leadership, and Personal Internet Use (PIU) . Note: N = 300. * p <.001. c2 [244, 300] = 1,422.577, p<.001, df=285, GFI=.711, CFI=.815, IFI=.816, TLI=.789, NFI=781, RMSEA=.116). The various fit indices used in Figure 3 for testing mediation, also reveal a poor but tolerable fit of the model. The model only displays significant paths from clan (β=.388; p<.001) and adhocracy (β=.488; p<.001) to ethical leadership which support H5a and 5b. To test H6, first a nested models comparison was conducted using the sequential chi-square difference test (SCDT). Following Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) recommendations, our hypothesized model (more constrained) in Figure 3 (c2 [244, 300] = 1,437.952, p<.001, df=293, GFI=.708, CFI=.814, IFI=.815, TLI=.794, NFI=778, RMSEA=.114) was compared to the saturated alternative model (less constrained) (c2 [244, 300] = 1,422.577, p<.001, df=285, GFI=.711, CFI=.815, IFI=.816, TLI=.789, NFI=781, RMSEA=.116), in which four direct paths from each culture type to both cyberloafing and e-citizenship were added. This latter model only represents a partially mediated model of the effects of corporate culture on cyberloafing and e-citizenship. The results of the comparison of the two models reveal that the change in the chi-square test of the hypothesized model, when compared to the saturated model (c2d(8)=15.375, p=.052251), is significant at p=.05. Thus, this supports ethical leadership as a mediator between corporate culture as a whole and cyberloafing/e-citizenship. Cybercivism e17 e18 e19 Y9 Y16 Y17 Y19 Y18 .71 .66 .76 .52 . .78 .85 .87 .81 .76 .388* e22 .11 e16 .58 e12 e13 e14 Y12 Y14 Y13 .84 .66 .76 .92 .87 .81 e21 .07 e15 Y15 .63 .79 Y8 .59 .78 .37 Y7 .45 ..80 Y6 .61 .77 Cyberloafing Y10 .47 .69 Y5 .60 .79 Y1 Y4 .57 .64 . .77.76 Y3 .62 .67 Y2 .62 .72 Clan Adhocracy Market Hierarchy Ethical Leadership –.268* e5 e1 e4 e3 e2 e9 e8 e7 e6 e10 X1 X4 X2 .68* –.64* .31* –.75 –.73* –.37* X3 .488* .107 .338* .199 e20 Y20 .53 .73 e11 Y11 .69 .83 .59 e23 48 citizenship as moral activities, the results support the adhocracy and clan cultures as having a positive and significant impact on ethical leadership. This thus demonstrates that adhocracy leads to employee cyberloafing and e-citizenship, and clan culture leads only to e-citizenship. 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Inequity, Conflict, and Compliance Dilemma As Cause of Cyberloafing. International Journal of Conflict Management, 20(2), 188-201. 57 CHAPTER II Does ethical leadership motivate followers to participate in delivering compassion? 64 regard, conscientiousness (often-called compliance), sportsmanship (tolerance without complaining), and civic virtue are seen as being directed at the organization (OCBOs). On the hand, courtesy and altruism are viewed as dimensions of OCBs that mainly benefit co-workers (OCBIs) (Williams & Anderson, 1991; Van Dyne et al., 1995). Courtesy is defined as behaviour that involves helping other members of the organisation by taking steps to prevent problems, and altruism is defined as helping others with their work (Organ, 1988). Ethical leadership and compassion at work This paper stresses ethical dynamics of compassion. These are consistent with POS (Verbos et al., 2007) and, in particular with POE which is committed to compassion as a primary area of research and theory (Dutton and Glynn, 2008; Dutton et al., 2007). The paper also matches ethics of care literature which suggests compassion as a prevalent moral practice in the organisational context (Bowden, 1997; Fine, 2007; Gilligan, 1982; Held, 2006; Noddings, 2002; Waerness, 1996). Employees’ perceptions on fair treatment from their organisations have been extensively studied as an important factor in explaining why employees decide to engage in ethical behaviour (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Greenberg, 1990, 2002; Weaver & Treviño, 1999; Masterson et al., 2000; Moorman, 1991). Managers at all levels of organisations can effectively have a primary role in shaping ethical standards in staff by exemplifying what is appropriate through their own behaviour and interactions (Dickson et al., 2001). As Stringer (2002) states, “most studies have shown that the single most important determinant of an organization’s climate is the daily behaviour of the leaders of the organization” (p. 12). Given that the leaders are people who can establish the value and legitimacy of compassion, the followers’ perceptions of the ethical way in which their leaders perform may contribute to facilitate compassionate events in work teams (Dutton et al., 2002, 2006). In this regard, there are prior studies that empirically support a positive correlation between ethical leadership and ethical climate (shared perceptions of what is ethically correct) (Neubert et al., 2009; Mayer et al., 2010). Therefore, exploring aspects of a positive ethical climate can serve to build a rationale of why ethical leadership could be able to lead staff to display compassion towards peers at work. 65 Social learning is one way in which ethical leadership may contribute to ethical climate conditions and therefore, compassion in the workplace. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) suggests that when employees observe the consequences of others’ behaviour (such as that of leaders), they use this information to guide their own behaviour. This greater openness of followers to ethical guidance of fairer leaders indicates the crucial role ethical leadership has to provide ethical climate conditions in an organisation’s work teams. Commonly agreed by prior research, egotistical feelings of self-interest, friendship, and personal morality are individual-level aspects of ethical climate at work (Victor and Cullen, 1987). Unlike friendship and personal morality (Zoghbi-Manrique-deLara & Guerra-Baez, 2016), POE suggests egotistical feelings of self-interest lead staff members to be less able to understand their own values and motives (selfawareness) and can reduce the likelihood of noticing peers’ need for help and therefore diminishing capacity for peer-peer connection (Hallowell, 1999; Frost, 2003). However, based on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), if the leaders emphasise empathic concern for their subordinates, followers may be more motivated to show empathic concern for peers’ need for aid. This particular way of encouraging thirdparty intervention suggests that employees can act as uninvolved third parties who are deontically concerned about their peers’ need for help. Thus, employees are able to display empathic concern based on a principled motive or by moral obligation (Folger et al., 2005). Therefore, we establish the following null (H0) and alternative (HA) hypotheses, H(0)1a: Ethical leadership has no positive effects on empathic concern. H(A)1a: Ethical leadership has positive effects on empathic concern. Caring relationships are built on high-quality connections that are characterised by positive regard, feelings of inclusion, and an individual sense that others are important (Dutton and Ragins, 2007). Nevertheless, concerns about work outcomes 66 can lead staff to a lack of common humanity, that is, to see peers’ experiences as separate and isolated from the larger human experience (Neff et al., 2007). For instance, Messner and Rosenfeld (2001:63) contended that an exaggerated focus on work outcomes is “conducive to the mentality that ‘it’s not how you play the game: it’s whether you win or lose’.” This low moral awareness climate can lead employees to sense that pain is only a matter of self, and that they are isolated and that competing with others can be ethically justifiable (Hayes et al., 1996; Neff, 2003; Wispe, 1991). If benevolent, however, ethical leadership may turn these exaggerated egotistical feelings of selfinterest of staff to perceptions of peers as part of the larger human experience or human condition (Eisenberg, 2000; Parker and Axtell, 2001). As Karakas and Sarigollu (2013) propose, in a benevolent climate individuals are more likely to create observable benefits, actions or results for the ‘common good’. Figure 1: Hypothesized Model of Ethical leadership as a Mediator of the Link between Corporate Culture and Personal Internet Use (PIU) Interpersonal citizenship (OCBI) H2abcd Ethical Leadership H1abcd (a) Empathic Concern (d) Kindness Compassionate feelings H2abcd (c) Mindfulness (b) Common Humanity 67 As leadership is a group phenomenon, employee reciprocation to an ethical leader is expected to be partially displaced toward the work group (Ambrose et al., 2002; Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002). However, research on reactions to others’ suffering has generally assumed this individualistic and rationally self-interested focus, i.e. ‘what’s in it for me?’ (Treviño et al., 2006), some prior work suggests that staff in a team may also react to the pain and suffering of peers through moral obligation (Folger, 2001). As such, in favouring the supervisor as the source of ethical guidance, employee gratitude to them can also favour the section of the organisation for which he or she is responsible (Ambrose et al., 2002; Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002). In the end, this more benevolent way of responding to ethical leadership may be socially learned (Bandura, 1977). Therefore, we establish the following null (H0) and alternative (HA) hypotheses, H(0)1c: Ethical leadership has no positive effects on mindfulness. H(A)1c: Ethical leadership has positive effects on mindfulness. Egotistical feelings can lead employees to feel pressured to compete against peers in the pursuit of personal success and so be convinced that moral standards do not apply to them (Bandura’s (1986, 1999) moral disengagement) or that they are “outside the boundary in which moral values, rules, and considerations of fairness apply” (Opotow’s (1990:1) moral exclusion). These feelings may lead employees to overlook work relationships in favour of individual goals and feelings of distrust toward peers (Andersson and Bateman, 1997). The staff’s egotistical feelings may not allow space for kindness or positive judgments about peers as it may be considered that peers’ needs for aid are avoidable or exaggerated and as such undeserving of compassion (Simpson et al., 2014; Dutton et al., 2010). Fair leaders have been recognised as able to elicit work conditions in which kindness or positive judgments about peers seem more likely to arise. These leaders trust that pain is shared (Dutton et al., 2010), and value high-quality relationships (Eisenberg, 2000; Parker and Axtell, 2001), or the existence of compassionate organisational and work group norms (Ashforth et al., 2000; Clark, 2000). Therefore, based on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), ethical leadership may alter egotistical feelings to friendship or personal morality. Staff who perceive ethical leadership may be more likely to be guided morally to aid peers’ 68 need for help (Brown, 1999). This in turn leads to a higher probability to show kindness and making positive judgments about peers’ pain or slights as it is considered unavoidable, understated or deserved (Dutton et al., 2010). Therefore, H(0)1d: Ethical leadership has no positive effects on kindness. H(A)1d: Ethical leadership has positive effects on kindness. As argued in this paper, the prediction that individual perceptions of ethical leadership will lead employees to perform interpersonal citizenship can be justified by reactions based on POE. That is to say principles that intrinsically-morally motivate individuals to engage in positive deviance (Stansbury and Sonenshein, 2012). However, it is unclear why employees are morally motivated to react to ethical leadership in such an intrinsic way. Researchers studying reactions to justice, such as Moorman and Byrne (2005) and Conlon et al (2005), have offered some ideas as such a motivation based on pride, respect and trust in the supervisor. Additionally, perceived organisational support and leader-member exchange can be seen as explanations for reactions to fairness in the workplace. However, these mediators mainly provide only a social exchange explanation for these reactions and thus neglect to address a rationale from a POE perspective of why employees are intrinsically motivated to respond to ethical leadership compassionately. Supervisors inflicting unfair and immoral acts on staff are likely to be perceived as lacking compassion, which may influence employees’ helping reactions toward peers. A basis for this assertion may be found in employee-centred implicit leadership theories (Bass, 1990; Lord et al., 2001), which suggest that previous ideas about the supervisor create ‘schemas’ that can determine the way employees evaluate (and react to) their supervisor’s performance. Employees are likely to compare this moral reference to the performance of their current leader at work. If congruent, this adjustment can determine the way employees react to their supervisor’s performance (Bass, 1990; Lord et al., 2001) by producing moral-based reactions in the form of interpersonal citizenship. Previous research seems to support this suggestion. First, leader congruence seems to rely on two distinct types of ‘schemas,’ as ethical leaders are referred to as “moral persons” and “moral managers” (Treviño et al., 69 2000). From the moral person perspective, leaders who supervise peers ethically are likely to be congruent with what employees consider a good person and will probably be approved of and liked. This probable affinity for supervisors may expand compassionate feelings generated in followers by ethical leadership, ultimately explaining why employees respond to ethical leaders with interpersonal citizenship. In this regard, POE suggests that when staff members have positive attitudes, they are generally more able to developing ethical sensitivity (Handelsman et al., 2002) and, hence, compassionate responses. Weiss and Cropanzano (1996, p.37), take into account implicit leadership theories and support this mediating role of compassion as they note how affective frameworks “appear to act as latent predispositions,” and individuals involved in negative affectivity are “predisposed to react more strongly to negative events.” Therefore, if ethical leadership is intrinsically important because of an affect-based process (Folger et al., 2005), staff’s interpersonal citizenship reactions to ethical leadership may include compassionate feelings. Second, if implicit leadership theories are moral reference to the performance of their current leader at work as “moral managers,” it is likely that the leaders are particularly aware of the need for peer-peer compassion because, as moral managers, they should seek to assure that their team succeeds, and receives compassionate support. In fact, leadership style has been shown to influence conformity in ethical decision-making frameworks in work groups (Schminke et al., 2002), and “moral manager” perceptions might similarly embody a type of ‘schemas of support’ in which the compassionate responses to ethical leadership in the form of interpersonal citizenship do occur. Brief et al (2001) supports this idea when stating that ways of thinking and acting can constitute a kind of organisational “moral atmosphere”: an isolated style of moral thinking and acting that ethical managers may partly embody. If ethical leadership leads to compassion in the workplace, this “helping atmosphere” is likely to be consistent with employees’ moral standards, as suggested by implicit leadership theories, reinforcing them and, consequently, encouraging ethical behaviour. Therefore, H(0)2abcd: Empathic concern (a), common humanity (b), mindfulness (c), and kindness (d) no mediate the effects of ethical leadership on OCBI. H(A)2abcd: Empathic concern (a), common humanity (b), mindfulness (c), and kindness (d) mediate the effects of ethical leadership on OCBI. 70 Method Procedure and Sample Characteristics The hypotheses were examined by collecting data from 300 work unit colleagues at 100 investment banks in the City of London during the autumn of 2015. Once each company informed their consent, we emailed the questionnaires to a leader in each company under the request that they ask 3 of their followers to fill out the survey. A number of 100 team leaders (46 lower-level managers, 46%; 40 middle managers, 40%; and 14 top managers, 14%) were requested to choose 3 followers each who met the criteria of having worked six months or more on the rationale that these employees would have had a socialization period at the bank. We also requested them to choose direct followers randomly during their time at work with the intention of including employees working in different functions and situations within the team. The sample comprised of 69.7% men and 30.3% women. 35% were 34 years of age or younger, and 16% were 55 years of age or older. In addition, the respondents showed different percentages of tenure over six years concerning the sector (82.7%), current bank (69.3%), and present position (37%). Finally, only 26.7% of those responding were undergraduate level. Eventually, of the 300 responses none were considered invalid and all of them were retained for further analysis. Measures Items were scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)—in the case of interpersonal citizenship, from 1 (never) to 7 (constantly), and they are presented in Figure 1. Cronbach’s alpha values appear on the main diagonal of the correlations matrix (Table 1). Ethical leadership. A 10-item measure developed by Brown et al. (2005) was employed. Mindfulness. Trait mindfulness was assessed using the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), which has the longest empirical track record as a valid measure of mindfulness. To reduce respondent burden, the MAAS 6-item shortscale (e.g., “It seems that I am “running on automatic pilot,” without much awareness of what I’m doing”), developed by Black et al. (2012), was chosen. MAAS item scores were reverse-coded making higher scores indicate a greater degree of mindfulness. 71 Empathic concern. Empathic concern was measured by the 7-item Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1980), which assesses feelings of warmth, concern and sympathy for others. We reversed the scoring of the three items, since they are worded in the opposite direction to empathic concern. We also reworded all item scale to focus on a greater degree of empathic concern towards co-workers. For instance, the item “Other people’s misfortunes usually don’t disturb me a great deal” was reworded to “Co-workers’ misfortunes usually disturb me a great deal” in order to show a greater degree of empathic concern towards co-workers. Kindness and Common Humanity. We adapted the 5-item Self-Kindness and 4-item Common Humanity subscales of the Self-Compassion Scale (SCS; Neff, 2003). We edited their items, refocusing compassion for the self on compassionate actions and feelings for co-workers. For example, the item “I’m kind to myself when I’m suffering” was replaced with “I’m kind to peers when they are suffering,” while the item “I try to see my failings as part of the human condition”, related to Common Humanity, was substituted by “I try to see peers’ failings as part of the human condition.” Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCBs). Interpersonal citizenship, i.e., directed at individuals, was assessed using 7 items of the OCBI-scale developed by Lee and Allen (2002). Control variables. Based on the literature, we took into account the gender (1=man, 2=woman) and the age (1=up to 25 years old; 2=between 25 and 34; 3= between 35 and 44; 5=between 45 and 54; 5=between 55 and 65; 6=over 65 year old), as they could co-vary with our dependent and independent variables. Statistical Analysis The collected data were analysed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and structural equation modeling (SEM). AMOS 22 was used to perform confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) that assess the validity of the measures. We used Hayes’s approach (2013) (Model 4) with 1,000 bootstrap samples to test the 72 mediation. Gender and age were included as control variables because they generally correlate significantly with the study variables (see Table 3). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) first determined whether all the data loaded according to the expected six-factor structure. CFA tests of the construct validity included the good-fit (GFI), comparative-fit (CFI), normed-fit (NFI), Tucker-Lewis (TLI), incremental-fit (IFI) indices, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). The CFA results showed how the six-factor solution is insufficient (c2 = 1,307.366, p<.001, df=340, GFI=.769, CFI=.834, IFI=.835, TLI=.816, NFI=.790, RMSEA=.098) with a fit indexes below .90 and RMSEA over .05, even though three items with factor loadings less than .5 (two for kindness, and one for mindfulness) were dropped. Since the fit of CFA for the six-factor solution is low, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is also performed. The EFA results displayed in Table 1 support the six-factor solution. As such, all items loaded as predicted in the expected factors, confirming six factors with eigenvalues greater than 1, and cross-loadings over .3. Table 1 also shows the Cronbach’s alpha calculated to assess the reliability of the scales, which ranged from .817 to .928, above the recommended alpha of .70 (Nunnally, 1978). Once the items had been factor-analyzed, reverse-coded or rejected when necessary, descriptive statistics calculated the means and standard deviations of the variables. 73 TABLA I: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) F1 – ETHICAL LEADERSHIP (Eigenvalue = 8.025; Explained variance % = 27.928; α =.928 ) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 Makes fair and balanced decisions .842 .109 .117 -.012 .045 .016 Has the best interests of employees in mind .822 .074 .174 -.055 .153 .011 Listens to what department employees have to say .804 .053 .096 -.053 .123 .138 Disciplines employees who violate ethical standards .797 .157 -.008 -.055 .058 .047 Can be trusted .791 .028 -.009 -.056 .052 .117 Conducts his/her personal life in an ethical manner .787 .075 .057 -.017 .081 .010 Defines success not just by results but also the way they are obtained .757 .051 .088 -.085 .072 .052 Asks “what is the right thing to do?” when making decisions .757 .060 .077 -.070 .012 –.006 Discusses business ethics or values with employees .731 .117 -.004 -.035 .114 .019 Sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics .647 .097 .110 -.118 .099 .275 F2 – OCB-I (Eigenvalue = 3.622; Explained variance % = 12.795; α =.909) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 Give up time to help co-workers who have work or non-work problems .095 .817 .119 -.073 .080 .070 Adjust your schedule to accommodate other colleagues’ requests for time off .126 .816 .138 -.034 .026 .177 Assist peers with their duties .103 .779 .063 -.013 .212 .017 Go out of the way to make newer colleagues feel welcome in the work group .103 .779 .143 -.037 .083 .203 Share personal property with peers to help their work .114 .768 .149 -.023 .146 .006 Willingly give your time to help peers who have work-related problems .090 .698 .198 -.045 .163 .177 80 CI=[.0501; .1633]) should be rejected. These patterns definitively lead us to reject empathic concern, mindfulness, and kindness as mediators in the link between ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship. In turn, common humanity was the only compassionate indicator in this study that could be seen as a mediator in the link between ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship. Discussion The purpose of this study was to test the premise that when staff are recipients of acts of ethical leadership they respond to this with interpersonal citizenship toward peers; an act that seemed likely to occur in the workplace. The results confirm this premise and also demonstrate that this behavioural reaction can be explained by the mediating role of common humanity. However the results show that empathic concern, mindfulness and kindness played an insignificant role in this regard. Furthermore, kindness was not significantly predicted by ethical leadership. Overall, this study offers several theoretical implications for ethical leadership in organisations which has been concluded by the way the surveyed ethical context performed in predicting interpersonal citizenship. The results of this study will suggest specific new courses of action for managers from a compassion approach. Finally, the paper reveals several avenues for future research. First, the results of this study contribute to developing the literature on the impact that ethical leadership has on followers’ ethical behavior. The results of this study match and complement Kalshoven, et al., (2013)’s findings that shared perceptions of moral awareness and empathic concern in the work group act as moderators in the relationship between ethical leadership and follower helping and courtesy. Furthermore, the supported mechanisms from ethical leadership to interpersonal citizenship also contribute to the rise in scholar’s interest in the topic of compassion. One such scholar, George (2014), urges organisational researchers to focus on compassionate issues within organisations. As George states, capitalism may be creating fundamental tensions and contradictions that culturally permeate organisations and the workplace and create a lack of compassion. In an attempt to increase business returns, George notes that corporations are forced to inflict suffering on numerous workers and their families through layoffs where workers must find new positions with little or no support. This study offers a research response to George’s (2014) call for further investigation on this topic as a lack of ethical leadership may be one of the negative outcomes of the fundamental tensions 81 and contradictions of the current economic system. Implicit leadership theories are thought to develop based on events and experiences in a person’s life (Keller, 1999), and are generally rooted in the values and beliefs of the larger society and its subcultures (House et al., 2004). For example, parenting styles have been found to influence individuals’ implicit leadership theories as parents are often the first leaders to which people are exposed (Keller, 1999). The mediating role of common humanity, as studied in this paper, can provide business managers with useful insights to better understand how cultural values and disvalues of a society can lead employees to help peers in the workplace. Contrary to expectations, the results showed common humanity as the only compassionate feeling with significant capacity to mediate ethical leadership effects on interpersonal citizenship. At the same time, the results rejected empathic concern, mindfulness, and kindness as increasing instances of interpersonal citizenship. One way to explain why mindfulness was not able to mediate the ethical leadership-citizenship link is to explore the intricacies that this so-called psychological flexibility has in the compassion process. In fact, mindfulness mainly seems to intervene in (rather than being part of) the compassionate process (Tirch, 2010). Instead mindfulness can lead staff to lubricate compassion’s sub-processes (noticing, feeling, and responding) by decreasing the immediate reaction and sense of threat, or by increasing selfregulation (Atkins and Parker, 2012). However, mindfulness is not compassion itself, but instead can be present in many individual and organisational processes aside from compassion. Dane (2011) found that mindfulness and positive measures of task performance could be linked. This linkage can suggest that, rather than expressing only compassion, mindfulness may also stem from the staff’s psychological flexibility to increase task performance (Dane, 2011). Brown, (1999) asserts that mindfulness can magnify compassionate feelings of empathic concern, so ethical leadership could elicit empathic concern through mindfulness, i.e. aside from compassion. Kindness or positive judgments about others were unrelated to ethical leadership and thus suggest that there are other aspects that lead people to consider a leader or action as immoral. Taking all these ideas into account can explain why empathic concern, mindfulness, and kindness failed as mediators. The results indication that common humanity feelings have a positive mediating effect should make business managers aware that staff perceptions of unethical leadership will have a negative impact on peer-peer support and interpersonal 82 citizenship. This is because peers view other peers’ experiences as separate and isolated from the larger human experience (Neff, 2007). This contrasts positive ethical leadership where peers recognize that other peers’ experiences are part of the common human condition (Neff, 2003). As common humanity is the leading mechanism from ethical leadership to interpersonal citizenship, helping actions in the workplace should include any or all of the key moral references at work. Based in employee-centred implicit leadership theories (Bass, 1990; Lord et al., 2001), employees are likely to compare the moral reference that leaders provide to the performance of their current leader at work. If incongruent, this study’s results allow us to understand that this incongruence provokes employees to view their peers’ experiences as isolated, rather than integrated, in the larger human experience. These isolated feelings that unethical leadership elicits among staff ultimately produce moral-based reactions in the form of decreased interpersonal citizenship. Based on the above, we believe that a useful preventive compassion-based strategy is to strengthen healthy employee feelings in favour of peer-peer to recognize instances of need or failure (Neff, 2003). This thus activates the mechanisms of ethical leadership to inspire interpersonal citizenship. Managers, therefore, must counteract narrow-minded staff judgments of their peers by designing actions that communicate the leaders value and support in staff’s efforts to change this negative style of thinking. By setting an example in their judgements and treatment of their subordinates, supervisors can play a useful role in promoting this beneficial ethical leadership-citizenship link by activating its compassion-based mechanism. However, prevention is not always possible, and so it may sometimes be necessary to use a reactive strategy that corrects existing uncompassionate feelings in the workplace. As such, in addition to a preventative ethical leadership strategy, rehabilitation interventions are possible to achieve “personally fulfilling, socially meaningful, and functionally effective interaction” in their daily contexts (Riggar and Maki, 2004:1) and to gain common humanity feelings. This social/occupational intervention can boost the mechanisms leading from ethical leadership to interpersonal citizenship. For example, person-organisation (P-O) value misfit has been studied as a potential inductor of employees’ moral disengagement (e.g., Zoghbi-Manrique-de-Lara, 2008). By combating this disconnection of personal values from the organisation, the staff may be less willing to isolate peers in their needs and slights and, hence, more susceptible to allow ethical leadership to lead to interpersonal citizenship. Actions of this type might incorporate diagnostic interviews, counselling, and other job-related activities that are able to assess and 83 rehabilitate ‘misfit staff’ at work. Lastly, cultural differences can be problematic in the workplaces and can significantly increase the risk of staff disconnection to peers’ negative experiences (Tsahuridu, 2011). This can contribute to weakening the helping context in the workplace and provoking the appearance of feelings of isolation and therefore decrease interpersonal citizenship. In this regard it could be useful to develop education and training programs targeted at reducing stereotyping, increasing cultural sensitivity, and developing the skills needed for working in multicultural environments. Additionally, education inspired by a positive leader can clarify and reinforce ethical standards for followers. Consequently this decreases the likelihood of adverse compassion effects such as a lack of a ‘world view’ as compassionate actions are instead promoted in the workplace (Bryson and Crosby, 1992; Daly and Cobb, 1989) Limitations, future research and conclusions Regarding the limitations, we acknowledge that this study has weaknesses. Firstly, this study can be seen to suffer from one source/method bias, and, hence, caution is needed in interpreting the results. Secondly, we have only focused on banking employees, who have certain work conditions that are often inherent to their specific sector. Thirdly, it is possible that our study over-focuses on the workplace relations where staff interact more, i.e. in the service areas reported by our survey. Consequently, the performance of the constructs used in the present study, as well as their implications, could vary. Lastly, the data stems from a limited universe, raising concerns about the generalisability of the findings. Some questions remain unanswered that could be the basis for future research. For example, as recognized in the limitations on the generalisability of the findings, future research could triangulate our data collection technique, so that qualitative insights are also gained. Additionally, future research could also include specific impacts on the perception of culture and ethical leadership as well as other factors and/or behaviours such as: deviated behaviours between coworkers and toward the bank, task performance, service satisfaction and conventional citizenship behaviour. Another possibility would be to extend the field of possible models to include corporate culture, ethical leadership, and citizenship by contemplating the role that perceptions of organisational (in)justice can play in the studied relationships (e.g., interactional, procedural, or distributive justice). Finally, it is necessary to investigate the different possible effects of perceptions of ethical leadership. This could vary depending on the different areas or services where employees work in the banks as it is possible that there would be significant differences in the behaviour of the different 84 constructs used in this study. In conclusion, this article contributes to a greater comprehension of the influence of ethical leadership on the success of managing interpersonal citizenship. Prior research on ethical leadership effects on citizenship behaviour has not yet yielded patterns that sufficiently explain the role that compassion can play in these influences. This study has shown that when supervisors communicate to employees that they deserve to be labelled as ethical leaders, they encourage their staff in turn to react with interpersonal citizenship behaviour. By supporting the mediating role of common humanity and confirming main effects in the link between ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship, this study makes an important contribution to this portion of the ethical leadership and compassion literatures. Most importantly this study demonstrates that it is not only the staff’s quid pro quo responses to ethical leadership that are important, but also compassion-based responses inspired by intrinsical-moral motivation. Ethical approval: All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all companies and individual participants included in this study. 85 BIBLIOGRAPHY Ambrose, M.L., Seabright, M.A., & Schminke, M. (2002). Sabotage in the workplace: The role of organizational justice. 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Does the work alienation of followers matter? 98 99 The impact of ethical leadership on firm performance Does the work alienation of followers matter? Abstract: This study examines the extent to which ethical leadership, either directly and/or indirectly – through elements of work alienation (i.e. powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement) – relates to aspects of a company’s financial performance (i.e. profit and growth). The study utilized the techniques of structural equation modelling and Hayes’s process (2013) to factor analyse the data and estimate the modelled relationships based on the responses from 400 respondents from 100 banks in the City of London. Both team leaders and their direct reports (n=100) and 100 triads of followers (n=300) participated in the study. Results found that leaders who perceived themselves as ethical reported significantly higher levels of firm performance and their teams showed lower feelings of powerlessness (i.e. lack of control over their work) and self-estrangement (i.e. they could rarely express their potential by working), but the same meaninglessness (i.e. the inability to comprehend the relationship of one’s contributions to a larger purpose). Powerlessness, in turn, was the only element of work alienation able to act as a mediator. Findings evidenced that followers could find in ethical leadership a boost to combat alienation at work, being a lack of powerlessness a reason of why ethical leadership is able to impact firm performance. Key Words: Ethical leadership, Work alienation; Organisational performance. Resumen: Este estudio examina el grado en el que el liderazgo ético, bien directa o indirectamente —a través de las dimensiones de la alienación laboral (es decir, powerlessness, meaninglessness y self-estrangement)— está relacionado con dos aspectos del rendimiento económico de una empresa, su rentabilidad y su crecimiento. En el estudio se usaron técnicas de los modelos de ecuaciones estructurales y Hayes (2013) para realizar un análisis factorial de los datos y calcular las relaciones propuestas en base a las respuestas de 400 encuestados de 100 bancos de la City de Londres. 100 En el estudio participaron tanto jefes de equipo como sus superiores directos (n=100) y 100 triadas de seguidores (n=300). Los resultados reflejan cómo los líderes que se veían a sí mismos como éticos reportaban mayores niveles de rendimiento de la empresa y sus equipos mostraban menores sentimientos de powerlessness (es decir, falta de control sobre su trabajo) y de self-estrangement (o sea, dificultad para expresar su potencial en el puesto de trabajo), pero los mismos de meaninglessness (incapacidad de comprender la relación del trabajo propio con la consecución de un logro mayor). Powerlessness, en cambio, fue el único elemento de la alienación laboral capaz de mediar la relación estudiada. Los hallazgos demuestran que los seguidores encuentran en el liderazgo ético una herramienta para combatir la alienación en el puesto de trabajo, siendo la ausencia de powerlessness la razón por la que el liderazgo ético influye en el rendimiento de la empresa. Palabras clave: liderazgo ético, alienación laboral, rendimiento organizativo. 101 INTRODUCTION In the past decade, the number of research studies on ethical leadership at work has increased dramatically. Numerous theorists and practitioners in the area of management and organisational behaviour have paid much attention on ethical leadership based on the existing indications that leaders may be one of the most relevant factors in influencing employee’s ethical conduct at work (e.g., Bies & Moag, 1986; Brown & Treviño, 2006). As Weaver, Trevino, and Cochran (1999:55) stated, “executive commitment to ethics has important consequences for ethics governance in companies, and managers should take their role seriously.” From a management perspective, the interest in the ability of ethical leadership to promote ethical conducts of followers seems implicitly to assume that ethical leadership leads to firm performance (Neubert et al., 2009; Trevino et al., 2003; Cullen et al., 2003; Brown and Treviño, 2006; Brown et al., 2005). Several studies, accordingly, have taken on the task of testing the relation between ethical leadership and an extensive number of followers’ “normatively appropriate” attitudes and behaviours, which are supposed to be beneficial for the organisation. They include followers’ ethical decision-making, pro-social behaviour, counterproductive behaviour, interpersonal conflict, followers’ satisfaction, motivation, and commitment (e.g., Kim, & Brymer, 2011; Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012; Neubert et al., 2009; Zhu et al., 2004). Although the results are consistently supportive, they seem hardly conclusive because these ethical leadership outcomes are mere bottom-line followers’ positive attitudes and behaviour unable to report significant evidences about whether ethical leadership behaviour impacts direct and high-level measures of firm performance. To date, therefore, even though there has been calls for research it considers financial performance as an outcome of ethical leader behaviour (e.g., Zhu et al., 2004), prior research has under-examined this potential impact of ethical leadership on firm performance. To address this shortcoming, this study first aims to test whether ethical leader behaviour is able to affect the indicators developed by Venkatraman (1989) to measure firm performance, which included a growth dimension and a profitability dimension. 102 In addition to the need for research on connections between ethical leadership and firm performance, there is also a need to explain why this link might be possible. A statement that seems to derive from Brown, Treviño, and Harrison’s (2005) seminal definition of ethical leadership concerns the way they suggest ethical leadership can promote firm performance. As this seminal definition of ethical leadership proposes, in addition to demonstrate normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, ethical leaders should promote ethical conducts in followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making. Prior work has certainly tested mediators that may serve as explanations of why ethical leaders may influence firm performance. In this regard, promoting extraeffort (Kim, & Brymer, 2011) and feelings of psychological empowerment in followers (Zhu et al., 2004), or shaping an ethical climate (Neubert et al., 2009) have been supported as explanations of why ethical leaders lead followers to job satisfaction and affective organisational commitment (Kim, & Brymer, 2011; Neubert et al., 2009), and others employee individual outcomes (Zhu et al., 2004). Despite this, the reasons of why ethical leadership may promote more direct and higher-level measures of firm performance appear to be under-examined. This paper thus considers there is a need to go deeply into the mechanisms that enable ethical leaders to ultimately promote firm performance through the ethical conducts of followers. To address this further shortcoming, this study aims to provide and test a major explanation of why ethical leaders may influence firm performance. Drawing on Alan Fox’s (1966) unitarism theory, which states that managers and employees have common interests in the effective functioning of their organisations, the argument made is that ethical leaders support firm performance because, with their leader behaviour, they shape a unitary and a friendly atmosphere that discourages followers’ danger of being alienated from the company’s initiatives and targets (Hendrickson & Gray, 2012). We argue, hence, that ethical leadership can lead to higher firm performance because they decrease work alienation, which are feelings that break the sense of unity of the firm with its members (from the Latin, alienati, alienare: “take away,” “remove” or “cause a separation to occur”) in their work teams. Alienation, which originates from the writings of the German philosopher Karl Marx occurs as the result of a contradiction between the nature of the work and the human being. More specifically, work alienation is the result of situations where workers 103 are unable to find control over the product and the process of labour, its meaningless and unable to find the capacity to express themselves at work. These feelings of work alienation were proposed by Seeman’s (1959) initial article “on the meaning of alienation”, which talks about powerlessness (i.e. lack of job autonomy by reason of which employees have limited freedom to exert control over work activities), meaninglessness (i.e. the inability to comprehend the relationship of one’s contributions to a larger purpose) and self-estrangement (i.e. when work becomes a path for satisfying merely extrinsic needs rather than a means for expressing one’s potential) (Ferguson & Lavalette, 2004; Ludz, 1976; Plasek, 1974; Seeman, 1975; Mottaz, 1981; Sarros et al., 2002). Therefore, ethical leadership is hypothesised in this paper as influencing firm performance by specifically leading subordinates to expressing lower feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement. To sum up, this paper suggests that work alienation impedes ethical leadership to connect to the company’s profitand growth-oriented financial performance. In hypothesis 1, this study aims to examine whether ethical leadership and firm performance are linked. In hypothesis 3, the followers’ feelings of powerlessness, meaninglessness and selfestrangement are tested as mediators in the relationship between ethical leadership and profit and growth aspects of the firm performance. Previously, we plan to factor-analyse the data in order to provide empirical evidence that all the variables used in this study are separate and that, according to hypothesis 2, ethical leadership predicts team-level work alienation feelings. Finally, the paper discusses the theoretical and the managerial implications of the findings. Literature review and hypotheses According to Fox’s (1966) unitarism theory, it is unlikely that a conflict will manifest itself as a fatal threat to the survival of an organisation. Because the unitarism theory primarily focuses on industrial relations, this paper draws on this theory to first assume that employees have shared interests and a basic sense of unity with their employers, and specifically, with their leaders. In fact, because leadership is a helpful strategy for a company, it is likely that perceptions about leadership can contribute in maintaining a basic sense of unity among the staff with their employers. The ethical extent to which followers perceive that their supervisors perform, therefore, may be hypothesised as one factor able to reinforce or weaken the basic sense of unity that employees have with the company. 104 Ethical leadership and firm performance Measuring financial performance is an issue for researchers. The concept of firm performance, its financial definition and its temporal relation to ethical leadership as some of the antecedents, which are loomed as useful and have perhaps very difficult requirements to demonstrate. As objective and subjective measurements of financial performance are positively related, prior research usually chose subjective performance measures to determine financial performance. They usually include sales, profit, satisfaction-based scales and change (Madsen, 1987; Shoham, 1998). In this study, indicators developed by Venkatraman (1989) were used to measure firm performance, which includes a growth dimension and a profitability dimension. Based on Alan Fox’s (1966) unitarism theory, the role that leadership strategies can play in increasing the level of firm performance is based on the unified and collaborative extra efforts that ethical leadership encourages. However, as staff is the main tool with which leaders can achieve firm goals, unless ethical leaders can create a successful team, they alone will likely be unable to achieve quality firm performance. Organ (1997:94) coined the term team morale when describing the key antecedent of helping behaviours directed at the organisation, such as organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Team morale emerges from a general state of satisfaction in the workplace, it being a key criterion which underscores the reasons why employees support the organisation (e.g. Hemdi & Nasurdin, 2007). Team morale may lead the staff to increase firm performance by making them display greater tolerance for the workplace dysfunctionalities (Foster, 2010; Hendrickson & Gray, 2012), higher collaboration to the company’s initiatives (Kirkman & Shapiro, 2001) and better positive appraisals of the company’s goals (Chen & Hsieh, 2013; Domberger, 1998; Leeman & Reynolds, 2012). In the end, as Organ (1997:95) stated in another way he defined OCBs, they are “performance that supports the social and psychological environment [of a company] in which task performance take place” (see also, Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). If ethical leaders are perceived to be fair and trustworthy, they are more likely to lead their followers to be committed to perform better (Brown & Trevino, 2006), which may increase the performance of helping behaviours that support the core aspects of a company, thus preventing putting them at risk (Chen & Hsieh, 2013; Domberger, 1998; Leeman & Reynolds, 2012). This paper hypothesises, therefore, that ethical leadership may lead leaders and their followers to unify and share 105 interests that can boost employees’ morale and increase the profit and growth aspects of the company’s financial performance (see Figure 1). Therefore, we establish the following null (H0) and alternative (HA) hypotheses H(0)1ab: Ethical leadership has no positive effects on firm (a) profitand/or (b) growth-oriented financial performance. H(A)1ab: Ethical leadership has positive effects on firm (a) profitand/or (b) growth-oriented financial performance. Ethical leadership and work alienation Shepard (1973) defined alienation as an awareness of the discrepancy between one’s own inclinations and the demands of reality (see Lee, 2005; Muntaner et al., 2006). Seeman (1975) agrees by pointing out that the majority of alienation studies contain some notion of “discrepancy”. When applied to the workplace, this discrepancy usually takes the form of a gap between perceptions of an objective work situation and certain concerns of individuals, such as needs, values, ideals, desires or expectations (see Mottaz, 1981). The present study stresses work alienation as a discrepancy between the employees’ perceptions of the company’s ethical conditions concerning ethical leadership and their expectations regarding this leadership. Because a lack of ethical leadership can lead an employee to feel the unity in the firm to be broken, unethical leadership is expected to be a cause for the appearance of the powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement dimensions of work alienation. Figure 1 Hypothesized Model of Compassion as a Mediator of the Link between Ethical Leadership and Interpersonal citizenship (OCB–I) As a complement to Fox’s (1966) unitarism theory, a further justification for formulating our hypotheses can be found in the employee-centred implicit leadership theories (Bass, 1990; Lord et al., 2001), which suggest that employees have cultural stereotypes about the figure of the supervisor and that these “schemas” 112 F2 – ETHICAL LEADERSHIP (Eigenvalue = 4.476; Explained variance % = 13.989; α =.930) (**) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 I have the best interests of followers in mind .193 .830 .084 .074 .043 .043 .010 I try to set an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics .219 .802 .184 .168 -.027 -.126 .112 I define success not just by results but also the way that they are obtained .023 .796 .090 .045 .041 .267 .068 I take action to create bonds of trust with my employees .147 .777 .120 .218 .110 -.329 .024 I listen to what followers have to say .188 .749 .050 .228 .117 .251 .051 I take steps to make fair and balanced decisions .147 .739 .164 .252 -.027 -.158 .280 I discuss business ethics or values with my followers .150 .738 .063 .140 .038 -.385 -.050 I conduct my personal life in an ethical manner .116 .720 -.032 .232 -.103 .162 -.178 I discipline followers who violate ethical standards .145 .697 .015 .303 -.040 .151 -.303 When making decisions, I ask “what is the right thing to do?” (*) .127 .603 .120 .227 .121 .572 .047 F3 – POWERLESSNESS (Eigenvalue = 2.736; Explained variance % = 8.550; α =.909) (**) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 I rarely have the opportunity to exercise my own judgment on the job .285 .143 .851 .205 .174 -.025 -.012 I have little control over how I carry out my daily tasks .287 .165 .835 .117 -.017 -.028 .077 I don’t make most work decisions without first consulting my supervisor .355 .080 .817 .159 .136 -.096 -.025 My daily activities are largely determined by others .386 -.002 .797 .154 .044 .164 .007 I have a lack deal of freedom in the performance of my daily task .212 .199 .771 .185 .211 .095 .077 I am unable to make changes regarding my job activities .405 .004 .738 .256 .089 -.093 .037 I rarely make own decisions in the performance of my work role .436 .081 .657 .199 .064 .055 .038 113 F4 – COMPANY PROFIT AND GROWTH ORIENTED FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE (Eigenvalue = 2.154; Explained variance % = 6.731; α =.860) (**) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 ROI position relative to competition (profit) .185 .264 .026 .715 .119 .073 .127 My satisfaction with return on corporate investment (profit) -.103 .194 .214 .685 .034 .112 .352 Net profit position relative to competition (profit) .158 .312 .157 .668 -.167 .115 .041 Satisfaction with return on sales (profit) .115 .084 .232 .804 .063 .027 -.072 Sales growth position relative to competition (growth) .180 .205 .082 .803 -.041 –.018 -.184 Market share gains relative to competition (growth) .204 .165 .121 .780 -.117 .066 -.028 My satisfaction with sales growth rate (growth) .154 .028 .187 .776 .144 -.202 -.058 Financial liquidity position to competition (profit) .155 .364 .198 .717 .006 -.053 .047 F5 – MEANINGLESSNESS (Eigenvalue = 1.511; Explained variance % = 4.720; α =.702) (**) F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 I often wonder what the importance of my job really is .168 -.032 .304 .052 .824 .101 .000 I feel that my work counts for very little around here .332 .106 .145 .160 .762 .004 -.028 Sometimes I am not sure to understand the purpose of what I’m doing -.276 .008 .011 -.196 .735 -.075 .127 I rarely understand how my work role fits into the overall operation of this company (*) .734 .134 .212 .068 .190 .172 .031 I rarely understand how my work fits in with the work of others here (*) .723 .158 .316 -.006 .052 .151 .054 Rarely my work is a significant contribution to the successful operation of the company (*) .681 .233 .285 .067 -.014 -.141 -.055 My work is not really important and worthwhile (*) .557 .246 .203 .082 .354 .183 -.264 (*) These items were dropped because their factor loading cut–offs were below .2 (**) These data were calculated once the items that failed were removed. Factor loadings in bold indicate cut–offs above .2 Total Explained variance % = 72.995 Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin = .876 Varimax Rotation Bartlett’s Sphere Test (Chi–Squared approx. = 2,852.372; gl = 496; Sig. = .000) 114 TABLA II: Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Gender 1.18 .39 ----- 2. Age 3.64 .52 -.376** ----- 3. Tenure in the bank 12.24 3.95 -.170 .527*** ----- 4. Ethical leadership 5.75 .85 -.063 .108 .170 (.930) 5. Powerlessness 2.61 .85 -.033 231* -.063 -.313** (.909) 6. Meaninglessness 2.91 1.08 -.110 .085 .075 -.087 .312*** (.702) 7. Self–estrangement 2.41 .98 .020 .068 -.126 -.394*** .647*** .140 (.890) 8. Firm performance 4.18 .86 -.125 .030 .168 .497*** -.452*** -.063 -.438*** (.860) Note. N = 100. * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001. Gender (1 = male, 2 = female); age (1= up to 25 years; 2 = more than 25 and up to 40; 3 = more than 40 and up to 55; 4 = more than 55 and up to 70; 5 = 70 and older); Tenure in bank (yers). Common method bias checking The existence of bias due to Common method variance (CMV) can be a fatal flaw for mediation in mono-method/source studies because they are causal in nature. In this study, leaders self-reported ethical leadership, employees their own alienation and the measure of firm performance stemmed from leaders’ subjective measurements of financial performance. The design of this study thus includes different sources, and in particular, the work alienation indicators, which are mediators with a different source than the variables of the basic relationship. This fact is widely supported as mitigating the possibility of CMV (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012). Nevertheless, further proactive measures to prevent CMV were conducted. First, our surveyors guaranteed respondents’ confidentiality and anonymity in order to diminish the social desirability bias. In addition, the researchers separated the items 115 of perceived ethical leadership from those of employees’ self-reported firm performance and these two scales’ items appeared on different pages of the questionnaire for leaders. This yielded an effect of psychological separation in the respondents (Podsakoff et al., 2003). To examine the CMV problem (see also, Conway & Lance, 2010), the possibility of common method bias due to CMV was tested using Harman’s one-factor test (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). As such, we used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) for item reduction, but fixing only one factor to extract and with no rotation. The principle component factor analysis conducted on the items of ethical leadership, firm performance and the factors of alienation feeling yielded a unique factor that explains the 38.457% of the variance. Although 38.457% is an important amount variance to be explained by a single factor, the rule of thumb establishes that only more than 50% of it suggest significant CMV. In addition, we tested Harman’s onefactor test (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986) by using SEM. As such, conducting unmeasured latent method construct, we controlled the effects of a specified unmeasured latent CMV factor on which all the manifest indicators load. All the regression weights were constrained to be equal. Each of the regression weights was .30, which squared results in .09, i.e. a tolerable 9% of the common variance at a rough guess. Moreover, the fit for this restricted CFA factor model (c2 = 1,283.861, df = 683, p<.001; GFI = .606, CFI = .797, IFI = .800, TLI = .783, NFI = .651, RMSEA = .094) was worse than the fit of the CFA model with a latent method factor (c2 = 1,511.864, p<.001, df = 807, GFI = .631, CFI = .830; IFI = .832; TLI = .815; NFI = .695; RMSEA = .092) as the chi-square difference test was significant (∆c2d(124) = 228.003, p<.001). All of the above patterns suggest that common variance due to CMV undoubtedly exists, but it was not a major problem for the data. Results Table 2 shows the scale means, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations (r) among all the variables. Results showed that ethical leadership, firm performance and most of the alienation factors were significantly inter-correlated in the expected directions, suggesting initial support for the hypotheses in this study. 116 To test our hypotheses, we analysed the data using Hayes’s approach (2013) (Model 4) with 1,000 bootstrap samples (see Table 3). This SPSS-macro is known as the “process macro’s test” and provides an estimate of the total, direct and indirect effects and their bias-corrected 95% confidence interval (CI). If zero is not in the 95% CI, as we can then conclude that the effect is significantly different from zero at p<.05 (two-tailed), we will reject the null hypothesis [H(0)] and thus accept the alternative [H(A)]. In contrast, we will accept H(0) if zero is in the 95% confidence interval (CI). Accordingly, we first conducted a unique analysis-model with all variables mean-centred. In this model, ethical leadership was entered as the independent variable, powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement as mediators and firm performance as the criterion variable. As such, this model tested (1) whether ethical leadership had significant total effects on firm performance (H1) as well as direct effects on the three alienation indicators (H2) and (3) whether the ethical leadership’s indirect effect on firm performance – through the three alienation indicators – was significant (H3). We also entered in the models as covariates of the three aforementioned control variables. Table 3 shows all the resulted data that allowed us to examine our hypotheses as follows: 117 TABLA III: Different effects of Ethical leadership on Performance through Work alienation (Process macro’s test results). Total, Direct, and Indirect effects Value SE/Boot SE Low 95% CI Up 95% CI t Sig. Model 1 / Leadership / Powerlessness -.3155 .0902 -.1311 -.5000 -3.396 .001 Model 1 / Leadership / Meaninglessness -.1369 .1307 -.1236 .3955 -1.042 .301 Model 1 / Leadership / Self-estrangement -.4444 .1080 -.2300 -.6588 -4.115 .000 Model 2 / Leadership / Performance (*) .4893 .0904 .3099 .6687 5.415 .000 Model 3 / Leadership / Performance (**) .3596 .0934 .1742 .5450 3.852 .001 Model 4 / Leadership / Powerlessness / Performance (***) .0913 .0505 .0221 .2367 ––– ––– Model 4 / Leadership / Meaninglessness / Performance (***) -.0063 .0155 -.0621 .0085 ––– ––– Model 4 / Leadership / Self-estrangement / Performance (***) .0447 .0496 -.0465 .1494 ––– ––– Model 5 / Leadership / Work / alienation / Performance (****) .1297 .0513 .0419 .4320 ––– ––– Model 6 / Leadership / Powerlessness / Performance (***) .1094 .0428 .0484 .2173 ––– ––– Model 7 / Leadership / Meaninglessness / Performance (***) .0041 .0168 –.0207 .0641 ––– ––– Model 8 / Leadership / Self-estrangement / Performance (***) .1003 .0388 –.0051 .1156 ––– ––– Note: SE = Standard error, CI = Confidence interval (95%). (*) Total effects of leadership on citizenship (modelled alone); (**) Direct effects of leadership on citizenship (when the mediators are added); (***) Indirect effects of leadership on citizenship (through each mediator/s); (****) Indirect effects of leadership on citizenship through all mediators at once First, model 2 shows how ethical leadership’s total effects on firm performance are positive and significant (.4893, 95% CI = [.3099; .6687]) (p<0.001), thus adding support to the basic relationship in this study. Effectively, as zero is not in the confidence interval (CI), these patterns lead us to reject H(0)1 null hypothesis predicting no ethical leadership effects on firm performance and, hence, to alternatively accept H(A)1. In addition, model 1, in Table 3, shows that zero is not in the confidence intervals (CI) of ethical leadership models that predict 118 powerlessness (–.3155, 95% CI = [–.1311; –.5000]), and self-estrangement (–.4444, 95% CI = [–.2300; –.6588]), but it was in the CI predicting meaninglessness (– .1369, 95% CI = [–.1236; .3955]) (see Table 3). These patterns lead us to reject H(0)2a and 1c null hypotheses predicting no ethical leadership effects on powerlessness and self-estrangement and, hence, to alternatively accept H(A)2a and 1c. However, H(0)2b should be accepted to reject H(A)2b predicting effects of ethical leadership on meaninglessness. Also, as model 3 in Table 3, shows, the ethical leadership’s direct effects on firm performance when the three alienation mediators were added decreased, but not to the point of no longer being significant (.3596, 95% CI = [.1742; .5450])(p = .001), thus suggesting that any of the alienation indicators may be playing a mediating role in this link. Consistent with this, as model 5 in Table 3 displays, an inclusive analysis of ethical leadership’s indirect effects on firm performance through powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement together revealed that zero was not within the CI (.1297, 95% CI = [.0419; .4320]). These data would thus reject H(0)3 as a whole and, hence, accept H(A)3 supporting mediation. However, although this overall model support H(A)3 as a whole, as model 4 in Table 3 further clarifies, of the three alienation indicators studied, only the CI of the powerlessness indicator did not contain zero (.0913, 95% CI = [.0221; .2367]), which means that it is the only alienation indicator that significantly carries the weight of the mediation. This dominant or unique role of powerlessness as mediator leads us to accept H(0)3b and 3c, which rejects meaninglessness (–.0063, 95% CI = [–.0621; .0085]) and self-estrangement (.0447, 95% CI = [–.0465; .1494]) as mediators. In order to check further whether powerlessness is the only mediator in this link and, hence, H(0)3a should be rejected to then accept H(A)3a, we undertook three single models for each alienation variable separately. Results for the models 6 and 8 in Table 3 confirm that the null hypotheses concerning meaninglessness (.0041, 95% 119 CI = [–.0207; .0641]), and self-estrangement (.0182, 95% CI = [–.0051; .1156]) should be accepted and that related with powerlessness (.1094, 95% CI = [.0484; .2173]) be rejected. These patterns definitively lead us to accept powerlessness as the only alienation indicator that mediated in this study as the link between ethical leadership and firm performance. Discussion The purpose of this paper is to provide new understandings about how ethical leadership can become successful in influencing firm performance. Although likely to be present in organisational contexts, the mutual presence of ethical leadership, work alienation, and firm performance – operationalised as company profit and growth-oriented financial performance – have been till date neglected as vital variables in causing organisational success. The results of this study show how ethical leadership leads to higher levels of firm performance in the form of the profit and growth aspects of the company’s financial performance and this link is explained by the ethical leadership ability to decrease powerlessness, i.e. to increase job autonomy, by reason of which employees have the freedom to exert control over work activities. Overall, this study offers several theoretical implications for theorists and practitioners in the area of management and organisational behaviour, especially focussed on the team-work level of analysis, drawing on the way the surveyed ethical leadership context performed in predicting work alienation and firm performance. Finally, the paper reveals several avenues for future research. Until now, the influence of ethical leadership on firm performance has been mainly based on the image of leaders as one of the most relevant factors in influencing employee’s ethical conduct at work, which, in turn, has been studied in terms of followers’ “normatively appropriate” attitudes and behaviours that are assumed as beneficial for the organisation. In sum, the ethical leadership impact on 120 firm performance echoes the organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) requirement to impact on performance. As Organ (1997:87) stated concerning OCBs, the OCB requirement to impact on performance “as a definition of OCB was one that I thought would ultimately have to be an exercise in faith [...] and perhaps impossible conditions to demonstrate.” Nevertheless, by modelling ethical leadership with measures of company profitand growth-oriented financial performance, this study adds support to the idea that ethical leadership is able to influence organisational-level measures of firm performance and, hence, based on a more reliable measure. Moreover, as the model measure was multi-sourced, the procedure to assess its relationships seems more accurate as well. Concerning mediation results, on the other hand, this paper also suggests that only powerlessness mediates the ethical leadership effects on firm performance. Till date, in addition to promoting communication, reinforcement and decisionmaking, as proposed by the definition of Brown, Treviño and Harrison (2005) of ethical leadership, extra-efforts (Kim & Brymer, 2011), empowerment (Zhu et al., 2004) and ethical climate (Neubert et al., 2009) have been suggested to explain why ethical leadership leads to higher firm performance. The specific multidimensional and broad nature of work alienation may confer it with the ability to perform as a transversal topic that, includes all these ways in which ethical leadership has been modelled or suggested in influencing performance (e.g. commitment, empowerment, satisfaction and reinforcement, among others. In effect, the theoretical base of Alan Fox’s (1966) unitarism theory provided in our model to explain the role of alienation (from the Latin, alienati, alienare: “take away,” “remove,” or “cause a separation to occur”), alongside with the results of this study supporting work alienation as a mediator, can offer a better and widely understanding of why ethical leadership affects firm performance. 121 The question is if powerlessness, meaninglessness and self-estrangement are performed differently, because they support in different ways or/and aspects the technical core of the bank, it opens up a very interesting approach to understand the results. The discussion of the task and contextual performance concept (see Borman & Motowidlo, 1997) in the ethical leadership context can shed light on why powerlessness was supported as a mediator in the link between ethical leadership and firm performance, whereas meaninglessness and self-estrangement failed. Borman and Motowidlo (1993) divide the staff’s overall performance into either task performance or contextual performance. Although following different paths, either task performance or contextual performance lead the staff to support the technical core of a company (for instance, the key operations process of turning customers into satisfied customers). Task performance contributes to the organisation’s technical core directly (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997), and includes “adequately completing assigned duties”, “fulfilling responsibilities specified in the job description”, and “meeting formal performance requirements of the job” as staff behaviours. Powerlessness, that is, lack of control over work, certainly seems to function by specifically decreasing this task performance. As unethical leadership significantly predicts powerlessness, a lack of ethical leadership can indeed become an obstacle to firm performance because when powerlessness increases (i.e. lack of control over their work), the staff undermines the processes that support the technical core of the bank. This is consistent with prior research, which suggests that individuals who feel powerless may engage in sabotage (Bennett, 1998 and DiBattista, 1991), which can increase individuals’ sense of control (Allen & Greenberger, 1980). Selfestrangement and meaninglessness, on the other hand, seem to function by specifically decreasing contextual performance. Contextual performance contributes 128 Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press. Hemdi, M. A. and Nasurdin, A. M. (2007). 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Undoubtedly, despite their rank and impressive personal skills, CEOs, MDs and company directors do not necessarily possess ethical qualities superior to those of any other person. As such, and given the power that they hold in terms of decision making, the idea that the moral implications of decisions are judged unilaterally is concerning. Needless to say, the complexities of judging morality would be better managed if leaders were to share the responsibility for it. Moral sensitisation by leaders would thus be much more effective if they also showed a willingness to involve others in the decisionmaking process. Furthermore, being part of an evenly-shared company could improve workers' conditions and even turn them into better human beings. The foundations of this utopia could become firmer were it to become the norm for everybody to contribute to defining common objectives and for everybody to have a voice and a vote with regard to how to achieve them. With the foundations laid, where does that leave us? Have valid and, more importantly, definitive conclusions been reached? What is the true potential of ethical leadership? To answer that question, we can turn to Hegelian clairvoyance. Hegel (1977 [1807]) argued that the critical exploration of different thought systems 134 involves, if a particular way of doing something does not comply with established ethical standards, identifying a new way of doing it or revising the ethical standards. Applying this notion to our discussion could lead us to conclude that conventional forms of applying leadership do not comply with our ethical standards and that we must, therefore, find other ways of implementing leadership or, indeed, rethink our ethical standards. Should we, therefore, choose the second option and disavow the ethical presuppositions that are embedded in our culture? To do so would be to undertake a "transmutation of values" (Nietzsche), which would suggest that the supposed moral standards that prevail in our cultures are not entirely legitimate. Probably the most important conclusion that can be drawn here is that to be a leader is to be ethical and that leadership in the field of ethical management is therefore essential. Principle-based ethics offer a wide range of perspectives that allow us to reflect on our ethical convictions. The outcome of such reflection can only improve if it is the result of a strong effort to communicate. Therefore, what is required from leaders is not a high level of self-confidence, but mediation and facilitation techniques that enable corporate communication. As the old saying goes: “The best time to plant a tree was 100 years ago. The second best time is now." The same notion is applicable to modern-day corporations and their ethical conduct. CHAPTER I Various theoretical implications for behavioural ethics within organisations have been presented in this study, based on the manner in which the ethical context studied can be used to predict cyberloafing and e-citizenship habits. According to the findings of this study, it is advisable to aim for an appropriate combination of adhocracy culture and clan culture in order to ensure that the strategic actions of the UPI have the desired outcomes. It is possible that the lack of methods to morally guide cyberloafing and e-citizenship activities in day-to-day work has an influence on employees in adhocracy culture. 135 Furthermore, adhocracy culture is considered to be the most creative and least harmful as the Internet is considered to be part of a dynamic workplace, with new resources being acquired and the environment being less conducive to conflict. Leaders that are immersed in this culture are more likely to be ethically motivated and to show their followers ways in which they can morally and positively participate in cyberloafing and e-citizenship activities. In short, the mediatory role of ethical leadership, and its significant link to most of the variables in the model analysed in the study, can offer new ideas on how to improve understanding of the reactions to corporate culture in the context of an organisation. Those in charge of the business should be aware of the fact that adhocracy is an ideal culture since it leads to beneficial personal Internet use and encourages positive moral orientation in instances of moral dilemma. When looking to create a culture within an organisation, a combination of adhocracy and clan culture is recommended as one is internally-oriented and the other is externally-oriented. Recommendations for specific companies must incorporate a way of integrating competitive values into the organisational culture of the bank. The findings of this study suggest that there is a link between ethical leadership and how staff use the Internet at work; there is a basic moral agreement in the workplace, and internal actions lead to the organisation being impacted externally. The findings show that clan culture contributes to internally-oriented actions, and also to those which increase interpersonal e-citizenship. In conclusion, this article improves understanding of the influence of the corporate culture on the results of how the UPI is managed. With cyberloafing and ecitizenship activities considered to be moral activities, the findings support the suggestion that adhocracy and clan cultures have a large and positive impact on ethical leadership. As such, the findings suggest that adhocracy encourages 136 employees to participate in cyberloafing and e-citizenship activities, while clan culture encourages e-citizenship alone. Given that both adhocracy and clan cultures can generate ethical leadership, managers and strategies in the banking sector must align their values, principles and beliefs with those of these cultures in order to effectively manage the UPI. CHAPTER II The purpose of this study was to examine whether workers’ interpersonal relations with colleagues become more civil when they experience ethical leadership, which appears to be becoming more common in the workplace. The findings confirm this, and also show that the change in their conduct can be explained by the fact that common humanity is playing the role of mediator. The results also, however, show that empathic concern, paying full attention and kindness did not play a significant role in this regard. Furthermore, ethical leadership did not significantly result in kindness. Overall, various theoretical implications for ethical leadership in organisations are presented in this study, concluding with the way in which performance, in the context analysed, works to predict e-citizenship. The findings of this study suggest new and specific lines of action that managers can take for a compassionate approach. To conclude, this article improves understanding of the influence of ethical leadership on the successful management of interpersonal civility. Previous studies on the effects of ethical leadership in civil behaviour have not identified patterns that sufficiently explain the role that compassion can play with regard to that influence. 137 This study has shown that when supervisors convey to their employees that they deserve to be seen as ethical leaders, they encourage their workers to react with civil interpersonal conduct. By endorsing the mediatory role of common humanity and confirming the primary effects of the link between ethical leadership and interpersonal civility, this study makes an important contribution to this aspect of ethical leadership and to publications on compassion. Above all, this study shows the importance not only of quid pro quo responses from workers to ethical leadership, but also that of compassion based on intrinsic moral motivation. CHAPTER III This article attempted to expand on pre-existing knowledge of how ethical leadership can be useful in terms of its impact on the performance of a company. Although it is likely to be found in the context of organisations, to date there has not been sufficient consideration that the mutual presence of ethical leadership, work alienation and the performance of the company - in the form of profitability and its economic performance with regard to growth - is a crucial variable in terms of the search for success. The findings of this study show how ethical leadership improves the performance of the company in terms of profitability and economic growth. This link is explained by the ability of ethical leadership to reduce powerlessness; i.e., to increase independence in the workplace, thus giving employees the freedom to control their own work activities. Overall, various theoretical consequences for researchers and active players in the management and organisational behaviour sector are presented in this study, particularly in regard to the workforce, based on how the ethical leadership context studied worked in terms of predicting work alienation and the performance of the company. 144 El liderazgo ético debe incluir la competencia y la eficacia de valores como la integridad, la honestidad, la honradez y el compromiso con la virtud, así como el servicio a la organización. No solo es importante el desarrollo y la elaboración de tal brújula para el futuro, no habrá futuro si esa brújula no se desarrolla y se comprende Daly & Cobb (1998). El líder del free rider que comete malas acciones, incluso cuando el mal es de pequeña magnitud, ya no es aceptable en un mundo donde la globalización es la base de gran parte de la economía mundial. Incluso la reseña que hacen Daly & Cobb sobre las empresas que escapan a las prácticas éticas de las comunidades locales ya no puede ser verdad. La actual crisis financiera mundial ha puesto de manifiesto lo verdaderamente interconectadas que están nuestras economías, así como la tan cacareada productividad global ha dejado claro que todos vamos a sufrir la utilización insostenible de los recursos no renovables, por lo que la integración de prácticas éticas en la gestión de nuestras organizaciones es más que necesaria. Hoy en día las organizaciones empresariales parecen estar adoptando una actitud más interesada en la ética. Los directivos y gerentes de las grandes corporaciones están más abiertos a la necesidad de incorporar referentes de tipo moral en la toma de decisiones Debeljuh (2009). Las empresas, según Guillen (2008), forman parte del tejido social, no constituyen elementos aislados del resto de la sociedad, por lo cual el impacto de su actuación vendría dado por la naturaleza ética de su gestión empresarial. En este sentido, al desarrollar estrategias que aseguren el éxito de las organizaciones en cuanto a rentabilidad, calidad en los procesos, competitividad y otros parámetros propios de los modelos de gestión actual, es crucial que las empresas cuenten con políticas formales, así como con programas específicos de gestión ética orientados a incorporar la dimensión moral en el trabajo diario y crear mecanismos para 145 monitorizar los resultados de las prácticas empresariales periódicamente Ello contribuirá a que todos los procesos empresariales estén en posición de vincular la ética a la toma de decisiones para el desarrollo y el bien común de los grupos de interés, generando un clima de confianza que favorezca el capital social Verschoor (2002). De acuerdo con Debeljuh (2009), la ética es un saber práctico que se preocupa por investigar cuál debe ser el fin de la acción para que la persona pueda decidir qué hábitos ha de asumir, qué valores le orientan, qué modo de ser o carácter incorpora con el objetivo de tomar decisiones acertadas. Por otra parte, Debeljuh plantea que la razón para la existencia de una ética empresarial no reside en que sea distinta en función de los conceptos, sino en su aplicación a una circunstancia en particular (la de la empresa, con sus propias especificidades). En consecuencia, es pertinente, en estos tiempos de globalización, la elaboración de herramientas prácticas para la construcción de sistemas de gestión ética que faciliten la evaluación y el control de los procesos organizacionales, con el fin de incorporar acciones que guíen a las personas al desarrollo de valores en sus tareas diarias Conger & Fulmer (2003). El mundo económico, y especialmente las organizaciones empresariales, están llamadas a elaborar mecanismos que faciliten el diseño, puesta en práctica y desarrollo de sistemas de gestión ética para garantizar una actuación responsable en todos los departamentos de la estructura empresarial; herramientas que determinen una conducta corporativa fundamentada en valores morales para la consecución del bien común de todos los involucrados o stakeholders y haciendo compatible el enfoque económico con una nueva visión de organización fundamentada en la excelencia en los procesos, rentabilidad, ética, bien común y capital social Fulmer & Conger (2004). En este sentido, se considera que el bien común de la empresa se persigue en la satisfacción no solo de las necesidades, requerimientos y expectativas 146 de los clientes, sino que a través de un proceso libre de internalización asume una conducta orientada a proporcionar el mayor bienestar y desarrollo posibles a todos los involucrados, diseñando una plataforma ética (misión, visión, valores, códigos de ética, políticas, estrategias…) para fomentar virtudes organizacionales en todos los departamentos McGaw (2004). Viene al caso, por tanto, recordar el concepto de empresa ética defendido por la propia McGaw: una empresa encaminada al bien común y que pueda ser un punto de partida para aquellas otras organizaciones empresariales tradicionales, invitándolas a practicar la excelencia y predicar con el ejemplo. En la actualidad, y a la vista de ciertos escándalos corporativos, algunos países (sobre todo europeos, junto a Estados Unidos) han impuesto mecanismos operativos y prácticos para gestionar la ética tanto en empresas públicas como privadas, con el propósito de propiciar conductas y tomas de decisiones éticas. Ello permite que las empresas con un enfoque económico de maximización de rentabilidad incorporen una visión ético-humanista que cimente las bases para el desarrollo de un humanismo corporativo y la sostenibilidad del negocio a largo plazo Livingstone (2004). Dichos mecanismos, siempre según Livingstone, pueden consistir en la obtención — bien por voluntad propia o por imposición gubernamental— de certificaciones de calidad en la gestión ética corporativa, por medio del cumplimiento de un conjunto de normas y procedimientos previamente establecidos por un organismo externo. Contar con modelos de gestión que incorporen aspectos éticos en toda la estructura organizacional posee, desde luego, ventajas claras: facilita el proceso de mejora continuo en materia de ética corporativa; pero sobre todo permite la identificación de las áreas en las que se hace necesaria incorporar prácticas éticas. 147 En este orden de ideas, las organizaciones que desarrollen sistemas de gestión ética requieren un alto grado de implicación y compromiso con la calidad humana de todos los miembros de la organización, tanto como criterios claros de calidad ética, indicadores de gestión, elementos de evaluación del desempeño moral de los actores y un diagnóstico periódico de procesos para impulsar, de ser necesario, las correcciones precisas, buscando siempre la mejora ética continua de la organización Baker (2004). Lo que resulta incuestionable, llegado este punto, es que la expansión de programas basados en la ética ha transformado su gestión en muchos países. Hoy en día, un número cada vez mayor de organizaciones empresariales ha adoptado iniciativas de cumplimiento como solución a sus problemas. No es de extrañar que las organizaciones estén contratando, cada vez más, empresas privadas especializadas en implementar este tipo de programas y garantizar su mantenimiento Brightline Compliance (2009). La gestión de la ética y la conducta no es solo acerca de la supervisión y la vigilancia de la conducta; se trata de buscar un consenso en lo que es el buen comportamiento y dar orientación a los empleados de cómo deben actuar, tomar decisiones y usar la discreción en su trabajo diario (PUMA, 1996). 148 En otras palabras, los programas deben centrarse también en la mejora tanto del camino ético como del camino de la cultura organizacional: Muchas organizaciones modernas tienden a subrayar la importancia de la armonía y la unidad, de poner el bien de la organización por encima del bien de los individuos. Se invita a los individuos a desprenderse del yo Shahinpoor & Matt (2007). ESTRUCTURA DE TESIS Y OBJETIVOS En nuestro estudio de tesis pretendemos abordar la revisión del concepto de liderazgo y formular una propuesta definitiva que incorpore determinados principios éticos al desempeño deshumanizado de la gestión corporativa. Partiendo de un principio que en los últimos años ha generado un amplio consenso en el análisis de la crisis financiera mundial, parece evidente que las formas convencionales de aplicar el liderazgo no cumplen con nuestros estándares éticos. Siendo así, parece más honesto proponer nuevas formas de ejercer ese liderazgo que replantear dichos estándares éticos. Por lo tanto el problema que nos plantea este estudio es fundamentar la complejidad del liderazgo con la ética El liderazgo es uno de los términos más utilizados en las ciencias sociales. Sin embargo se echan en falta a nuestro juicio, estudios que de modo sistemático pongan en relación el liderazgo corporativo con la ética; una relación que es vista intuitivamente como muy próxima. Esta tesis tratara de aproximarse a esta cuestión y para ello buscara inicialmente alcanzar ensamblar un concepto de liderazgo que englobe las aportaciones de los estudios más importantes realizados hasta ahora 149 sobre liderazgo y ética y así poder sentar las bases para un modelo de liderazgo ético corporativo pare el nuevo milenio”. La dirección corporativa es uno de los ejes sobre los que se sienta el éxito económico y, por ende, el desarrollo de un mundo cada vez más globalizado. Pero también resulta fundamental como motor de un mundo éticamente responsable, más habitable y justo, al que no debemos renunciar y es precisamente a esa tarea a la que nos entregaremos en este estudio. Los objetivos de esta investigación están en probar: 1Liderazgo ético como mediador en la relación entre cultura corporativa y uso personal de internet. 2- ¿El liderazgo ético motiva a los seguidores a mostrar compasión? 3El impacto del liderazgo ético en el rendimiento de la empresa ¿Importa la alineación laboral de los seguidores? La metodología a seguir se apoya para todo ello en un estudio empírico, se trata de un cuestionario destinado a un grupo internacional de ejecutivos del sector financiero de la City de Londres. En el cuestionario han participado 400 empleados de 100 bancos de inversión de Londres y ha estado basado en el trabajo de Cameron & Quinn (1999) sobre cultura corporativa, liderazgo ético, cyberloafing y civismo digital. El estudio sin duda deja entrever los innumerables dilemas éticos a los que se enfrentan el mundo corporativo en un mundo irremediablemente tan globalizado. 150 En virtud del contexto descrito, nuestra tesis doctoral estará estructurada en tres capítulos, los cuales abarcaran los aspectos teóricos, metodológicos y empíricos relacionados con dichos propósitos. En el Capítulo I se trata como la creciente importancia de las nuevas tecnologías trae consigo nuevas cuestiones incluso el uso que se hace de ellas. Poco se sabe acerca de la relación entre cultura corporativa y uso personal de internet en el trabajo, y las razones que la hacen posible por lo que este trabajo plantea hipótesis sobre el hecho de que las características de la cultura corporativa en las que se desarrolla el trabajo diario de los supervisores influyen en su desempeño ético y en la implicación de los empleados en el UPI. En concreto el uso de internet en el trabajo para fines personales o cyberloafing y el civismo digital (e-citizenship). Es por ello que este estudio propone el uso del liderazgo ético para actuar como mediador con el fin de explicar la razón por la que los empleados actúan contra la cultura corporativa mediante el uso personal de Internet. Poco se sabe acerca de si los seguidores que perciben el liderazgo ético son más propensos a ser compasivos con sus compañeros, por lo que el Capítulo II propone cuatro sentimientos compasivos para mediar en la relación entre el liderazgo ético y los comportamientos cívicos interpersonales hacia los compañeros: a) preocupación empática, una respuesta emocional hacia el otro, motivada y congruente con el bienestar que se percibe de un compañero necesitado; b) atención plena, un estado de consciencia en el que la atención se centra en el fenómeno del momento presente; c) bondad, comprender el dolor o el sufrimiento de los compañeros y; d) humanidad común, contemplar las experiencias de los compañeros como parte de la experiencia humana. 151 Finalmente el Capitulo III examina el grado en el que el liderazgo ético, bien directa o indirectamente —a través de las dimensiones de la alienación laboral (es decir, powerlessness, meaninglessness y self-estrangement)— está relacionado con dos importantes aspectos del rendimiento económico de una empresa, su rentabilidad y su crecimiento. En el estudio se usaron técnicas de los modelos de ecuaciones estructurales y Hayes (2013) para realizar un análisis factorial de los datos y calcular las relaciones propuestas en base a las respuestas de los encuestados. Como conclusión la tesis contara con un resumen final donde se expondrán con claridad las hipótesis halladas a lo largo de la investigación de los tres artículos que conforman esta tesis. Llegados a este punto, solo resta ver si hemos contestado a las preguntas que han venido a justificar nuestro trabajo y por consiguiente a que conclusiones hemos llegado. Hasta el momento, hemos puesto de manifiesto una serie de temas: cada uno de ellos dice algo acerca de cómo el liderazgo puede ser ético. Por lo tanto, es razonable suponer que los líderes que se preocupan por la moral y que dedican energía y recursos a alentar a otras personas en sus organizaciones y a reflexionar sobre las implicaciones morales de sus acciones, serán más éticos en su conducta que los que no lo hacen. Sin duda, a pesar de su rango y sus impresionantes capacidades personales, los CEOs, MDs y directores de empresas no poseen necesariamente cualidades éticas superiores a las de cualquier otra persona. Por ello, dado el poder del que gozan en la toma de decisiones, resulta preocupante la idea de que las implicaciones morales de esas decisiones sean evaluadas de manera unilateral. Por descontado, las complejidades de la evaluación moral serían mejor atendidas si los líderes 152 compartiesen la carga de la misma. Así pues, la sensibilización moral por parte de los líderes resultará mucho más eficaz si se acompaña de la voluntad de involucrar a otros en la toma de decisiones. Y aún más, ser parte de una empresa compartida bien podría mejorar la situación de las personas, e incluso convertirlas en mejores seres humanos. Los cimientos de esta utopía podrían fraguar si se convierte en hábito la contribución de todos a la definición de un objetivo común y si se otorga voz y voto en el modo de conseguirlo. Sentadas todas estas bases, ¿dónde nos deja esto? ¿Son válidas y, sobre todo, definitivas las conclusiones a que hemos llegado? ¿Qué posibilidades reales tiene el liderazgo ético? En respuesta a esta pregunta podemos acudir en ayuda de la clarividencia hegeliana. Hegel (1977 [1807]) sostenía que la exploración crítica de los diferentes sistemas de pensamiento consiste en que si una forma particular de hacer algo no cumple con los estándares que fijamos para ello, entonces debe encontrar una forma diferente de hacerse, o bien revisar nuestras normas. La aplicación de esta idea a nuestra discusión podría concluir que si las formas convencionales de aplicar el liderazgo no cumplen con nuestros estándares éticos, entonces tenemos que buscar otras formas de implementar el liderazgo o bien repensar los estándares éticos. Por lo tanto, ¿deberíamos escoger esta segunda opción y repudiar las presuposiciones éticas que impregnan nuestra cultura? Hacerlo significaría llevar a efecto la “Transmutación de valores” de Nietzsche, que sugiere que los supuestos estándares morales que prevalecen en nuestras culturas carecen de legitimidad. Seguramente la conclusión más importante que se desprende de estas páginas es que ser líder es ser ético y que ello hace imprescindible un liderazgo en el campo de la dirección ética. 153 La ética basada en principios ofrece una amplia gama de perspectivas que pueden facilitar la reflexión sobre nuestras convicciones éticas, los resultados de esa reflexión solo pueden mejorar si se lleva a cabo a través de un esfuerzo en la comunicación. Por lo tanto, lo que necesitamos en nuestros líderes no es firme confianza en sí mismos, sino la mediación y técnicas de facilitación que permitan la comunicación empresarial. Como dice aquel viejo refrán, “El mejor momento para plantar un árbol fue hace 100 años. El segundo mejor momento es ahora”. Lo mismo es aplicable a las corporaciones actuales y su conducta ética. CAPITULO I Este estudio ha ofrecido varias implicaciones teóricas sobre la ética del comportamiento en las organizaciones, basándose en la manera en la que el contexto ético analizado funciona para predecir el cyberloafing y el civismo digital. Según los resultados de este estudio, se aconseja buscar una combinación apropiada de las culturas adhocrática y clan para llevar a buen puerto las acciones estratégicas del UPI. Quizá la falta de métodos para guiar moralmente las actividades de cyberloafing y civismo digital en el trabajo diario influya en los empleados con la cultura adhocrática. Además, la cultura adhocrática puede considerarse la actividad más creativa y la menos dañina, ya que Internet se considera como parte de un lugar de trabajo dinámico con una adquisición constante de nuevos recursos y un ámbito menos propenso al conflicto. Los líderes que estén inmersos en esta cultura serán más propensos a estar motivados de forma ética y mostrar a sus seguidores formas morales de participar positivamente en las actividades de cyberloafing y civismo digital. En resumen, el papel mediador del liderazgo ético y su significativa relación con la mayoría de las variables en el modelo analizado en el estudio puede ofrecer ideas nuevas para entender mejor las reacciones hacia la cultura corporativa en el contexto organizacional. Los responsables de la empresa deberían ser conscientes de que la