Ethical Leadership and Subordinates' Occupational Well-Being: A Multi-level Examination in China

Prior research and managerial practices have often over-emphasized employees' performance and ignored their occupational well-being. However, a series of employee suicide scandals in China have drawn people's attention to employees' occupational well-being and heightened the importanc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social indicators research 2014-05, Vol.116 (3), p.823-842
Main Authors: Li, Yanping, Xu, Jia, Tu, Yidong, Lu, Xinxin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrative Organization
Behavior Problems
Business ethics
China
Collectivism
Decision making
Depression (Psychology)
Distributive Justice
Employee management relations
Employees
Ethical behavior
Ethics
Exchange Theory
Hierarchical Linear Modeling
Human Geography
Job Satisfaction
Justice
Leadership
Literature Reviews
Management Systems
Managers
Microeconomics
Organizational justice
Peoples Republic of China
Procedural justice
Public Health
Quality of Life Research
Quality of work
Questionnaires
Relational ethics
Researchers
Scandals
Social ethics
Social exchange theory
Social research
Social Sciences
Sociology
Sociology of work
Sociology of work and sociology of organizations
Studies
Subordinate personnel
Suicide
Suicides & suicide attempts
Well Being
Wellbeing
Work organization. Working relations
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Summary:Prior research and managerial practices have often over-emphasized employees' performance and ignored their occupational well-being. However, a series of employee suicide scandals in China have drawn people's attention to employees' occupational well-being and heightened the importance of how ethical leadership can enhance such well-being. Based on social exchange theory, this study examined the main effect of ethical leadership on subordinates' occupational well-being in China, as well as the underlying mechanisms and contextual factors between them. Our sample comprised 302 employee questionnaires and 34 questionnaires completed by supervisors about their group. Using a multi-level approach, we implemented hierarchical linear modeling to examine the hypotheses. The results revealed that ethical leadership positively influenced the subordinates' occupational well-being. This effect was partially mediated by distributive justice and interpersonal justice. Moreover, group level collectivism moderated the influence of ethical leadership on employees' perception of distributive justice, interpersonal justice and their occupational well-being.
ISSN:0303-8300
1573-0921
DOI:10.1007/s11205-013-0321-z