Ethical Leadership Behavior and Employee Justice Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Trust in Organization

Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees' evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2016-03, Vol.134 (3), p.493-504
Main Authors: Xu, Angela J., Loi, Raymond, Ngo, Hang-yue
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Distributive justice
Education
Employee attitude
Employees
Ethical behavior
Ethics
Fairness
Hypotheses
Justice
Leadership
Management
Management science
Managers
Moral judgment
Morality
Organizational justice
Perceptions
Philosophy
Procedural justice
Professional ethics
Psychological aspects
Quality of Life Research
Studies
Supervisors
Trust
Two dimensional modeling
United States
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Summary:Using data collected at two phases, this study examines why and how ethical leadership behavior influences employees' evaluations of organization-focused justice, i.e., procedural justice and distributive justice. By proposing ethical leaders as moral agents of the organization, we build up the linkage between ethical leadership behavior and the above two types of organization-focused justice. We further suggest trust in organization as a key mediating mechanism in the linkage. Our findings indicate that ethical leadership behavior engenders employees' trust in their employing organization, which in turn promotes their justice perceptions toward the organization. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and some directions for future research are suggested.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-014-2457-4