Am I Expected To Be Ethical A Role-Definition

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JOMXXX10.1177/0149206318771166Journal of ManagementPaterson, Huang / Am I Expected to Be Ethical?
Journal of Management
Vol. XX No. X, Month XXXX 1–24
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206318771166
10.1177/0149206318771166
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Am I Expected to Be Ethical? A Role-Definition

Perspective of Ethical Leadership and Unethical
Behavior
Ted A. Paterson
Oregon State University
Lei Huang
Auburn University
Prior studies have demonstrated that leaders’ ethical behaviors have an impact on followers’
unethical behaviors, and yet the explanatory mechanisms in this relationship have not been fully
explored. To further explicate the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical
employee behavior, we adopted a role-based perspective and introduced the concept of role
ethicality. That is, we explored the impact that leaders’ actions and voice behaviors, particularly
regarding ethical issues, have on perceptions of ethical role requirements and in turn the effect
such perceptions have on unethical behavior. In a field study involving 394 employees and 68
supervisors and a randomized experiment conducted with 121 working professionals, we find
that as predicted, leaders’ behaviors and ethical voice have a significant influence on role ethi-
cality, which in turn impacts unethical behavior. Based on our empirical findings, we describe
the implications, limitations, and future directions relevant to this study.
Keywords: ethical leadership; ethical voice; unethical behavior; role ethicality
Mounting evidence demonstrates that unethical behavior exacts numerous costs to orga-
nizations. For example, Cialdini, Petrova, and Goldstein (2004) propose that the costs of
Acknowledgments: The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of our Action Editor, J. Craig Wallace, and
two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and encouraging feedback as we prepared this manuscript for
publication. We are indebted to Reviewer 2 for suggesting the term role ethicality to describe the mediator in our
research model.
Corresponding author: Ted A. Paterson, Oregon State University, Austin Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.
E-mail: ted.paterson@oregonstate.edu
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2 Journal of Management / Month XXXX
unethical behavior in organizations include increased absenteeism, lower job satisfaction,

and higher turnover due to the mismatch between employees’ and organizational values and
increased health problems, diminished trust, and undermining of positive behavior as a
result of the increased surveillance that often results from unethical behavior. Accordingly,
any efforts that organizations can make to avoid ethical lapses are warranted from both
philosophical and pragmatic perspectives. One such effort is ethical leadership, defined as
“the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and inter-
personal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way
communication, reinforcement, and decision-making” (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005,
p. 120). A growing literature suggests that organizations that enact ethical leadership are
more likely to avoid unethical behavior (Mayer, Aquino, Greenbaum, & Kuenzi, 2012;
Schaubroeck et al., 2012).
Following Brown et al. (2005) and Brown and Treviño (2006), the majority of ethical
leadership studies have relied on social learning theory (Bandura, 1977, 1986) to explain the
relationship between ethical leadership and follower behavior. Because role modeling is cen-
tral to the vicarious learning aspect described in social learning theory, the concept of role
modeling has become common in discussions of ethical leadership’s effects on subordinates
(Ogunfowora, 2014; Weaver, Treviño, & Agle, 2005). Interestingly, the term role modeling
and the social-learning processes that it describes are utilized largely divorced from any dis-
cussion of subordinate role perceptions, especially in the ethical leadership literature. In the
current research, we integrate role theory with social learning theory to more fully under-
stand the mechanisms through which the behavioral modeling inherent in ethical leadership
results in follower behavioral change.
Role theory helps explain one of the primary mechanisms through which modeling
behaviors are incorporated into subordinate behavioral repertoires in organizational set-
tings. Namely, ethical leaders’ behaviors are key behavioral cues that are utilized in the
construction of organizational members’ role perceptions. The function of leaders as pri-
mary sources of information about role expectations is not new (Graen, 1976; Klieman,
Quinn, & Harris, 2000), and such thinking is consistent with numerous organizational
theories that argue that employees form a socially constructed reality at work that is influ-
enced heavily by their supervisors’ behavior (Klieman et al., 2000; Salancik & Pfeffer,
1978). Inspired by Morrison’s (1994) pioneering work on perceived role breadth, we set
out to define and develop the concept of role ethicality to allow researchers to capture
employee role perceptions as they relate to ethics. Given the primacy of role modeling in
the current ethical leadership literature, understanding the impact of such processes on
subordinate role perceptions is critical.
Role ethicality represents the degree to which organizational members consider acting
ethically part of their organizational role requirements. Although distinct from it, the con-
cept of role ethicality has some conceptual overlap with Morrison’s (1994) perceived role
breadth construct, a concept that distinguishes between behaviors that individuals consider
to be either in-role or extra-role. Similar to the perceived role breadth construct, role ethi-
cality refers to variation in the way that individuals conceive of their role requirements.
But unlike Morrison’s work, which focused exclusively on organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB), the role ethicality construct focuses on behaviors that have a moral com-
ponent to them, which is not true of OCB. As Turnipseed (2002) explains, OCB “is
Paterson, Huang / Am I Expected to Be Ethical? 3
traditionally defined as extra-role behavior which serves to advance the purposes of the
organization. However, these behaviors may be ethical or unethical” (p. 1). Despite these
differences between OCB role breadth and role ethicality, studies showing that individuals
differ significantly on their perceived role breadth and that these differences have a mean-
ingful impact on behaviors such as helping, taking charge, and voice (McAllister, Kamdar,
Morrison, & Turban, 2007; Van Dyne, Kamdar, & Joireman, 2008) are relevant to the cur-
rent research. It is our assertion that in a similar way to how organizational members vary
in the degree to which they view certain behaviors as in-role or extra-role, employees
likewise make similar judgments about the degree to which their role requirements include
behaving ethically.
In addition to ethical leadership, which focuses primarily on downward influence on
organizational members, we posit that a leader’s voice behaviors also impact role ethicality.
Thus, in the current study, we sought to identify the impact on subordinates of seeing their
leader challenge and seek to change the status quo by pushing against practices that these
leaders saw as unethical by engaging with their superiors higher up in the organizational
hierarchy (Morrison, 2011). This type of voice behavior has been referred to as ethical
voice, a form of “expression that challenges, and seeks to change, the current behaviors,
procedures, and policies that are not normatively appropriate” (Huang & Paterson, 2017, p.
1158). Thus, our interest is in the interactive effects of ethical leadership behaviors, which
are primarily directed at those below them in the organizational hierarchy, and ethical voice
behaviors, which are directed at individuals above them in the organizational hierarchy.
When ethical leadership and ethical voice behaviors interact, followers are much more
likely to believe that their leader’s efforts to behave ethically are sincere and deeply felt,
highlighting a moral consistency that confirms to the follower the importance of ethical
behavior in their own job role
By incorporating a role-based perspective into the literature on ethical leadership and ethi-
cal behavior, we intend to make several important contributions. First, introducing the con-
cept of role ethicality allows us to account for a theoretically important explanatory
mechanism that is assumed to be present under the social learning theory approach to ethical
leadership. Second, the role ethicality concept provides an explanation for the link between
leaders’ ethical behavior and follower unethical behavior that complements the social learn-
ing perspective common in the ethical leadership literature with a role-based view that more
fully accounts for the organizationally significant power of roles. Third, by coupling ethical
leadership and leader’s ethical voice, the current research highlights the importance of moral
consistency, or the idea that a leader’s influence on subordinate ethical behavior is potentially
undermined if there is a lack of consistency between how the leader interacts with their sub-
ordinates and how they attempt to influence those above them in the organization with respect
to ethical issues. Finally, our focus on leader’s ethical voice behaviors provides a novel per-
spective to the voice literature that to date has looked exclusively at a leader’s impact on
follower voice behaviors but has not yet explored how a leader’s voice behaviors might
influence subordinate behavior. We thus answer the call from Bashshur and Oc (2015) by
investigating the multilevel implications of voice behaviors. In the following sections, we
provide the theoretical rationale for the proposed relationships underlying our research
model, depicted in Figure 1, as well as the results of two studies, a field study and an experi-
ment, that tested the model.
Figure 1
Proposed Theoretical Model
Literature Review and Hypotheses

Social Learning Theory
Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory explains that behavior can be learned through
observation rather than solely through direct experience. Essential to this type of observa-
tional learning is the presence of exemplary models of behavior. Brown and Treviño (2006)
propose that ethical leaders are especially likely to be seen as exemplary models because of
their credibility, attractiveness, power, and status. Ethical leaders’ influence over subordi-
nates’ behavior is further strengthened by their ability to offer rewards and punishments
(Mayer et al., 2012). Thus, by modeling ethical behavior and fair treatment in the workplace
along with effective and fair utilization of rewards and punishment, ethical leaders contribute
to the creation of group norms for acceptable behavior that result in workplaces where
employees are less likely to engage in unethical behavior (Mayer et al., 2012).
As a psychological theory primarily interested in explaining individual behavioral change,
social learning theory does not fully address the various organizational forces and dynamics
that are present in most traditional workplaces. Among these forces are the presence of both
informal and formal hierarchies and informal and formal job responsibilities that constitute
organizational roles. In organizational contexts, these factors contribute significantly to the
behavioral modeling and learning process Bandura describes. Thus, for use in organizational
contexts, social learning theory is best applied in concert with other theories that more fully
account for these organizational forces. One such theory, which we posit is especially rele-
vant to the discussion of ethical leadership and unethical behavior, is role theory.
Role Theory
Within varied organizational contexts, organizational members are asked to assume sets
of patterned behaviors or roles upon joining an organization that are distinct from the
behaviors that they naturally assume in other settings (Biddle, 1979). As Katz and Kahn
(1966, pp. 49-50) stated, “roles are found in their purest form when they are the most
completely divorced from the personalities of role incumbents.” And yet, it is still human
individuals that are inhabiting these social roles, giving us a marriage of the individual
with its psychological, mental, and physical individuality and the role with its prescribed
rules, norms, and expectations. This idea of role taking was first introduced into the aca-
demic literature by Mead (1934) as he and other sociologists explored the “problem of
maintaining order in a continuously changing social organization” (Strauss, 1956, p. ix).
Social and organizational psychologists have since utilized the role concept as a defining
characteristic of organizations (e.g., Katz & Kahn, 1966; Weick, 1979). Central to this
role-based view of organizations is that role expectations are tightly linked to employee
behavior, making the perspective useful for scholars interested in predicting and explain-
ing workplace behavior.
Although not discussed with the same frequency as the social expectations related to a
given role, roles often involve moral expectations as well (Downie, 1968; Rozuel &
Kakabadse, 2011). This point is widely accepted, but there is a debate about how exactly the
ethical component of a job role should be characterized. Whereas Mayo (1968) opined that
the moral role is a distinct role from that of jobholder and can be divorced from it entirely,
Downie (1968) and others have taken issue with this assertion, stating that viewing a moral
role as a specific role unto itself is not helpful to our understanding of workplace ethics.
Rather, job roles should be viewed as containing varying ethical expectations that form part
of the overall role obligations. Drawing from this earlier work, Kurtines (1984, 1986) was
perhaps the first to attempt to fully integrate a role perspective into the realm of ethical deci-
sion making, but despite the appeal of such a perspective, one that is able to simultaneously
account for both the person and the situation, little research has followed. Solomon (1992),
noting this paucity of roles in discussions of ethics, stated that the various roles organiza-
tional members inhabit “is the pervasive problem in micro-business ethics, and it is the legiti-
macy of roles and their responsibilities . . . that ought to occupy a good deal more of our time
and attention” (p. 328). It is our intent to legitimize roles in discussions of ethical decision
making and behavior by introducing the concept of role ethicality and discussing the way in
which leaders help to shape it.
Ethical Leadership and Role Ethicality

Role ethicality represents the degree to which employees view their role as including the
expectation to behave ethically. While the term itself is new to the organizational literature,
a similarly named concept, role morality, has been discussed in philosophy (Andre, 1991;
Gibson, 2003) and occasionally in the business literature (e.g., Radtke, 2008). Despite the
similar names, the concepts are actually quite distinct. Role morality is defined as “claim[ing]
a moral permission to harm others in ways that, if not for the role, would be wrong”
(Applbaum, 1999, p. 3). Role ethicality, on the other hand, is strongest when ethics and val-
ues are upheld by role requirements. However, these two ideas are not opposites either as the
term role morality has typically referred to entire professions (e.g., Radtke, 2008) while role
ethicality is organization specific. The role morality literature is nonetheless useful to the
current research in that it demonstrates that the difference between personal ethics and role-
based ethics represent a “genuine and useful moral distinction” (Gibson, 2003, p. 17). That
is, there is evidence for a role-based determination of ethicality that is separate and distinct
from one’s own personally held ethics.
As with other role-related constructs, role ethicality perceptions are formed by role inhab-
itants as a result of their experiences within the organization (Biddle, 1986). For many orga-
nizational members, leaders are instrumental in shaping their experience and providing
guidance regarding what is part of their job and what is not (Den Hartog & Belschak, 2012;
Frost, 1983; Van Dyne et al., 2008). For example, Graen’s (1976) “role-making” framework
proposes that role definitions are created through patterns of social interactions with supervi-
sors and co-workers. We argue that the role of the leader is especially important with respect
to the formation of role expectations as they relate to ethical behavior because of the situa-
tion- and context-specific nature of ethical decision making (Kurtines, 1984; Vergés, 2010).
Although it does not currently fully integrate a role-based perspective, a rapidly expanding
body of research suggests that indeed, the ethical behaviors of the leader himself or herself
can influence others to act ethically (Mayer, Kuenzi, Greenbaum, Bardes, & Salvador, 2009;
Ruiz, Ruiz, & Martinez, 2011; Schaubroeck et al., 2012).
A role-based view of ethical behavior helps model important organizational forces that are
not explicitly discussed in the social learning perspective (Bandura, 1986) most common in
the ethical leadership literature today (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Brown and Treviño, 2006;
Mayer et al., 2009; Ruiz et al., 2011). In our view, the principles of social learning theory are
useful in explaining how ethical leaders influence followers through the process of observa-
tional learning, but within organizations, a powerful force for causing changes in behavior as
it relates to ethics is role expectations. Whereas this channel is implied or assumed in discus-
sions of role modeling present in many studies of ethical leadership and its effects on follow-
ers, we submit that it is critical to actually test the degree to which followers’ role perceptions
are impacted by the role modeling process.
Organizational leaders communicate information about role expectations to followers in
several important ways. First, managers tend to influence their subordinates’ values, work-
related beliefs, and job attitudes through formal approaches such as giving orders (Levinson,
1965) as well as informal channels such as developing dyadic relationships (Dienesch &
Liden, 1986). Second, followers may also seek for value congruence with their leaders through
constructing similar role definitions (Lord, Brown, & Freiberg, 1999). The degree to which
leaders perform ethical behaviors is an indicator that they themselves include these types of
behaviors in their own role. This is likely to affect the degree to which followers construe
being ethical as part of their own role definitions. As suggested by Mayer et al. (2009), follow-
ers “look to higher levels in the organization for the appropriate way to behave” (p. 3). That is,
by referencing leaders’ behaviors, followers tend to evaluate what behaviors are considered
appropriate for their own roles and therefore reinforce their own role definitions that deem
ethical behaviors as a necessary component. Such imitation processes are consistent with prior
findings from the leadership literature, which suggests that observers of leadership activities
tend to categorize prototypical leadership behaviors and depersonalize themselves to identify
with the values associated with those behaviors (Hogg, 2001; Lord, Foti, & De Vader, 1984).
Hypothesis 1: Ethical leadership is positively related to followers’ role ethicality.
Role Ethicality and Unethical Behavior

The link between role expectations and behavior is fundamental to role theory. Role theory
claims that “humans behave in ways that are different and predictable depending on their
respective social identities and the situation” (Biddle, 1986, p. 68). Despite the sometimes
disparate and conflicting perspectives taken within the broader literature, there is agreement
among theorists that role expectations are the crucial link between roles and behavior. This
logic, applied in many contexts, has yet to be fully applied to discussions of ethical behavior.
Applying the idea of role ethicality within the context of role theory suggests that to the
degree which employees view behaving ethically as part of their job role, we would expect
this role perception to affect their behavior. For purposes of this study, we focus on unethical
behavior because of the risks and costs associated with such behaviors as discussed in the
introduction. Unethical behaviors are those that are seen as violating societal norms for moral
behavior (Appelbaum, Iaconi, & Matousek, 2007). Within organizations, there is a distinction
between these unethical behaviors that violate widely held societal norms and deviant behav-
iors that violate significant organizational norms. Examples of unethical behaviors within the
workplace are divulging confidential information, giving gifts/favors in exchange for prefer-
ential treatment, and pilfering company materials and supplies (Akaah, 1996). Studies have
consistently shown that the more broadly employees define their roles, the more likely they
are to engage in activities that we typically refer to as discretionary (McAllister et al., 2007;
Morrison, 1994; Van Dyne et al., 2008). Recently, Jiao, Richards, and Hackett (2013) meta-
analyzed evidence from more than 9,000 employees and found that there is a strong connec-
tion between role breadth perceptions and OCB. By suggesting that a similar relationship
exists in the realm of ethical decision making, we hypothesize that one aspect of the mental
calculus involves the question of role expectations. That is, individuals can justify unethical
behavior by saying, “It’s not my job to behave ethically, I just do what I’m told by my superi-
ors.” On the other hand, individuals avoid engaging in unethical behavior that is not necessar-
ily motivated by their own moral conscience by adopting a similar logic: “My role requires me
to behave ethically.” Another element that suggests a link between follower role ethicality and
unethical behavior is followers’ perceived accountability (Steinbauer, Renn, Taylor, &
Njoroge, 2014), or followers’ perceptions that they may be asked to defend their behaviors to
their supervisors. The presence of such perceptions helps explain the hypothesized link
between role perceptions and actual ethical behaviors.
Hypothesis 2: Follower role ethicality is negatively related to follower unethical behavior.
Taking Hypotheses 1 and 2 together, we propose that role ethicality operates as a mediat-
ing mechanism between ethical leadership and unethical behavior. That is, as leaders behave
ethically and encourage others to do similarly, they are playing a critical role in employees’
construction of role definitions about being ethical and their in-role expectations that will
result in the reduction of unethical behaviors in the workplace.
Hypothesis 3: Follower role ethicality mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and
follower unethical behavior.
The Moderating Role of Leader’s Ethical Voice

Employee voice is a form of extra-role behavior that emphasizes the expression of
employees’ constructive comments and suggestions for improvement about organizational
functioning (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). It indicates individuals’ change-oriented initiative
to speak up even when their opinions may challenge the status quo of the organization (Detert
& Burris, 2007; LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Heeding the call of Morrison (2011) to specify
an unexamined content area of voice, Huang and Paterson (2017) introduced the concept of
ethical voice, which constitutes a particular type of voice behavior that is aimed at challeng-
ing and changing unethical organizational practices and norms. In their initial work on ethi-
cal voice, Huang and Paterson operationalized the construct at the group level, but in the
present research, we investigate it at the individual level, with a specific interest in the degree
to which leaders speak up regarding ethical issues at work. Thus, we extend Huang and
Paterson’s research by focusing on leaders’ ethical voice behaviors and highlighting the fact
that ethical voice behaviors initiated by leaders within the organization will typically require
exerting influence on those at a higher level in the organizational hierarchy to be effective.
Our investigation of ethical voice expressed by a leader coupled with ethical leadership
behaviors builds on prior studies that have linked ethical leadership to voice behaviors in
general and voice behaviors to in-role performance (Walumbwa, Morrison, & Christensen,
2012; Walumbwa & Schaubroeck, 2009). However, these prior studies have, without excep-
tion, looked at the impact of leader behavior on subordinate voice, whereas in this study, we
are interested in the interactive effect of leader behavior and leader voice. Looking at leaders’
ethical voice behaviors matters because voice behaviors provide evidence that leaders are not
only committed to their own ethical behavior and encouraging those below them in the orga-
nizational hierarchy to behave ethically but also committed to promoting changes relating to
non-normative behaviors in the broader organization, especially those condoned by leaders
above them in the organizational hierarchy.
We submit that exerting influence up the organizational hierarchy, which is a key tenet of
the voice construct (Liu, Zhu, & Yang, 2010), is a very different skill than exerting influence
down the organizational chart, which is the primary focus of the ethical leadership construct.
In addition, the personal risk to the individual is much greater when voice behaviors are
engaged in, due to the challenging nature of voice and the potentially unfavorable reactions
from the recipients of the voice behavior (Burris, 2012), versus ethical leadership behaviors
that consist primarily of influence directed toward those who are under the leader’s direct
supervision. The combination of these behaviors highlights a moral consistency (Hopkins,
Hopkins, & Mitchell, 2008) in the leader that will likely be perceived by followers as further
emphasizing the importance of expanding their role perceptions to include ethical behaviors.
Therefore, a leader’s engagement in ethical voice behaviors can be perceived by followers as
evidence of his or her commitment to defending ethical values and standards in the organiza-
tion. This is also consistent with the social information processing view (Salancik & Pfeffer,
1978) such that speaking up on ethical issues while demonstrating ethical leadership should
signal to followers that leaders truly care about being ethical at work and also expect their
followers to comply with the ethical norms. That is, the natural expansion of follower percep-
tions of ethical role requirements that results from viewing ethical leadership behaviors is
augmented when followers see their leaders take personal risks and bear potentially unfavor-
able reactions from their own boss(es) as they challenge the status quo by speaking up on
ethical issues. We thus hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 4: Leader ethical voice moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and fol-
lower role ethicality such that the relationship is stronger when leader ethical voice is high (vs.
low).
Taken together, Hypothesis 4 predicted that the relationship between ethical leadership
and role ethicality will be moderated by leader ethical voice. Hypothesis 3 suggested that role
ethicality will be negatively related to unethical behavior. Moreover, our theoretical model
posits that role ethicality is expected to mediate the moderated relationship by leaders’ ethical
voice and unethical behavior. Therefore, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 5: Leader ethical voice moderates the indirect effect of ethical leadership on follower
unethical behavior via follower role ethicality such that the indirect effect is stronger when
leader ethical voice is high (vs. low).
Overview of Methods
To test our proposed hypotheses, we conducted a field survey study (Study 1) followed by
an experimental study (Study 2). Specifically, survey data collected in Study 1 offers empiri-
cal evidence about the proposed relationships. Study 2, conducted in an experimental setting,
offers further evidence supporting findings of Study 1 and provides preliminary evidence
about the causality of the proposed indirect effects of ethical leadership on employees’ uneth-
ical behavior via their role ethicality. In addition, to rule out potential alternative explana-
tions that could predict employees’ (dis)engagement in unethical behaviors, we also
controlled for moral identity internalization, or the degree to which a set of moral traits are
central to one’s self-concept (Aquino & Reed, 2002), in Study 2.
Study 1
Methods
Setting and procedures. We invited employees and their supervising managers working
at a large consulting company in China to participate in this study. Employee participants,
working in consulting teams, interacted with their supervising manager (i.e., team leader) on
a regular basis. Therefore, they were able to observe their leader behaviors, and all invited
participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to examine the impact of ethical
leadership on workplace outcomes and that their participation should be completely voluntary.
Survey data was collected at two timepoints. At Time 1, we invited 1,215 employees to
complete questions about their supervising manager’s ethical leadership and ethical voice. A
total of 762 responses were collected, yielding a response rate of 62.7%. At Time 2, which
was about four weeks later, we asked those 762 participating employee respondents to com-
plete questions about their role ethicality and demographic information. A total of 523
responses were collected, yielding a response rate of 68.6%. We then identified, through the
Human Resources Office, the 87 supervising managers of those 523 employee respondents
and asked these 87 managers to provide ratings of their subordinates’ unethical behavior.
Sixty-eight managers responded with 394 responses, yielding a response rate of 78.2%.
Therefore, our final sample consists of 394 employees and 68 supervising managers.
Among the 394 employee respondents, 188 were female (47.7%). The average age and orga-
nizational tenure were 34.0 and 5.5 years, respectively. Among the 68 supervising managers,
25 were female (36.8%). The average age and organizational tenure were 38.2 and 9.2 years,
respectively. All of the respondents reported having a college degree or above.
Measures. We followed the standard translation and back-translation procedures (Bris-

lin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973) to ensure all the survey materials were accurately trans-
lated from English to Chinese. Unless specified, we used a 7-point Likert-type scale (from
1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) to measure our study variables.
Ethical leadership was assessed using the 10-item Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS; Brown
et al., 2005). This scale was used and tested in prior empirical study in the Chinese setting
(e.g., Huang & Paterson, 2017; Liu, Kwan, Fu, & Mao, 2013; Loi, Lam, & Chan, 2012). One
sample item was: “This manager sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms
of ethics” (α = .94). Leader ethical voice was measured using the six-item ethical voice scale
(Huang & Paterson, 2017). One sample item was: “This manager develops and makes rec-
ommendations concerning ethical issues that affect the organization” (α = .89).
We measured role ethicality by asking employee participants to assess the degree to which
they viewed various ethical attributes and behaviors as part of their job role expectations
using a five-item scale (α = .91). Specifically, consistent with the method employed by
Morrison (1994) and McAllister et al. (2007) to measure behavior-based role definitions, we
adapted Brown et al.’s (2005) 10-item ethical leadership scale when measuring role ethical-
ity. We selected only the items that were general enough that they could potentially be appli-
cable to any job role. This resulted in the removal of 2 items from the original 10-item scale,
“this leader can be trusted” and “this leader disciplines employees who violate ethical stan-
dards,” as these 2 items would only be applicable to those in leadership roles. With the
remaining 8 items, we added the stem “this behavior is an expected part of my job” to capture
the degree to which employees viewed the items as part of their role requirements. We then
conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) to assess the measurement validity of this
adapted scale. The CFA results showed that the 8-item measurement model did not produce
good fit: χ2(20) = 273.69, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .83, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .76,
root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .18, and standardized root mean square
residual (SRMR) = .11. The results also revealed that 3 out of the 8 items did not load well
onto the latent factor, with factor loadings all being very low (around .20), and were not part
of a second-order latent factor either. Therefore, we decided to drop those 3 items that failed
to load onto the latent factor and proceeded to model testing with the remaining 5 items that
all loaded well onto the latent factor. The final 5 items were: “Conducting one’s personal life
in an ethical manner is an expected part of this job,” “Defining success not just by results but
also by the way that they are obtained is an expected part of this job,” “Discussing business
ethics or values with others at work is an expected part of this job,” “Taking seriously how to
do things the right way in terms of ethics is an expected part of this job,” and “Asking ‘what
is the right thing to do?’ when making decisions is an expected part of this job.” The CFA
results showed that this 5-item adapted scale produced acceptable fit: χ2(5) = 15.07, CFI = .99,
TLI = .99, RMSEA = .07, and SRMR = .01.
Unethical behavior was measured by adapting 5 items (α = .88) from the 17-item unethi-
cal behavior scale developed by Akaah (1996) and used in Mayer et al. (2012). To determine
the applicability of the unethical behavior items, with the help from senior management, we
asked 10 supervising managers to review the full list of 17 items and vote on the ones they
believed to be applicable in their particular work setting. There were 5 items that received the
majority votes (N = 7 or above) from the 10 supervising managers. Therefore, we decided to
only include those 5 items in the manager survey. Specifically, we asked the supervising
managers to rate their employees’ unethical behavior on a 7-point scale (from 1 = not at all
to 7 = to a very great extent) following the phrase “to what extent does this employee . . . ”.
The 5 items were: “do personal business on company time,” “take extra personal time (e.g.,
lunch hour, breaks, personal departure),” “pass blame for errors to an innocent coworker,”
“claim credit for someone else’s work,” and “take longer than necessary to do a job.” The
CFA results showed that this 5-item adapted scale produced acceptable fit: χ2(5) = 19.06,
CFI = .99, TLI = .97, RMSEA = .08, and SRMR = .02.
Control variables. Following prior ethics research (Huang & Paterson, 2017; Mayer,
Kuenzi, & Greenbaum, 2010), we controlled for size of the team and employees’ perceived
ethical climate in the focal work group, which was measured with the three-item scale used
in Shin, Sung, Choi, and Kim (2015). One sample item was “Employees in this group are
expected to adhere to ethical rules and procedures prescribed by the Company.”
Data aggregation. Given the nested nature of our data (i.e., employee respondents nested
in teams), we assessed the appropriateness of aggregating employee-reported data about their
supervising manager’s ethical leadership and ethical voice from individual level to team
level (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Specifically, we first calculated within-group interrater
agreement (rwg(j); James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984) for ethical leadership and leader ethical
voice. The median rwg(j) values were .83 (range, .74-.95) for ethical leadership and .86 (range,
.73-.97) for leader ethical voice, both exceeding the suggested cutoff value of .70 (Chen,
Mathieu, & Bliese, 2004). This indicated that the employee respondents in our sample had
sufficient agreement on their supervising manager’s ethical leadership and ethical voice.
In the next step, we calculated the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC; Bliese, 2000) to
determine if there was sufficient between-group variance for the measures of ethical leader-
ship and leader ethical voice. The ICC values were as follows: ethical leadership, ICC1 = .21,
ICC2 = .61; and leader ethical voice, ICC1 = .25, ICC2 = .66. These ICC values fell into an
acceptable range for aggregation (James, 1982). Therefore, we found support for data aggre-
gation of ethical leadership and leader ethical voice to the team level.
Analytic strategy. Prior to testing our hypotheses, we conducted a set of CFAs to examine
the fit of our proposed four-factor model and compared it with several alternative measure-
ment models. Since our data were nested, we then tested our proposed multilevel model
using HLM 7 (Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, Congdon, & du Toit, 2011). We followed Bauer,
Preacher, and Gil’s (2006) approach in the testing multilevel moderated mediation model.
To assess the significance of the indirect effect of ethical leadership on unethical behavior
via role ethicality, we constructed 95% confidence intervals using the PRODCLIN program
(MacKinnon, Fritz, Williams, & Lockwood, 2007). We further followed Preacher, Curran,
and Bauer’s (2006) approach to determine the significance of the moderation slopes and
Bauer et al.’s (2006) approach to estimate the condition indirect effect of ethical leadership
on unethical behavior via role ethicality.
Results
Tests of measurement models. To assess the validity of our proposed measurement model,
we performed a series of CFAs using Mplus 6.1 (Muthén & Muthén, 2010). We assessed
the fit of the measurement model using chi-square statistics and multiple fit indices (Hu &
Table 1
Comparisons of Measurement Models in Study 1 Using Confirmatory Factor
Analyses
Measurement Models χ² df Δχ² CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR
Hypothesized four-factor 570.13 293 .96 .95 .05 .04

baseline model
Alternative models
1. Three-factor model with 1,720.94 296 1,150.81 .78 .76 .11 .12
EL and LEV combined
2. Three-factor model with 1,544.49 296 974.36 .81 .79 .10 .10
EL and RE combined
3. Three-factor model with 1,876.56 296 1,306.43 .76 .73 .12 .17
LEV and RE combined
4. One-factor model with all 3,589.69 299 3,019.56 .49 .45 .17 .17
four variables combined
Note. N = 394. EL = ethical leadership; LEV = leader ethical voice; RE = role ethicality; CFI = Comparative Fit
Index; TLI = Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI); RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; SRMR = standardized
root mean square residual.
Bentler, 1999), including CFI, TLI, RMSEA, and SRMR. The CFA results suggested that
our four-factor baseline model produced good fit: χ2 = 570.13, df = 293, CFI = .96, TLI = .95,
RMSEA = .05, and SRMR = .04. We compared this baseline model with four alternative
models. As shown in Table 1, the best competing model was the one in which we loaded the
items of ethical leadership and role ethicality onto one single latent factor: χ2 = 1,544.49,
df = 296, CFI = .81, TLI = .79, RMSEA = .10, and SRMR = .10. The chi-square difference
test showed that our four-factor baseline model produced significantly better fit than this best
competing model: Δχ2(3) = 974.36, p < .01. We thus decided to retain our proposed four-
factor baseline model and proceed to testing hypotheses.
Tests of hypotheses. Means, standard deviations, and interitem correlations of study vari-
ables are reported in Table 2. As expected, ethical leadership was significantly related to both
role ethicality (r = .43, p < .01) and unethical behavior (r = −.21, p < .01). Also, role ethicality
was negatively related to unethical behavior (r = −.37, p < .01).
Hypothesis 1 proposed that ethical leadership would be positively associated with role
ethicality. As shown in Model 2 of Table 3, the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results
showed that there was a significantly positive relationship between ethical leadership and
role ethicality (γ = .38, p < .01). Hypothesis 1 was thus supported.
Hypothesis 2 proposed that role ethicality would be negatively associated with unethi-
cal behavior. As shown in Model 9 of Table 3, the results showed a significantly negative
effect of role ethicality on unethical behavior (γ = −.27, p < .01). Hypothesis 2 was thus
supported.
Hypothesis 3 proposed that ethical leadership had a negative indirect effect on unethical
behavior via role ethicality. Using the PRODCLIN program (MacKinnon, Fritz, et al., 2007),
we found a significant indirect effect of ethical leadership on unethical behavior via role ethi-
cality (ρ = −.10, 95% CI [−.159, −.056]), thus supporting Hypothesis 3.
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics and Interitem Correlations Among Variables in Study 1
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Age 33.99 4.68 —

2. Gender 1.52 .50 .10 —
3. Organizational 5.50 4.01 .45** −.03 —
tenure
4. Team size 5.79 1.49 −.07 .01 −.05 —
5. Ethical climate 4.45 1.33 .01 −.07 .00 −.01 (.84)
6. Ethical leadership 4.82 1.30 −.01 .06 −.06 −.14** .24** (.94)
7. Leader ethical voice 4.41 1.00 .01 −.01 −.02 .12* .04 .05 (.89)
8. Role ethicality 4.73 1.25 .08 .07 .03 −.06 .15** .43** .05 (.91)
9. Unethical behavior 3.08 1.03 −.01 .01 −.03 .04 −.10* −.21** .06 −.37** (.88)
Note: N = 394. Gender was coded as 1 = female, 2 = male.

*p < .05.
**p < .01 (two-tailed tests).
Table 3
Results of Hierarchical Linear Modeling for Study 1
Role Ethicality Unethical Behavior
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9
Intercepts 4.75** 4.75** 4.75** 4.74** 3.07** 3.07** 3.07** 3.07** 3.08**
Level 1 variables
Ethical climate .14** .08 .08 .05 −.08* −.04 −.04 −.04 −.03
Role ethicality −.27**
Level 2 variables
Team size −.07 −.01 −.02 −.04 .03 .01 −.00 .01 .00
Ethical leadership .38** .38** .36** −.16** −.16** −.15** −.05
Leader ethical .04 .05 .07 .06 .08
voice
Level 2 interaction
Ethical .32** −.14** −.05
Leadership ×
Leader Ethical
Voice
R2 .03 .18 .18 .25 .01 .05 .05 .07 .15
ΔR2 .03 .15 .00 .07 .01 .04 .00 .02 .08
Note: N = 394 (Level 2 unit = 68). R2 values were calculated using Snijders and Bosker’s (1999) approach as the
proportion of the deduction in variance.
*p < .05.
Hypothesis 4 proposed that leader ethical voice would moderate the relationship between
ethical leadership and role ethicality such that this positive relationship would be stronger in
the presence of high (vs. low) leader ethical voice. As shown in Model 4 of Table 3, leader
ethical voice had a significant moderation effect on the relationship between ethical leader-
ship and role ethicality (γ = .32, p < .01). We plotted this moderation effect in Figure 2.
Figure 2
The Moderating Effect of Leader Ethical Voice in Study 1
Following Preacher et al.’s (2006) approach, we then assessed the significance of the mod-
eration slopes. The results showed that the simple slope for leader ethical voice computed at
one standard deviation above the mean (b = .680, t = 10.017, p < .01) was significant, while
the simple slope computed at one standard deviation below the mean (b = .042, t = .548, ns)
was nonsignificant. These results suggest that the moderation effect was statistically signifi-
cant only when leader ethical voice was high. Results from regions of significance tests fur-
ther showed that the difference in these indirect effects were significantly different when the
value of leader ethical voice was above −.73 unit of its mean. Therefore, Hypothesis 4 was
partially supported.
Hypothesis 5 proposed leader ethical voice would moderate the indirect effect of ethical
leadership on unethical behavior via role ethicality such that this negative indirect effect
would be stronger in the presence of high (vs. low) leader ethical voice. Following Bauer
et al.’s (2006) approach, we assessed this conditional indirect effect at low (−1 SD) and high
(+1 SD) values of leader ethical voice. We found that this indirect effect was significantly
negative (ρ = −.142, 95% CI [−.226, −.068]) when leader ethical voice was high and that it
was nonsignificant (ρ = −.006, 95% CI [−.072, .055]) when leader ethical voice was low.
Therefore, Hypothesis 5 was also partially supported.
Discussion of Study 1
Study 1 provided evidence of the hypothesized relationships outlined in Figure 1.
However, due to the fact that we utilized a field survey design, we are unable to establish
the causal direction of the relationships we tested. Thus, it is possible that the constructs
we measured could be influencing one another in a manner that is different than our con-
ceptual model implies. Therefore, we proceed with Study 2, an experimental study that
will be able to provide us with initial evidence of the causal links between our key
constructs.
Study 2
Methods
Participants, design, and procedures. One hundred twenty-one working professionals
from multiple companies attending a leadership training workshop in East China participated
in this experimental study. Among all the participants, 46 were female (38.0%). The age of
participants ranged from 22 to 41 years, with an average of 30.8 years. All of the participants
reported working full-time at the time of the experiment. The average work tenure was 8.2
years. The majority of the participants (92.6%) held a college degree or above.
All participants first completed a brief survey about demographic information. In this
survey, they were also asked to complete the questions of moral identity internalization,
defined as the internalization of “self-conception organized around a set of moral traits”
(Aquino & Reed, 2002, p. 1424), which was found to be an important factor affecting one’s
tendency to refrain from engaging in unethical behavior (Mayer et al., 2012). Participants
were then asked to read a short case adapted from “A Billing Blind”—available on the web-
site of Giving Voice to Values. This case was also adapted for use as experiment materials in
prior ethics studies (e.g., Huang & Paterson, 2017). The case describes a group of summer
interns at a midsized accounting firm tasked with digitizing client files. The interns are asked
to bill clients for more hours than the work actually takes and to do so at the partners’ billable
rate even though the work was done by the interns.
There were four different versions of the case, allowing us to manipulate two factors: ethi-
cal leadership and leader ethical voice. To manipulate ethical leadership, the case described
either a leader who exemplified (ethical) each of the items in the ELS (Brown et al., 2005) or
one who did not (unethical). To manipulate leader ethical voice, the case described either a
leader who chose to speak up with concerns regarding the request to bill inappropriately to
the client (ethical voice) or one who did not voice concerns but instead quickly agreed to
oversee the process and ensured it would be carried out exactly as requested (nonethical
voice). Participants were randomly assigned into the four conditions, with 30 people per
condition, with the exception of the manipulation with high ethical leadership and high leader
ethical voice, which had 31 participants.
After reading the case, participants were asked to answer the manipulation check ques-
tions regarding ethical leadership and leader ethical voice. In the next step, participants were
asked to take a moment to reflect on the case they read and think about to what extent they
would perceive being ethical as a part of their job if they were the intern facing that ethical
dilemma. They were then asked to complete questions of role ethicality. In the final step,
participants were asked to complete a single question regarding their likelihood to commit
unethical behavior while working in that particular environment described in the case.
Measures. We followed the same translation and back-translation procedures described

in Study 1. Unless specified, participants answered questions on a 7-point Likert-type scale
(from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). We asked participants to rate on the
10-item ELS (Brown et al., 2005) for the manipulation of ethical leadership (α = .97) and
on the 6-item leader ethical voice scale (Huang & Paterson, 2017) for the manipulation of
leader ethical voice (α = .95). We measured role ethicality using the same 5-item measure
(α = .85) adapted from McAllister et al. (2007) used in Study 1. One sample item was: “At
the accounting firm where you are assumed to be employed as an intern, defining success
not just by results but also the way that they are obtained would be an expected part of an
employee’s job.” We measured unethical behavior using the single-item question regard-
ing participants’ likelihood to bill clients for more hours than the work actually takes and
to do so at the partner rate (from 1 = extremely unlikely to 7 = extremely likely). Finally, we
also included control variables such as participants’ age, gender, work tenure, education,
and moral identity internalization. Specifically, moral identity internalization was measured
using the 5-item scale (α = .90) developed by Aquino and Reed (2002). Participants were
asked to think of a list of personal characteristics or qualities (e.g., compassionate, fair, hon-
est) that a moral person possesses. They were then asked to indicate the extent to which they
agree or disagree with the statements provided. One sample item was: “Being someone who
has these characteristics is an important part of who I am.”
Results
Manipulation check. We conducted ANOVA to check the effectiveness of our manipu-
lation regarding ethical leadership and leader ethical voice. First, participants assigned to
conditions in which they read the case of an ethical leader reported significantly higher rat-
ings of ethical leadership than those assigned to conditions in which they read the case of an
unethical leader: F(1, 119) = 426.253, p < .001 (ethical M = 6.15, SD = .62; unethical M = 2.94, SD
= 1.04). Second, participants assigned to conditions in which they read the case of a leader
speaking up with concerns about the unethical practice reported significantly higher ratings
of leader ethical voice than those assigned to conditions in which they read the case of a
leader not doing so but instead agreeing to oversee the process: F(1, 119) = 275.199, p < .001 (ethi-
cal voice M = 4.81, SD = 1.22; nonethical voice M = 1.96, SD = .54). These results indicate
that the experimental manipulations in this study were successful.
Hypotheses testing. Descriptive statistics and interitem correlations are presented in

Table 4. As shown in Table 4, ethical leadership was positively related to participants’ role
ethicality (r = .47, p < .01), which was negatively related to their reported likelihood of com-
mitting unethical behavior in such an environment (r = −.35, p < .01). Among the control
variables, only participants’ moral identity internalization was significantly related to the
primary study variables. Therefore, we only controlled for moral identity internalization
when testing the moderated mediation model.
We first performed one-way ANOVA to test the main effect of ethical leadership on partici-
pants’ role ethicality. The results showed that ethical leadership had a significantly positive effect
on participants’ role ethicality: F(1, 119) = 34.156, p < .001 (ethical M = 4.66, SD = 1.04; unethi-
cal M = 3.56, SD = 1.03). Hypothesis 1 was thus supported. We then conducted regression analy-
ses to test the relationship between role ethicality and unethical behavior while controlling for
moral identity internalization. The results showed that participants’ role ethicality was negatively
related to their likelihood of committing unethical behavior (β = −.38, p < .01), thus supporting
Hypothesis 2. Using the PRODCLIN program (MacKinnon, Fritz, et al., 2007), we found a
significantly negative indirect effect of ethical leadership on unethical behavior via role ethical-
ity (ρ = −.17, 95% CI [−.303, −.080]). Hypothesis 3 was thus also supported.
To test the interaction effect of ethical leadership and leader ethical voice, we analyzed
our data using univariate general linear model (GLM). The GLM results showed a significant
interaction effect: F(1, 117) = 62.836, p < .001. Specifically, under the ethical voice
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics and Interitem Correlations Among Variables in Study 2
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Age 30.75 3.97 —

2. Gender 1.62 0.49 .17† —
3. Work tenure 8.20 4.11 .96** .13 —
4. Education 3.28 0.64 −.31** −.03 −.45** —
5. Moral identity 4.38 1.31 .08 .10 .03 .01 (.90)
internalization
6. Ethical leadership .50 0.50 −.07 −.03 −.08 .08 .07 —
7. Leader ethical voice .50 0.50 .03 −.06 .01 −.03 .06 .01 —
8. Role ethicality 4.11 1.17 .04 .02 .04 −.04 .16† .47** .19* (.85)
9. Unethical behavior 2.89 1.40 .08 −.07 .09 −.09 −.24** −.32** −.02 −.41** —
Note: N = 121. Ethical leadership was coded as 0 = unethical, 1 = ethical. Leader ethical voice was coded as 0 = no
voice, 1 = voice. Gender was coded as 1 = female, 2 = male. Cronbach’s alpha is displayed in parentheses.
†p < .10.
*p < .05.
condition, participants reading the case of an ethical leader (M = 5.45, SD = .68) reported
significantly higher levels of role ethicality than those reading the case of an unethical leader
(M = 3.17, SD = .98): F(1, 59) = 110.234, p < .001. However, under the condition of no ethi-
cal voice, participants reading the case of an ethical leader (M = 3.84, SD = .63) did not report
significantly different ratings of role ethicality than those reading the case of an unethical
leader (M = 3.94, SD = .94): F(1, 58) = .235, ns. We further plotted this interaction in Figure
3. Consistent with our findings in Study 1, we found partial support for Hypothesis 4.
In the final step, we analyzed the whole moderated mediation model using a moderated
path analysis approach developed by Edwards and Lambert (2007). The first-stage modera-
tion effect of leader ethical voice was nonsignificant (β = .086, ns) under the condition of
nonethical voice, and it was significant (β = .512, p < .01) under the condition of ethical
voice. And the differences between these two effects across values of leader ethical voice was
also significant (Δβ = .426, p < .01). This suggests that leader ethical voice had a significant
first-stage moderation effect on the relationship between ethical leadership and role ethical-
ity. Moreover, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on unethical behavior via role ethical-
ity was nonsignificant under the condition of nonethical voice (β = −.034, ns), and it was
significant under the condition of ethical voice (β = −.162, p < .01). And the difference
between these two effects was significant (Δβ = −.128, p < .01). Based on these findings,
Hypothesis 5 was partially supported.
Discussion of Study 2
Study 2 confirmed the relationships found in Study 1 providing further support for our
research model. In addition, because of its random experimental design, Study 2 lends support
to the idea that the directionality of the relationships in our research model appear to be in the
hypothesized direction. That is, ethical leadership and ethical voice interact to shape role
Figure 3
The Moderating Effect of Leader Ethical Voice in Study 2
ethicality perceptions, which in turn impact unethical behaviors. These findings are further
strengthened by the fact that we controlled for moral identity internalization in Study 2.
Discussion
In the present study, we integrated social learning and role theories to study the impact of
ethical leadership on employee unethical behavior. Data from a field study (Study 1) and an
experimental study (Study 2) largely supported our hypotheses. Specifically, the results show
that ethical leadership had a negative indirect effect on employees’ unethical behavior via their
role ethicality. Slightly different from our expectation regarding the pattern of the moderation
effect, we found that leader ethical voice moderated the positive relationship between ethical
leadership and employees’ role ethicality such that this positive relationship was significant in
the presence of high leader ethical voice and turned nonsignificant in the presence of low
leader ethical voice. Similarly, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employees’ unethical
behavior via role ethicality was significant only in the presence of high leader ethical voice.
Theoretical Implications
Our study has several important implications for the ethical leadership literature. First,
despite frequent discussion of role modeling in the existing leadership and ethics literature,
the extant literature has yet to investigate the implied impact on follower role perceptions per
social learning theory. By incorporating role theory, the current research highlights the impact
that leaders have on the role definition process that employees undertake relating to ethics.
Social learning theory has been the dominant theoretical perspective adopted in studies of
ethical leadership (Brown et al., 2005) and has received strong support for its predictive
ability in the ethical leadership literature (e.g., Mayer et al., 2010, 2012). And yet, Bandura’s
(1977, 1986) social learning theory does not account for all of the social dynamics that con-
front members of organizations. One such social force that this study suggests is particularly
important in shaping ethical behavior within organizations is role expectations. Within the
context of social learning theory, role expectations can serve as a means of solidifying and
routinizing the learning of new behaviors that is facilitated by the behavioral modeling and
observational learning described by Bandura. Although role theory played a primary role in
the development of one of the most influential approaches to leadership, leader-member
exchange theory (Graen, 1976; Graen & Scandura, 1987), roles have largely been ignored in
the recent investigations of exchange relationships in particular and leadership studies gener-
ally (Matta, Scott, Koopman, & Conlon, 2015). This oversight has also been seen in the ethi-
cal leadership literature in spite of the fact role modeling is consistently cited as an integral
part of the leader-follower dynamic.
To address the aforementioned limitation in theorizing the impact of ethical leadership on
employee outcomes, this study integrates some of the key tenets of both social learning the-
ory and role theory (Biddle, 1979) to identify and describe the way in which ethical leaders’
behaviors impact their subordinates. We provide evidence that ethical leader’s role modeling
behaviors are linked to follower role perceptions. Therefore, the present study contributes to
the ethical leadership literature by demonstrating this meaningful and important mechanism
of role ethicality as a way for employees to understand leaders’ expectations regarding ethi-
cal behaviors and incorporate it into their own work role.
Second, our research aids in our understanding of the impact of ethical leadership on
employee outcomes by investigating the interaction effect of ethical leadership and leader
ethical voice. The ethical leadership construct consists of two primary components: (1) the
personal ethical behavior of the leader and (2) the leader’s ethical behaviors aimed at encour-
aging the ethicality of followers (Brown et al., 2005). Ethical voice, on the other hand, is a
specific type of change-oriented behavior that consists of challenging and seeking to rectify
counter-normative behaviors and procedures in organizations (Huang & Paterson, 2017) and
is targeted at superiors in the organization but not at subordinates. Taken together, ethical
leadership and leader’s ethical voice provide multiple points of evidence to employees with
regards to the ethical commitment of their leader. The findings from our two studies confirm
that ethical leadership’s impact on employees’ role ethicality is significant only when the
leader engages in ethical voice behaviors. When leaders do not speak up to their boss with
concerns about ethical problems in the organization, the positive effect of ethical leadership
on employees’ role ethicality is completely offset. Apparently, the presence of both ethical
leadership behavior generally and proactive, prosocial ethical voice behaviors offers follow-
ers confirmation that their leader is willing to walk the talk when it comes to ethics. In fact,
the effect of leader’s ethical voice was such that it completely nullified the impact of high
versus low ethical leadership on role ethicality when leader’s ethical voice was low. That is,
when leaders demonstrated a lack of willingness to speak up about organizationally relevant
lapses in ethics, their silence undermines followers’ ethical role definitions. This is consistent
with the idea that employees’ internalization of expected role requirements could be compro-
mised when role modeling is not salient to followers (Mayer et al., 2009; Morrison, 1994). It
seems that followers question the integrity and moral consistency of leaders who engage in
ethical behaviors but fail to speak up regarding the need to make changes in the organization
or its work units to align with more normatively appropriate behaviors.
Third, our research adds to the ethical leadership literature by identifying employees’ role
ethicality as a mediating mechanism linking ethical leadership with employee unethical
behavior. Specifically, our findings suggest that role occupants who viewed behaving ethically
as part of their role expectations were less likely to engage in unethical behaviors. Whereas the
culture- and climate-related impacts discussed in prior studies certainly play a part in the ethi-
cal leadership–employee unethical behavior relationship, a role-based perspective can take the
culture- or climate-based rationalization of “everyone else was doing it” to its role-based
equivalent of “I was required to do this as a part of my job.” For role occupants who generally
view ethical behavior as outside of their job role or even view behaving unethically as a job
role requirement, the role-based rationalizations can be powerful. In fact, through processes of
depersonalization (Sluss, van Dick, & Thompson, 2011), role inhabitants may be successful in
psychologically distancing themselves from personal responsibility for unethical behavior and
transferring it completely or partially to the role itself. The findings of this study and their
implications for the usefulness of role ethicality in predicting ethical behavior are further
strengthened by the fact that we controlled for individual perceptions of work group ethical
climate in Study 1 and for moral identity internalization in Study 2, thus ruling out other
potential explanations for the link between ethical leadership and behavior.
Fourth, while the vast majority of voice studies about leadership and voice focus on how
leaders impact subordinate voice behaviors, we answer the call from Bashshur and Oc (2015)
by investigating the multilevel implications of voice behaviors. Specifically, we investigated
the impact of leader voice behavior on subordinates. By focusing on leader ethical voice
behaviors, we draw attention to the important idea that the impact of voice behaviors tran-
scends organizational levels. In the current study, we found that when it comes to ethics in
particular, subordinates look up to their leaders, seeking consistent informational cues sig-
naled by their leaders’ ethical (or unethical) leadership behaviors. Our results show that ethi-
cal leaders’ subordinate-directed ethical leadership behaviors are all but nullified if not
accompanied by corresponding attempts by the leader to make ethics-related changes that
require them to assert their influence above them in the organization. This finding should
inspire future studies on voice behaviors to think more deeply about how leader voice behav-
iors impact, either positively or negatively, the way that their subordinates interpret the
“authenticity” of ethical leadership behaviors. Building on the findings presented here, it
appears that subordinates are much more likely to behave in ways that are consistent with
what they see their leader doing if the leader is consistent in the way he or she influences
those above and below them in the organization, at least when it comes to ethical issues.
Limitations and Future Directions

While our study has a number of strengths, it is not without limitations. First, although the
current study incorporates two important leader-centric indicators of ethicality (ethical lead-
ership and ethical voice), our study did not control for alternative mediating mechanisms
such as ethical culture (Mayer et al., 2010; Schaubreck et al., 2012), which may influence
role ethicality, although we did account for the impact of employees’ perceived ethical cli-
mate at the focal work group in Study 1 and their moral identity internalization in Study 2. In
addition to controlling for these alternative mechanisms, future research can also explore the
role of individual differences, workplace climate, interpersonal relationships, and other con-
structs as they may be relevant in understanding how and why employees define their roles
in a particular way and therefore choose to, or not to, align themselves with an organizational
value system. While these are important considerations, they were beyond the scope of the
current research as it focuses primarily on the mediating and moderating mechanisms in the
relationship between ethical leadership and employee unethical behavior.
Second, another area left less discussed in our research is the consistency of role defini-
tions between leaders and followers. Role theory predicts that agreement on follower role
definitions between the leader and follower has positive implications for satisfaction and
performance whereas a lack of agreement can result in diminished views of effectiveness and
competence (Matta et al., 2015). Thus, future research can investigate how discrepancies
between leader and follower role definitions impact the ethicality of followers.
Third, we chose to focus on unethical behavior as the focus of our study, leaving open the
question of whether or not the same relationship would hold up if more proactive forms of
ethical behavior were measured as the outcome. As stated in the introduction, we focused on
unethical behaviors because of the tremendous financial and reputational costs that organiza-
tions incur when a high-profile, large-scale scandal results from unethical behaviors. And
yet, from a more positive perspective, there are numerous benefits that can accrue to an
organization by virtue of proactive forms of ethical behavior becoming a part of the organi-
zational culture. Therefore, future studies may consider how, if at all, our research model
would need to be adapted to predict ethical behaviors.
Fourth, while we used five items that were considered by managers working in that specific
company setting as more context-specific to measure unethical behavior in Study 1, those five
items rated by managers might not be conceptually sufficient to capture the complete meaning
of the construct. Our decision, however, was partly due to the fact that managers sometimes were
not even aware of the breadth of unethical practices committed by their subordinates. While we
call for future research to more comprehensively investigate the relationship between one’s role
ethicality and their unethical behaviors at work using the full validated version of the unethical
behavior scale, we hope future research could address the potential measurement issues about
the construct of unethical behavior regarding the different levels of awareness about those uneth-
ical behaviors among different rating sources (i.e., employees, peers, managers).
Finally, while the present study investigated the impact of ethical leadership on employees’
role ethicality, it is possible that the degree to which leaders and employees have a consensus
view regarding ethical role definitions might also influence employees’ interpretations regard-
ing their own role definitions. Future research might explore leader’s perspective on follower
role expectations and see if a greater degree of consensus on role behavior expectations between
leaders and followers will result in higher levels of “gratification” for role occupants (Gross,
Mason, & McEachern, 1958, p. 213). On the other hand, discrepancies in role expectations
between leaders and followers can result in tension and lowered self-perceptions of effective-
ness and competence (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964; Matta et al., 2015).
These and other questions can be answered as research into role ethicality is expanded.
ORCID iD
Ted A. Paterson https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4840-9449
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Am I Expected To Be Ethical A Role-Definition

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Am I Expected to Be Ethical? A Role-Definition

Keywords: ethical leadership; ethical voice; unethical behavior; role ethicality

unethical behavior in organizations include increased absenteeism, lower job satisfaction,

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Ethical Leadership and Role Ethicality

Hypothesis 1: Ethical leadership is positively related to followers’ role ethicality.

Role Ethicality and Unethical Behavior

Hypothesis 2: Follower role ethicality is negatively related to follower unethical behavior.

The Moderating Role of Leader’s Ethical Voice

Measures. We followed the standard translation and back-translation procedures (Bris-

Measurement Models χ² df Δχ² CFI TLI RMSEA SRMR

Hypothesized four-factor 570.13 293 .96 .95 .05 .04

1. Age 33.99 4.68 —

Note: N = 394. Gender was coded as 1 = female, 2 = male.

Role Ethicality Unethical Behavior

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9

Measures. We followed the same translation and back-translation procedures described

Hypotheses testing. Descriptive statistics and interitem correlations are presented in

1. Age 30.75 3.97 —

Limitations and Future Directions

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