J Bus Ethics
DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2480-5
Predictors of Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Ethical
Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
Yau-De Wang • Wen-Chuan Sung
Received: 27 February 2014 / Accepted: 17 November 2014
Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract This study examined the relationships of per-
ceived ethical leadership, workplace jealousy, and organi-
zational citizenship behaviors (OCB) directed at
individuals (OCBI) and organizations (OCBO). Survey
responses were collected from 491 employee-coworker
pairs from 33 hospitals in Taiwan. The employees provided
assessments of their perceived ethical leadership and the
workplace jealousy they experienced, while the coworkers
provided information about the employees’ OCBI and
OCBO. In the hypotheses testing, perceived ethical lead-
ership was found to be negatively related to employees’
workplace jealousy and jealousy was negatively related to
their OCBI and OCBO. Workplace jealousy partially
mediated the effect of ethical leadership on OCBI and
OCBO. In addition, perceived ethical leadership was found
to have a moderation effect on the jealousy-OCBI/OCBO
relationship. This study contributes to the literature of
ethical leadership as well as to the literature of OCB by
relating workplace jealousy to OCB and by making sense
of the effects of ethical leadership on OCB through the
mediation of jealousy and through the moderation of eth-
ical leadership on the jealousy-OCB relationship.
Keywords Perceived ethical leadership
Workplace
jealousy
Organizational citizenship behavior
Hospital
personnel
Y.-D. Wang (&)
W.-C. Sung
Department of Management Science, National Chiao Tung
University, 1001 University Road, 300 Hsinchu, Taiwan
e-mail: yaudewang@yahoo.com.tw
W.-C. Sung
e-mail: wendysung93@gmail.com
Introduction
Employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has
been the subject of research for the past three decades.
OCB was originally defined as employees’ discretionary,
extra-role behaviors that benefit the entire organization but
were not monitored and rewarded by the organization
(Organ 1988). However, as the definition of OCB evolved
in the literature to include extra-role behaviors that are
monitored or rewarded by organizations (Podsakoff et al.
2000), the distinction between in- and extra-role became
ambiguous (Baker and Bulkley 2014). Organ (1997)
pointed out that it is not fruitful to regard OCB as extra-role
behaviors that are unrewarded by the formal organizational
systems. However, he continued to maintain his viewpoint
concerning the distinctive nature of OCB—it is behavior
that is not enforced by job requirement and is not guar-
anteed rewards. We follow this evolvement in OCB’s
definition and treat it as behavior that is not in an
employee’s job description and may or may not be
rewarded by organizations. Though OCB is not required in
one’s job, it can contribute directly to the contextual per-
formance of organizations and indirectly to the job per-
formance of individual employees as well as the
performance of the whole organization (Organ 1997).
OCB can be classified into two categories: interpersonal
(OCBI) and organizational (OCBO). OCBI refers the
behaviors mainly directed at the coworkers, which can
benefit individual employees’ performance as well as the
organization’s (Dalal 2005; Organ 1997; Organ and Paine
1999; Williams and Anderson 1991). OCBO refers to the
behaviors directed at one’s own organization, which can
benefit the performance of the entire organization (Dalal
2005; Organ 1997; Organ and Paine 1999; Williams and
Anderson 1991). Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2004, p. 282)
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pointed out that although previous research had focused on
the individual-level antecedents of OCB, organizational
learning structure and values as an organizational contex-
tual factor explained more variance in employee OCBO
and OCBI. They concluded that by paying more attention
to organizational context, researchers can improve their
predictions on employee OCB (p. 293).
In the literature, various types of leadership, as organi-
zational contextual factors, have been related to employ-
ees’ positive job attitudes and behaviors. For example,
authentic leadership was found related to employees’
positive job feelings and behaviors (Avolio et al. 2004).
Transformational leadership was found related to employ-
ees’ experiencing a positive mood on the job and their
helping coworkers (Tsai et al. 2009). Researchers have
specifically concerned themselves about the effects of
ethical leadership on employee OCB. Ethical leadership is
different from other types of leadership in its emphases on
moral management, an explicit attempt of the leaders to
affect followers’ ethical conduct by setting ethical stan-
dards and using reward and punishment to hold the fol-
lowers accountable for the standards (Brown and Treviño
2006, p. 599; Mayer et al. 2009). Though authentic, spiri-
tual, or transformational leaderships share the same con-
cern for others and ethicality in decision-making, they
nonetheless embody their own unique characteristics.
Authentic leadership anchors on the leader’s authenticity
and the follower’s self-awareness (Brown and Treviño
2006). Spiritual leadership stresses the leader’s provision
of vision, hope, and faith to followers (Brown and Treviño
2006). Transformational leadership emphasizes the lea-
der’s role in providing vision, values, and intellectual
stimulation to followers (Brown and Treviño, 2006). Dif-
ferent from ethical leadership, these leaderships are less
involved with the transaction process of ethical manage-
ment (Brown and Treviño 2006). The focus of ethical
leadership on the practical management of subordinates’
ethical conduct make it more relevant to employee OCBI
and OCBO than the other types of leadership because it can
enhance employees’ caring about their coworkers or
organizations.
To understand the positive influence of ethical leader-
ship on employee OCB, researchers have relied on the
explanations of social learning theory and social exchange
theory (Brown and Treviño 2006; Frisch and Huppenbauer
2014; Mayer et al. 2009; Ruiz-Palomino et al. 2011).
According to the social learning theory, ethical leaders
serve as role models in caring for the well-being of others
and their followers will emulate the leaders’ exemplary
behaviors and become prosocial toward their coworkers
and organizations (Demirtas and Akdogan 2014; Treviño
et al. 2003; Yaffe and Kark 2011). On the other hand, the
social exchange theory posits that as ethical leaders care for
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Y.-D. Wang, W.-C. Sung
the benefit of their followers and organizations, their sub-
ordinates are likely to reciprocate with similar prosocial
behaviors (Mayer et al. 2009; Newman et al. 2014).
Recently, some researchers used a different perspec-
tive—the social comparison theory—to explain the psy-
chological processes that generate employee OCB. As
employees experience a favorable comparison against their
coworkers on job achievement, the exchange relationships
with their leaders (Vidyarthi et al. 2010), or the treatment
received from their employers (Spence et al. 2011), they
will engage more in citizenship behaviors. While most
researchers suggest that the cognition of high self-value
resulting from the favorable social comparisons stimulates
positive attitudes and behaviors in employees (e.g., Buunk
et al. 1990; Collins 1996; Spence et al. 2011), Spence et al.
(2011) found that the positive affect as a consequence of
favorable social comparisons also had a positive effect on
employee OCB. Because employees can be ranked less
favorably than their coworkers in the social comparisons,
the negative cognition about oneself and the negative affect
resulting from such unfavorable comparisons (Brown et al.
2007; Buunk et al. 1990) could negatively affect their
OCB.
Workplace jealousy, as a combination of negative cog-
nition and negative affect resulting from the unfavorable
social comparisons, has been explored by researchers for
its effects on employee attitudes and behaviors. Jealousy
involves a cognitive as well as an affective component
(Frijda et al. 1989; Parrott and Smith 1993; Salovery and
Rodin 1984). Jealousy contains the recognition of one’s
own unfavorable status in comparing oneself with a rival
who possesses superior quality, achievement, or other
assets that one wishes the rival lacks (Parrott and Smith
1993; Salovery and Rodin 1984). Jealousy also comprises
the cognition of the possible loss of one’s relationship with
an important third party (e.g., the relationship with one’s
own superior) to the rival who is in favor (Hupka 1984;
Mathes et al. 1985; Salovery and Rodin 1984). The rec-
ognition of one’s own inferiority gives rise to feelings of
pain, anger, and resentment (Parrott and Smith 1993;
Vecchio 2000), and the cognition of the possible loss of the
precious relationship creates the feelings of helplessness,
loneliness, uncertainty, fear, distrust, and self-righteous-
ness (Haslam and Bornstein 1996; Mathes et al. 1985;
Parrott and Smith 1993; Salovery and Rodin 1984). As
jealousy is often situation-bounded (Parrott and Smith
1993), the negative affect and the distrust and self-righ-
teousness experienced in jealousy can last continually so
long as the situations that create the above inferiority and
relationship endangerment cognitions remain unchanged.
As employees often compare with each other the treat-
ment they receive from their superiors (Kim et al. 2010),
the leadership of their superiors may affect their OCB
Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
through the process of social comparison. The perspective
of social comparison may provide an explanation for why
ethical leadership can affect employee OCB. In the litera-
ture, there is a lack of research conducted to validate this
explanation. The first purpose of the present study is to
examine the influence of ethical leadership on employee
OCB based on the social comparison perspective. We will
use workplace jealousy as a mechanism to explain the
influence of ethical leadership on employee OCB when
verifying the social comparison explanation. As a negative
consequence of social comparison commonly seen in
organizations, workplace jealousy can disrupt interpersonal
harmony and cause interpersonal conflict, a problematic
situation which falls in the domain of the moral manage-
ment of ethical leadership. By anchoring on workplace
jealousy we can validate more precisely the explanatory
power of the social comparison theory on the effects of
ethical leadership on employee OCB.
Researchers have found that various personal, work-
related, and organizational factors can lead to workplace
jealousy. For example, employees’ lack of self-esteem or
Machiavellian personality was found related to their jeal-
ousy (Vecchio 2000). Employees’ lack of autonomy and
sense of control at their jobs were found related to work-
place jealousy (Vecchio 2000). The favorable treatment by
managers of their preferred subordinates can make other
employees jealous (Gaur 2013; Miner 1990). Though eth-
ical leadership can reduce workplace jealousy, it is likely
that the jealousy may still exist in employees because of
the above contributing factors. Under such a condition,
because ethical leadership can make employees feel obli-
gated to behave prosocially (Mayer et al. 2009), we argue
that employees’ perceived ethical leadership can attenuate
the negative influence of their jealousy on their OCB. Yet,
no research in the literature has explored this moderation
influence of ethical leadership on the workplace jealousy-
employee OCB relationship. The second purpose of this
study is to examine the moderation effect in order to
understand more thoroughly how ethical leadership works
through workplace jealousy to exert its influences on
employee OCB.
Theoretical Background and Hypotheses
Perceived Ethical Leadership and OCB
Some researchers (e.g., Kacmar et al. 2011; Mayer et al.
2009) argued that the fairness in decision-making and the
caring for subordinates exemplified by ethical leaders can
make their followers feel indebted to their organizations
and reciprocate with extra-role behaviors that are beneficial
to organizations (OCBO). As ethical leaders may reward
the behaviors that are beneficial to the well-being of others,
their followers will be motivated to help their coworkers
(OCBI). The trustful atmosphere nurtured by ethical lead-
ers (Chughtai et al. 2014; Newman et al. 2014) can also
facilitate the exchange of helping behaviors between
employees, a manifestation of employee OCBI. Other
researchers (e.g., Demirtas and Akdogan 2014; Mayer et al.
2009; Ruiz-Palomino et al. 2011) pointed out that ethical
leaders value the virtuous behaviors of helping others and
serve as the role models of such behaviors for their fol-
lowers to emulate. Thus, employees under an ethical
leadership will learn to engage in OCBI and OCBO. Kal-
shoven and Boon (2012) found that the positive affect
experienced by employees under an ethical leadership can
stimulate employees’ helping behaviors. Rego et al. (2010)
found that organizational virtuousness, a moral climate
nurtured by ethical leaders, can induce positive emotions in
employees, which can then trigger their OCB.
Based on the above argument about the role of ethical
leadership on shaping followers’ prosocial behaviors
toward their colleagues and organizations, we suggest that
Hypothesis 1 Perceived ethical leadership has a positive
effect on employee OCBI and OCBO.
Perceived Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
The favoritism in a superior’s exchange with a specific
subordinate (e.g., granting a higher performance rating to a
preferred subordinate in a subjective evaluation) can create
an envious feeling in the subordinate’s coworkers (Kim
et al. 2010). As the envious feeling in the coworkers
involves the triad of the favored subordinate, the superior,
and coworkers themselves and results from their cognition
of losing their relationship with the superior to the pre-
ferred subordinate and is imbued with negative emotions
and mistrust, it is equivalent to workplace jealousy in
nature. Because ethical leaders maintain fair treatment in
their interactions with subordinates (Shin et al. 2014), they
are less likely to stimulate jealousy in their subordinates.
The unbiased treatment of ethical leaders also can make
employees feel that their disadvantage in comparing with
their colleagues results from a fair assessment, which in
consequence can prevent them from becoming jealous (Tai
et al. 2012). The caring for the well-being of subordinates
from ethical leaders (Chughtai et al. 2014) can reduce their
fear of endangering their relationships with the leaders as a
consequence of social comparisons.
In summary, the moral management of ethical leaders
can inhibit the emergence of jealousy in employees. Also,
the positive affect induced by the moral atmosphere from
ethical leadership in employees (Kalshoven and Boon
2012; Rego et al. 2010) can counterbalance the negative
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affect from their social comparisons and mitigate their
feeling of jealousy. Thus, we predict that ethical leadership
perceived by employees will reduce their workplace
jealousy.
Hypothesis 2 Perceived ethical leadership has a negative
effect on employee jealousy.
Workplace Jealousy and OCB
The cognition of being inferior to others comprised in
jealousy can make employees hesitate to help their
coworkers who are already gaining an upper hand in social
comparisons (Kim et al. 2010). Such cognition can also
make employees feel that they are not qualified to help
their coworkers or, vice versa, that their coworkers need no
help from them. The inferiority cognition in jealousy can
hinder employee OCBI. On the other hand, as the cognition
of inferiority in jealousy originates from a perceived lack
of job performance or achievement compared to rival
coworkers, employees may be more concerned about
improving their own individual-level job performance, an
activity which is more relevant in improving one’s image
and in regaining a good relationship with their supervisors,
and less concerned about engaging in OCB, which is less
relevant in improving one’s inferior status in such a situ-
ation (Bolino 1999).
While positive emotions are considered as facilitators
for prosocial behaviors because they can make people
generous and desirous of being helpful, negative emotions
are often considered as a hindrance to the prosocial
behaviors (Carmeli and Josman 2006; George and Brief
1992; Lee and Allen 2002; Spector and Fox 2002). The
negative affect contained in jealousy can reduce people’s
intention to help others, including their organizations,
because it can arouse a threat-oriented tendency (Tai et al.
2012), which often makes people self-protective and self-
insulated, and reluctant to be involved in prosocial activi-
ties (Parrott and Smith 1993; Smith and Kim 2007; Vec-
chio 2000). The negative affect in jealousy can reduce
employees’ intentions for OCBI and OCBO. Based on the
above argument, we hypothesize that
Hypothesis 3 Workplace jealousy has a negative effect
on employee OCBI and OCBO.
Mediation Effect of Workplace Jealousy
on the Perceived Ethical Leadership-OCB Relationship
Our arguments about a negative effect of ethical leadership
on workplace jealousy in Hypothesis 2 and a negative
effect of the jealousy on employee OCB in Hypothesis 3
suggest that there is an indirect positive relationship
between ethical leadership and employee OCB. The
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Y.-D. Wang, W.-C. Sung
indirect relationship will become a mediated relationship if
there is an association between the leadership and OCB
when the factor of workplace jealousy is not considered
(Baron and Kenny 1986; Preacher and Hayes 2008).
Because we have posited a positive relation between ethi-
cal leadership and employee OCB, our arguments for
Hypotheses 2 and 3 imply that workplace jealousy works
as a mediator to transmit the effects of ethical leadership on
employee OCB. Accordingly, we posit that
Hypothesis 4 Workplace jealousy mediates the positive
influence of perceived ethical leadership on employee
OCBI and OCBO; that is, an increase in perceived ethical
leadership reduces workplace jealousy, and the reduction in
workplace jealousy can then result in an increase in OCBI
and OCBO.
Moderation Effect of Perceived Ethical Leadership
on Jealousy-OCB Relationships
Preacher et al. (2007) pointed out that a causal antecedent
(independent variable) of a factor (dependent variable)
can at the same time work as a moderator to regulate the
relationship between the factor and another factor (the
third variable). Judd and Kenny (1981) used the exposure
to nutrition campaigns, the consequential increase in
knowledge about dietary factors, and the resulting chan-
ges in dietary behaviors as an example to demonstrate
how a factor can work as a causal antecedent and
simultaneously as a moderator in a causal relationship.
The exposure to nutrition campaign can increase the
knowledge about dietary factors and the knowledge can
further cause a change in one’s dietary behaviors. As
many factors other than dietary knowledge could deter-
mine dietary behaviors (e.g., the motivation for getting
slim), the experience with the campaign can make people
rational in their decision-making and prompt them to rely
more heavily on dietary knowledge to determine what
they will eat. The nutrition campaign works as an ante-
cedent contributing to the increase in dietary knowledge
and also as a moderator strengthening the influence of
dietary knowledge on one’s dietary behaviors. Using
similar logic, we will suggest that ethical leadership
serves not only as an antecedent of workplace jealousy
(as suggested in Hypothesis 2) but also as a moderator to
regulate the influence of workplace jealousy on employee
OCB specified in Hypothesis 3.
As we have mentioned previously, though ethical lead-
ership can reduce the occurrence of jealousy, employees
may still experience workplace jealousy because of the
existence of its other individual, job-related, and organi-
zational contributing antecedents. Under such a condition,
we argue that ethical leadership can work as a moderator to
Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
attenuate the negative influence of the jealousy on
employee OCB.
Cohen-Charash and Mueller (2007) argued that organi-
zational fairness can mitigate the effects of employees’
negative affect on their counterproductive behaviors
directed at their coworkers who are favored in social
comparison. The fairness and justice nurtured by ethical
leadership (Shin et al. 2014) should be able to reduce the
influence of the negative affect of jealousy on employee
OCB. While employees may experience workplace jealousy
because of the existence of its various contributing ante-
cedents, they will reciprocate the caring and the fair treat-
ment from their ethical leaders with prosocial behavior. The
need for reciprocating the ethical leaders (Mayer et al.
2009) will constrain the negative influence of the jealousy
on their OCB. Also, while ethical leaders often serve as the
role models for OCB and value and reward followers’
manifestation of OCB (Treviño et al. 2003), especially
those subordinates who are reputed for directing OCB at
others in the organization in general (Baker and Bulkley
2014), it is conceivable that employees may still strive to
behave prosocially under the modeling influence of ethical
leadership even with a negative affect from jealousy.
Last, we argue that ethical leadership can weaken the
negative influence of workplace jealousy on employee
OCB because jealousy contains the fear of losing one’s
own relationship with a superior to a rival. We mentioned
previously that this fear can drive jealous employees to
focus their effort on improving their own job performance
in order to retain their superiors’ favor. However, as ethical
leaders use prosocial behaviors as a possible criterion
during performance evaluation, the relevancy of OCB in
improving one’s image in the leaders’ minds can make
jealous subordinates remain prosocial toward their
coworkers and organizations lest they are further debased
by their rivals (Bolino 1999). Based on the above reason-
ing, we argue that perceived ethical leadership will atten-
uate the negative influence of jealousy on employee OCB.
Hypothesis 5 Perceived ethical leadership moderates the
effects of workplace jealousy on employee OCBI and
OCBO; so that as ethical leadership increases, the negative
effects of jealousy on OCBI and OCBO become weaker.
Methods
Participants and Procedure
We invited the employees from 33 hospitals located across
different areas in Taiwan to participate in this study in
2012. These hospitals include medical centers (with at least
500 beds), regional hospitals (with at least 250 beds), and
district hospitals (with at least 20 beds). Because ethical
leadership is emphasized in health-care industries (Magill
and Prybil 2004), OCB is often regarded as a behavior not
specified in the job description but nevertheless expected in
the health-care profession, and job achievement is often
compared in the profession, hospital employees serve as an
ideal target for the present study. We first obtained the
consent of the hospital administrators to solicit their
employees to participate in the study. Each of the partici-
pating employees was asked to identify one coworker who
was familiar with their work to complete the coworker
questionnaire. We had each participating employee fill in
his or her questionnaire and, at the same time, hand the
coworker questionnaire (in a sealed envelope) to the pre-
viously identified colleague who was both in the same
work unit and willing to participate in the research.
The employees provided information concerning their
perceived ethical leadership in their workgroups and the
evaluations of the workplace jealousy they experienced.
The paired coworkers were asked to rate the OCB of the
employees who had handed them the questionnaire. The
employee did not see the coworker questionnaire and was
told to refrain from asking about its contents. We limited
participation to the employees who had worked with their
supervisors for at least 6 months, since we considered that
as the minimum time sufficient for developing reliable
understanding about the leadership of the supervisors. The
questionnaires distributed to the employees and their
coworkers had self-addressed, stamped envelopes attached
for returning directly to the researchers. In order to match
the employee-coworker pair of questionnaires, a numerical
code was printed on the questionnaires. The employees and
their coworkers were informed that the codes on their
questionnaires were for the purpose of data analysis and
that their anonymity would be maintained since we did not
keep a record of who was assigned to which code. The
above use of two different sources—employees and
coworkers—to collect data on predicting (perceived ethical
leadership and workplace jealousy) and criterion (OCBI
and OCBO) variables can avoid the problem of common
method biases (Podsakoff et al. 2012).
Altogether there were 543 participants (employees)
from the 33 hospitals who responded anonymously to our
survey. Fifty-two participants returned questionnaires with
missing data or failed to return one of the paired ques-
tionnaires, resulting in 491 valid sets of questionnaires. Of
the 491 participants, 81 were from public hospitals and 410
were from private hospitals. Fifty-five of them were from
medical centers, 327 from regional hospitals, and 109 from
district hospitals. The number of participants from each
hospital ranged from 7 to 20, with a mean of 14.88. Of the
491 participants, 80.4 % were females. The mean age of
the participants was 36.55 years (SD = 9.15). The mean
123

organizational tenure of the participants was 9.88 years
(SD = 7.17). Eight percent of them were middle or high-
school graduates, 75 % were college graduates, and 17 %
had graduate-level education. Twenty-two percent of them
were in supervisory positions. Seventy-two percent were
administrative personnel, 15 % were nursing personnel,
10 % were technicians and 3 % were doctors.
Measures
The measurement items of each variable were adapted from
the English literature. We first translated the items into
Chinese and then had two bilingual speakers compare the
translation with its original English version to assess if any
discrepancies in semantic equivalence occurred. If a dif-
ference was detected, a cycle of retranslation and evaluation
was repeated until no further problems were detected by the
two bilingual speakers. We took this procedure to warrant
the content validity of the measures (Schwab 2005).
Perceived Ethical Leadership
Perceived ethical leadership was measured by the 10-item
scale from the Ethical leadership survey (ELS) developed
by Brown et al. (2005). Sample items are ‘‘Disciplines
employees who violate ethical standards’’ and ‘‘Conducts
his/her personal life in an ethical manner.’’ Respondents
used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly dis-
agree) to 5 (strongly agree) to evaluate the extent of their
agreement with the statement of the item. Its Cronbach’s
alpha is .95.
Workplace Jealousy
Workplace jealousy was measured by the 6-item scale
developed by Vecchio (2000). Respondents were asked to
evaluate their agreement with the statement of the item on
a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)
to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items are ‘‘I feel depressed
when my supervisor speaks favorably about another
employee’’ and ‘‘When I see my supervisor praising
someone else, my stomach knots up.’’ The items evaluate
one’s behavioral response to the two cognitions involved in
jealousy—one’s inferiority to a rival and the loss of rela-
tionship with a superior to the rival. The response reflects
the cognitive appraisal nature embodied in jealousy (Frijda
et al. 1989; Mathes et al. 1985). As a person’s affect about
an event can be inferred indirectly by the person’s actions
taken toward the event (Connelly et al. 2004), the response
also represents a measure of the affective consequence
resulted from the cognitions involved in jealousy. The
Cronbach’s alpha of the scale is .86.
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Y.-D. Wang, W.-C. Sung
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Employee OCB was measured by the scale developed by
Williams and Anderson (1991). Seven items were used to
measure employee OCB directed at other employees
(OCBI) and another seven items were used to measure
OCB directed at one’s own organization (OCBO). A
coworker of each participating employee used the five-
point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
(strongly agree) to assess their agreement with the state-
ment that described the OCB of the paired employee.
Sample items for OCBI are ‘‘Helps others who have been
absent’’ and ‘‘Assists supervisor with his/her work (when
not asked)’’ and sample items for OCBO are ‘‘Attendance
at work is above the norm’’ and ‘‘Conserves and protects
organizational property.’’ The Cronbach’s alpha is .94 for
OCBI and .92 for OCBO.
Control Variables
Because an employee’s gender, age, education level, and
job type (medical versus administrative) may be related to
his/her OCB (Hui et al. 2000), we used them as control
variables in our hypothesis testing analysis. We also used
the ownership of the hospital (public versus private or non-
profit private), the type of hospital (medical center versus
regional or district), and the position level (supervisor
versus non-supervisory) as the control variables.
Level of Analysis of Perceived Ethical Leadership
Though the above perceived ethical leadership was mea-
sured at the individual level, it can also be conceived as a
group-level phenomenon. We calculated intraclass corre-
lations (ICCs) to determine the variability and the reli-
ability of perceived ethical leadership across the 33
hospitals in our sample to determine if it was suitable to be
aggregated into the group level (Bliese 2000). We used the
ICC(1) to examine the degree of variability in the measure
at the individual level that is attributed to being part of the
group (hospital). The ICC(1) value of the leadership was
.09, which was lower than the criterion of .12 (Bliese
2000). On the other hand, we used the ICC(2) to examine
the reliability of the group means. The ICC(2) value of the
leadership was .61, which was lower than the criterion of
.70 (Bliese 2000). The above results suggested that there
was insufficient agreement for aggregating the individual-
level perception of leadership into the organizational-level.
Thus, it was appropriate for us to measure the ethical
leadership at the individual level to capture the perceptions
of the respondents.
Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy

Results Perceived ethical leadership was negatively related to

Construct Validity of Measurement
We performed confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) on the
four variables in our study (i.e., perceived ethical leader-
ship, workplace jealousy, OCBI, and OCBO) to establish
their discriminant and convergent validities. Model fit was
evaluated using the following indices: the comparative fit
index (CFI), Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), standardized root
mean square residual (SRMR), and root mean square error
of approximation (RMSEA). CFI and TLI values greater
than .95 indicate a good fit (Hu and Bentler 1999). SRMR
values less than .08 indicate a good fit (Hu and Bentler
1999). RMSEA values of .06 or less indicate relatively good
fit (Hu and Bentler 1999). The results in Table 1 showed
that the four-factor model demonstrated good fit to data (v2
[371] = 1132.46, p \ .01; CFI = .98, NNFI = .98,
SRMR = .03, RMSEA = .06). The Chi-square difference
tests also showed that this four-factor model was a better fit
compared to other plausible alternative models (see Models
2–6, Table 1). The results suggested that satisfactory dis-
criminant validity was attained on the measurement of the
four variables. Moreover, the factor loadings of the items in
each of the four variables were all greater than .50 and
significant at the statistical level of .01, a result indicating
the attainment of satisfactory convergent validity on the
measurement of the variables (Anderson and Gerbing
1988).
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations
Descriptive statistics, intercorrelations, and Cronbach’s
alphas of the study variables are presented in Table 2.
jealousy (r = -.20, p \ .01) but positively to OCBI
(r = .28, p \ .01) and OCBO (r = .23, p \ .01). Jealousy
was negatively related to OCBI (r = -.22, p \ .01) and
OCBO (r = -.22, p \ .01). OCBI and OCBO were posi-
tively correlated (r = .86, p \ .01).
Hypothesis Testing
Hypothesis 1 proposed that perceived ethical leadership
has a positive effect on employee OCBI and OCBO.
According to the results from Model 2 and Model 5 of
Table 3, perceived ethical leadership was positively related
to OCBI (b = .28, p \ .001) and OCBO (b = .24,
p \ .001), thereby supporting Hypothesis 1. Hypothesis 2
predicted that perceived ethical leadership has a negative
effect on workplace jealousy. The results from Model 1 of
Table 3 showed that perceived ethical leadership was
negatively related to workplace jealousy (b = -.19,
p \ .001), thus supporting Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3
stated that workplace jealousy has a negative effect on
employee OCBI and OCBO. The results from Model 3 and
Model 6 of Table 3 showed that workplace jealousy was
negatively related to OCBI (b = -.17, p \ .001) and
OCBO (b = -.18, p \ .001). Hence, Hypothesis 3 was
supported.
To test the mediation effect of jealousy on the rela-
tionship between perceived ethical leadership and OCB
suggested in Hypothesis 4, the first step requires a signif-
icant relationship between perceived ethical leadership and
OCBI and OCBO, which we have found. Following the
procedures of Baron and Kenny (1986), we entered both
perceived ethical leadership and workplace jealousy
simultaneously into the regression equation in Model 3 and

Table 1 Results of confirmatory factor analyses

Model v2 df CFI TLI SRMR RMSEA Dv2(Ddf)

1. Four-factor model 1132.46 371 .98 .98 .03 .06 –

2. Three-factor model 1a 1322.86 374 .94 .94 .04 .07 190.40 (3)**
3. Three-factor model 2b 11163.53 374 .86 .85 .21 .24 10031.87 (3)**
4. Two-factor model 1c 3462.68 376 .92 .92 .11 .13 2330.22 (5)**
5. Two-factor model 2d 19703.88 376 .82 .81 .24 .32 18571.42 (5)**
6. One-factor model 12863.32 377 .81 .80 .22 .26 11730.86 (6)**
Dv2 and Ddf denote differences between the four-factor model and other models
CFI comparative fit index, TLI Tucker-Lewis index, SRMR standardized root mean square residual, RMSEA root mean square error of
approximation
a
This model combines OCBI and OCBO into one factor
b
This model combines perceived ethical leadership and workplace jealousy into one factor
c
This model combines workplace jealousy, OCBI, and OCBO into one factor
d
This model combines perceived ethical leadership, OCBI, and OCBO into one factor
**
p \ .01

123
 Y.-D. Wang, W.-C. Sung

Table 2 Means, standard deviations, coefficient alphas, and correlations among variables
Variable M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1. Sexa .80 .40 –

2. Educationb 3.81 .81 -.16** –
3. Age 36.55 9.15 -.11* -.14** –
4. Tenure 9.88 7.16 .03 -.20** .68** –
5. Job typesc .71 .45 -.01 -.09* .06 -.02 –
6. Position .22 .42 -.25** .20** .29** .25** -.11* –
leveld
7. Hospital .84 .37 -.01 .01 -.08 -.07 .02 .10* –
ownershipe
8. Hospital .89 .32 .04 -.08 -.07 -.07 .06 .03 .26** –
typesf
9. PEL 3.42 .73 -.01 -.03 -.09 -.08 .08 -.02 -.07 -.02 (.95)
10. Jealousy 2.30 .65 .04 -.04 -.05 -.02 -.12** -.12** .05 .05 -.20** (.86)
11. OCBI 4.05 .65 .06 .08 -.08 -.11* -.04 .06 .01 .08 .28** -.22** (.94)
12. OCBO 3.99 .62 .03 .10* -.01 -.03 -.02 .08 -.01 .05 .23** -.22** .86** (.92)
N = 491. Numbers in parentheses are coefficient alphas
PEL perceived ethical leadership
a
0 = male; 1 = female
b
1 = below high school, 2 = high school, 3 = junior college, 4 = university, 5 = graduate
c
0 = medical personnel; 1 = administrative personnel
d
0 = non-supervisory; 1 = supervisory
e
0 = public hospital; 1 = private hospital
f
0 = medical center; 1 = non-medical center
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01

Table 3 Regression results for Dependent variables Workplace OCBI OCBO

testing mediation of workplace jealousy
jealousy and for testing Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7
moderation of PEL
Control variables
Sex -.01 .09 .09 .08 .07 .07 .05
Education -.02 .07 .07 .07 .10* .10* .10*
Age -.03 .01 .01 .01 .05 .05 .05
Tenure .02 -.09 -.09 -.10 -.04 -.04 -.04
Job types -.12** -.05 -.07 -.06 -.03 -.06 -.05
Position level -.14** .09 .07 .07 .08 .05 .05
Hospital ownership .04 -.02 -.01 -.01 -.01 -.01 -.01
Hospital types .04 .08 .09* .10* .07 .07 .08
Predictor
PEL -.19*** .28*** .25*** .24*** .24*** .21*** .20***
Mediator
Workplace jealousy -.17*** -.18*** -.18*** -.19***
Interactive effect
Standardized regression PEL 9 workplace .12** .14**
coefficients (beta) are reported jealousy
PEL perceived ethical F values 4.37*** 6.81*** 7.86*** 7.91*** 4.62*** 5.89*** 6.45***
leadership Model R2 .08*** .11*** .14*** .15*** .08*** .11*** .13***
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; DR2 .03*** .01** .03*** .02**
*** p \ .001

123
Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
Model 6 of Table 3. We found that the regression coeffi-
cient (b) of perceived ethical leadership on OCBI and
OCBO dropped from .28 to .25 and from .24 to .21,
respectively, suggesting that there could be a mediation
effect of jealousy. To examine further whether the medi-
ation was significant, we used the bootstrapping procedures
of Preacher and Hayes (2008) to calculate the mediation
effect and used a 95 % confidence interval (CI) to test its
significance. The bootstrapping tests confirmed that the
mediation effects of perceived ethical leadership on OCBI
and OCBO through jealousy were significant. Specifically,
for OCBI, the 95 % CI of the mediation effect was (.013,
.056), not containing zero; for OCBO, the 95 % CI of the
mediation effect was (.012, .055), which also contained no
zero. Together, these above results supported Hypothesis 4.
Hypothesis 5 posited that perceived ethical leadership
moderates the effects of workplace jealousy on employee
OCBI and OCBO. The results from Model 4 and Model 7 in
Table 3 showed that the interaction effects of jealousy and
perceived ethical leadership on OCBI (b = .12, p \ .01;
DR2 = .01, p \ .01) and OCBO (b = .14, p \ .01;
DR2 = .02, p \ .01) were positive and significant. The
findings of positive interaction effects informed us that the
negative influences of jealousy on OCBI and OCBO were
attenuated by perceived ethical leadership. Additional sim-
ple slope tests showed that jealousy was unrelated with
OCBI (slope = -.07, ns) and OCBO (slope = -.05, ns)
under the condition of high perceived ethical leadership,
whereas negatively related with OCBI (slope = -.30,
p \ .01) and OCBO (slope = -.31, p \ .01) under the
condition of low perceived ethical leadership. Therefore,
Hypothesis 5 was supported. Following the procedures
suggested by Aiken and West (1991), the moderation effects
of perceived ethical leadership are depicted in Figs. 1 and 2.
Conclusions and Discussion
Most scholars in the literature have relied on the arguments
of social learning and social exchange theories to explain
the effects of ethical leadership on employee OCB. Though
the social comparison in leader-member exchange was
found to be related to employee OCB (Vidyarthi et al.
2010), few researchers have applied this perspective to
explain the influence of ethical leadership on employee
OCB. The present study showed that workplace jealousy, a
consequence of social comparison, can mediate the effects
of ethical leadership on employee OCB—a finding that fills
the gap of the literature concerning the scarcity of research
using social comparison perspective to study the ethical
leadership-employee OCB relationship.
The better-off positive cognition and positive affect
experienced in favorable social comparisons were found
5
(slope = -.07, ns)
4
OCBI
3
(slope = -.30, p < .01)
Low PEL
2
High PEL
1
Low Jealousy High Jealousy
Fig. 1 The moderation effect of PEL on the relationship between
jealousy and OCBI. PEL perceived ethical leadership
5
(slope = -.05, ns)
4
OCBO
3
(slope = -.31, p < .01)
2 Low PEL
High PEL
1
Low Jealousy High Jealousy
Fig. 2 The moderation effect of PEL on the relationship between
jealousy and OCBO. PEL perceived ethical leadership
working as psychological mechanisms to stimulate
employee OCB (Spence et al. 2011), but no research has
examined how negative cognition and affect as a conse-
quence of unfavorable social comparison affects employee
OCB. The finding of the negative relationship between
workplace jealousy and employee OCB also enriches the
literature by showing that not only the positive but also the
negative cognitive/affective consequences of social com-
parison can affect employee OCB.
At the level of interpersonal interaction, the leadership
of superiors can shape subordinates’ attitudes and these
attitudes can further affect their behaviors. At the same
time, at the level of organizational context, leadership can
determine how subordinates’ attitudes are related to their
behaviors. For example, the good leader-member exchange
under the consideration-oriented leadership can create in
subordinates the intent to respond in kind to their leaders
with OCB (Vidyarthi et al. 2010). At the same time,
because the caring atmosphere nurtured by the consider-
ation-oriented leadership highlights the importance of
interpersonal mutual concern in organizations, the leader-
ship can strengthen the influence of the subordinates’
reciprocation intention on their OCB. In other words,
123

leadership can work as an antecedent of employee attitudes
and behaviors and also as a moderator of the relationship
between their attitudes and behaviors. In using the social
exchange theory to examine the influence of ethical lead-
ership on employee OCB, the moderation of the leadership
on the relationship between employee’s reciprocation
intention and their OCB has been neglected by researchers.
Similarly, in using the social learning theory to study how
employees’ learning from the modeling of ethical leaders
affects their OCB, researchers have not yet attended the
moderation effects of the leadership on the learning-OCB
relationship. By showing that perceived ethical leadership
can attenuate the negative effects of workplace jealousy on
both OCBI and OCBO, the present study contributes to the
literature by filling the above gap concerning the lack of
research on the moderation effect of ethical leadership.
Implications for Management
Some managerial implications can be derived from the
findings of this study for organizations that emphasize
evaluation of employees’ performance or professional
achievement. As organizations evaluate their employees in
order to allocate incentives to stimulate their performance,
the social comparison between employees will occur.
While the employees who are granted favorable status in
the comparisons may be motivated to work harder, those
who are rated less favorably may become jealous. The
organizations that need their employees to devote extra
efforts to fulfill their social obligations should be cautious
about the negative effects of the jealousy resulting from
performance evaluation on employee OCB. If ethical
leadership is emphasized in combination with the perfor-
mance evaluation, the jealousy can be lessened and its
negative influence on OCB can also be attenuated. Simi-
larly, to professional organizations, where employees are
often compared with each other on their achievement,
ethical leadership is also needed to mitigate the possible
negative effects from jealousy on employee OCB.
Based on the finding of a negative influence of work-
place jealousy on OCB, we can infer that if employee OCB
is one of the criteria of social comparison, as the workplace
jealousy makes employees concerned about their status in
the comparison, they may actually perform more citizen-
ship activities. Managers in the above two types of orga-
nizations may incorporate OCB into performance
evaluation in order to transform workplace jealousy into a
contributor to employee OCB.
In most organizations, employees who are favored in
social comparisons are often far fewer than those who are
not favored. Workplace jealousy may exist extensively and
carry a devastating effect on employee OCB far greater than
what the managers in these organizations can imagine.
123
Y.-D. Wang, W.-C. Sung
Organizations can use psychological measurement (e.g.,
integrity test) to identify and select ethical managers or use
training programs to shape an ethical leadership in organi-
zations (Chughtai et al. 2014; Frisch and Huppenbauer
2014) in order to reduce workplace jealousy. The training
can focus on the fairness in evaluation of performance and in
reward distribution to reduce subordinates’ jealousy result-
ing from the social comparison on their job performance.
Limitations and Directions for Future Research
We chose hospital employees as the subjects of our study
because professional jealousy, OCB, and ethical leadership
were highly relevant to their work situations. Our findings
may be applicable to other organizations whose employees
are working in situations similar to those of hospital
employees, for example, social welfare services, law firms,
or accounting firms. However, the generalization of the
findings to other organizations which have different
working environment needs to be done cautiously.
Because we solicited participation in the study on a
volunteer basis, our sample included a smaller proportion
of medical professionals (nurses, physicians, and medical
technicians) due to their heavy workloads preventing them
from participating in our study. When we partialed out the
effects of the respondent’s job type (medical versus
administrative) in the regression analyses, we found our
hypotheses were supported (see Table 3). The uneven
distribution of job type in our sample did not invalidate our
hypothesis testing. In addition, the regression analyses
showed that the medical-type job was related to more
workplace jealousy than the administrative-type job. Thus,
we believe that if our sample had included more medical
personnel, the results of this study would have been more
significant, because workplace jealousy tends to be more
common in professions (Bedeian 1995). As professional
workers, the medical personnel’s greater level of work-
place jealousy would have increased the saliency of our
findings. Our sample included a much larger proportion of
female participants. This imbalanced gender distribution
reflected the typical characteristic of workforce in hospi-
tals—a great percentage of employees are female. Our
regression analyses in Table 3 showed that gender was
unrelated to either jealousy or OCB, a result suggesting
that the uneven distribution of gender was not a problem.
The results of our study cannot rule out the possibility of
the reversed causality of the variables in the hypotheses.
For example, after employees perform OCBI, their col-
leagues are likely to respond with similar behaviors. As the
beneficiaries of this reciprocity, the employees may
become less jealous toward their coworkers. As they feel
less jealous, they may attribute the feeling to the fairness
atmosphere nurtured by their managers and perceive the
Ethical Leadership and Workplace Jealousy
managers as ethical leaders. The reversed causality may
also exist in the opposite situation. When employees per-
form less OCBI and are less helpful to each other, they may
become more competitive and jealous in their comparisons
against each other and, as a consequence, may attribute
their jealousy to the unfairness of their leaders, a percep-
tion of unethicalness in their leaders. This reversed cau-
sality can coexist with the original causality to work in a
cyclic manner. For example, an enhanced ethical leader-
ship may first work to reduce workplace jealousy and result
in more OCB in employees. In the next cycle of causality,
this increase in OCB may work to reduce employees’
jealousy and enhance their perceived ethical leadership.
Longitudinal research is needed to examine whether the
cyclic causality is plausible.
As authentic, spiritual, and transformational leaderships
share the same characteristics with ethical leadership on
leader’s concern for others, role modeling, or ethical
decision-making (Brown and Treviño 2006), they may also
work to affect employee OCB through the social compar-
ison processes. Future studies can include these leaderships
as control variables while trying to manifest more clearly
the influence of ethical leadership on employee OCB
through workplace jealousy.
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