Angels and devils?: How do benevolent and authoritarian leaders differ in shaping ethical climate via justice perceptions across cultures?

• Date: 01 April 2020
• Author: Zahide Karakitapoğlu‐Aygün,Changya Hu,Lale Gumusluoglu
• Published date: 01 April 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12260

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  wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2020;29:388–402.© 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

Establishing a desirable ethical climate is crucial to induce ethical

behavior in orga nizations (Newm an, Round, Bhat tacharya , & Roy,

2017; Simha & Cullen, 2012). Ethic al climate refer s to employee's

general perception of an organization's operations and procedures

that are designe d to promote ethica l behavior (V ictor & Cullen,

1988). Previous resea rch has suggeste d that organizat ional leaders

are the key players in cr eating an ethic al climate (Mayer, Kuenzi, &

Greenbaum, 2010; Nie, Läm sä, & Pučėtai tė, 2018; Ötken & Cenkci,

2012; Schroeder, 20 02). In that regard, i t is necessary t o under-

stand which leadership styles can produce a desired ethical climate.

However, cultural differences can complicate leadership choices as

well as the mechan isms they use to boost ethic al climate (Brunton &

Eweje, 2010; Stedham & Bee kun, 2013). That is, how leaders influ-

ence perceptio ns of ethical climate depends on cu ltural acceptance

of the leaders hip style since v alues of some natio nal cultures may

impede or prom ote the influence of a pa rticular lea dership st yle

on employees’ per ceptions. One su ch leadership s tyle that may be

controversial in some cultures is Paternalistic Leadership (PL), which

includes auth ority and par ental benevole nce. As Aycan (20 06)

mentioned, “P aternalism rema ins as an issue that evoke s opinions

in almost oppos ite directions i n Eastern and Weste rn cultures” (p.

446). To this end, this s tudy aims to addre ss the potential cont ro-

versies of PL in the cr oss-cultural eth ics context and e xamine how

authoritarian and benevolent leader ship impair or foster percept ions

Received: 7 Sept ember 2018 

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  Revised: 22 Novemb er 2019 

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  Accepted: 23 Novemb er 2019

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12260

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Angels and devils?: How do benevolent and authoritarian

leaders differ in shaping ethical climate via justice perceptions

across cultures?

Lale Gumusluoglu1 | Zahide Karakitapoğlu-Aygün1 | Changya Hu2

1Faculty of Business Administration, Bilkent

Universit y, Ankara, Turkey

2Faculty of Business Administration,

National Chengchi University, Taipei City,

Taiwan

Correspondence

Lale Gumusluoglu, Faculty of Business

Administration, Bilkent University, Ankara

068 00, Turke y.

Email: tomruk@bilkent.edu.tr

Funding information

The Scientific and Technological Research

Council of Turkey (T UBITAK), Grant/Award

Number: 114K855

Abstract

The current stud y examines the effe cts of two major dim ensions of Paternalisti c

Leadership (PL), authoritarian and benevolent leadership, on the perceived work-

place ethical climate i n different cultur al contexts. Base d on social influence and

organizational jus tice theories, we ill uminate the processes u nderlying the ef fects

of these leadersh ip styles on ethi cal climate by proposing p erceived procedural a nd

interactional ju stice as potential mediators. We also tes t how these mediating effec ts

vary in three dif ferent countries: Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. Based on a

sample of 674 Taiwanese, 409 Turkish, and 479 American em ployees, we identifie d

several interesting mediation and moderation results on leadership-justice-ethical

climate paths. To our surprise, whi le procedural justice was an impor tant mechanism

linking benevolent le adership and ethic al climate in all three cou ntries, it mediated

the relationship bet ween authoritarian leader ship and ethical climate only in Turkey.

However, interactional just ice was found to be a signific ant mediating mechan ism

only in the United State s and for both authoritarian a nd benevolent leadership. In ad-

dition, cultural co ntext moderated the PL-justice link such that the s trongest positive

benevolent leader ship and interact ional justice relation ship, as well as the strong-

est negative associa tion between authoritarian le adership and both types of justice ,

were observed in Turkey.