When deeds speak, words are nothing: a study of ethical leadership in Colombia

• Author: Elvira Salgado,Iliana Páez
• Published date: 01 October 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12130
• Date: 01 October 2016

When deeds speak, words are

nothing: a study of ethical

leadership in Colombia

Iliana P

aez

1

and Elvira Salgado

2

1. Facultad de Administraci

on de Empresas, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Bogot

a, Colombia

2. School of Management, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogot

a, Colombia

Using a sample of 124 managers and 248 subordinates, this study examines the mediating effect of

subordinates’ job satisfaction in the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate organizational

citizenship and counter-productive work behaviour in the Colombian context. We additionally analyse the

effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ perception of leaders’ performance. Factor analyses of the ethical

leadership scale revealed two factors, ethical person (EP) and ethical guidance (EG), which were

differentially associated to the outcomes. We offer an explanation from three cultural dimensions (in-group

collectivism, institutional collectivism, and power distance) by which Colombian employees seem to be more

willing to follow leaders’ ethical example as a way to strengthen their membership to the leader’s group, than

leaders ethical disciplining by which norms are imposed. These findings have a number of implications for

organizations and managers who aim to improve their employees’ behaviour. Our advice to them is that

leaders’ deeds have a greater impact than their ethical words.

Introduction

The growing concern among academics and employ-

ers regarding business ethics has renewed interest in

studies to understand and explain the ethical dimen-

sion of leadership (Gini 2004; Brown et al. 2005).

Although the study of ethical issues in relation to

leadership is not new (Enderle 1987; Rost 1995;

Ciulla 2005), it had not been a major topic of

research on business ethics (Ma et al. 2012) until

recently (Mayer et al. 2012), and despite its now

rapid growth (Ng & Feldman 2015), more research is

needed to learn more about its intervening processes,

moderators, and multilevel effects (Brown &

Mitchell 2010; Trevi~

no & Brown 2014), as well as its

effects acrossdifferent cultures (Ng & Feldman2015).

We believe that ethical leadership should be of

interest to academics for at least two reasons. First,

it is present in daily management. Not only do lead-

ers persistently face ethical problems in their

leadership roles (Carroll 2007) but they also – posi-

tively or negatively – affect the people with whom

they relate as a result of their behaviour and deci-

sions (Gini 2004). Thus, it is increasingly associated

with relevant outcomes for individuals and organiza-

tions. Second, ethical leadership behaviours are seen

as important for effective leadership worldwide, as

Resick et al. (2006) found using data from the 62

countries of the Globe Project.

1

Brown et al. (2005) proposed an ethical leadership

construct (ELS) and developed a measure. Several of

Brown and colleagues’ propositions (Brown et al.

2005; Brown & Trevi~

no 2006) have been supported.

This paper uses this measure and contributes to this

literature by addressing the gap concerning the

mechanisms that can explain the relationship

between ethical leadership and employee behaviours

at work (Ng & Feldman 2015). Ng & Feldman meta-

analysed trust in the leader as a mediating variable,

Avey et al. (2012) investigated employee voice

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C2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,

Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA 02148, USA

doi: 10.1111/beer.12130

538

Business Ethics: A European Review

Volume 25 Number 4 October 2016

(2012), and Mayer et al. (2010) ethical climate. We

posit that employee job satisfaction mediates the

relationship between ethical leadership and organi-

zational citizenship behaviour (OCB), and between

ethical leadership and counter-productive work

behaviour (CWB), developing the argument that

employees perform more OCB and refrain from

CWB as a consequence of their enhanced satisfaction

with a fair work environment created by an ethical

leader.

Additionally, we contribute to empirical research

on ethical literature by studying a sample of Colom-

bian leaders and subordinates, and thus assess the

measure cross-culturally as suggested by Brown

et al. (2005). We think that it is relevant to study this

relationship in our country for at least three reasons.

First, cross-cultural researchers have found that

leadership perceptions are not the same in different

societies (Den Hartog et al. 1999) and House &

Aditya (1997) argue that some leader behaviours

may be universally accepted and effective, while

others may be culture specific. Resick et al. (2006)

found universal endorsement for the dimensions

defining ethical leadership, but culture clusters

2

‘also

varied significantly in the degree of endorsement for

each dimension’ (2006: 345). Our study is the first to

use a country from the Latin American culture clus-

ter (House et al. 2004). Second, Colombia is a coun-

try with high levels of corruption and as such in great

need of ethical leadership; thus, understanding its

effects here is important. Not only is there a high per-

ception of corruption (Transparency International

2015), but ethical scandals among public and private

companies occur frequently. However, Colombians

value and expect ethical behaviour from their leaders

and associate it with leadership effectiveness (Resick

et al. 2006). Third, studying variables and their

nomological networks across different cultures is

always important to ‘clarify how far-reaching and

how deep the impact of the construct could be’ (Ng

& Feldman 2015: 948).

Finally, we replicate the results found by Brown

et al. (2005) on the impact of ethical leadership on

subordinates’ perception of their leaders’ perform-

ance, developing the argument that employees value

the ethical behaviour of their leaders (Brown &

Trevi~

no 2006), which enhances the overall percep-

tion about their leaders’ role and performance.

The purpose of this article is thus to further

explain the relationship of ethical leadership on rele-

vant subordinates’ behaviours at work, proposing

the mediation of job satisfaction, in a Colombian

sample. This article is organized in four sections. In

the first section, we present the literature review

including the theories used to support our argu-

ments; the second section deals with methodological

issues; in the third section, we present the results of

our hypotheses testing. Finally, we discuss our main

findings, present limitations to our study and offer

suggestions for future research.

Literature review

Below, we report the characteristics of the Colom-

bian context, followed by an introduction to the con-

cepts used in our research and two theories – social

learning and social exchange – that we use to support

our first two hypotheses. We then present an argu-

ment to support our mediation hypothesis, and we

propose the relationship between ethical leadership

and subordinates’ perceptions of their leaders’

performance.

Colombian context

Colombia provides an interesting case to examine

ethical leadership. Although the country is one of the

ten most competitive economies in Latin America

(World Economic Forum 2015) and its poverty

indexes are decreasing, the country remains one of

the most unequal in the world (Tsounta & Osueke

2014). It has also suffered decades of civil conflict fed

by a weak state, a highly segregated society, drug

trafficking, and both left wing insurgents and right

wing paramilitary forces (BBC News 2013).

Recently, the incumbent President has launched

peace talks that have been endorsed by different

countries and international organizations. In this

difficult context, corruption in the public and private

sectors is not rare. According to Transparency Inter-

national (2015), Colombia is a country that is ranked

relatively low (37) compared to 168 countries and

territories, on a scale where 0 is highly corrupt and

100 very clean. But, as mentioned above, Colombian

participants in the GLOBE Project valued and

expected ethical behaviours from their leaders

Business Ethics: A European Review

Volume 25 Number 4 October 2016

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