Employee ethical silence under exploitative leadership: the roles of work meaningfulness and moral potency

Employees remaining silent about ethical aspects of work or organization-related issues, termed employee ethical silence, perpetuates misconduct in today’s business setting. However, how and why it occurs is not yet well specified in the business ethics literature, which is insufficient to manage co...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Wang, Zhining (Author) ; Ren, Shuang (Author) ; Chadee, Doren (Author) ; Chen, Yuhang (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2024
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2024, Volume: 190, Issue: 1, Pages: 59-76
Further subjects:B Exploitative leadership
B Ethical silence
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Performance reward expectancy
B Work meaningfulness
B Moral potency
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Summary:Employees remaining silent about ethical aspects of work or organization-related issues, termed employee ethical silence, perpetuates misconduct in today’s business setting. However, how and why it occurs is not yet well specified in the business ethics literature, which is insufficient to manage corporate misconducts. In this research, we investigate how and when exploitative leadership associates with employee ethical silence. We draw from the conservation of resources theory to theorize and test a cognitive resource pathway (i.e., work meaningfulness) and a moral resource pathway (i.e., moral potency) to explain the association between exploitative leadership and employee ethical silence. Results from two studies largely support our hypotheses that work meaningfulness and moral potency mediate the effect of exploitative leadership on ethical silence contingent on performance reward expectancy. Theoretical and practical implications are thoroughly discussed in the paper.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-023-05405-0