Linking ethical leadership and moral voice

Abstract

Purpose The study of ethical leadership has emerged as an important topic for understanding the effects of leadership in organizations. Theoretically, there is a relationship between ethical leadership and followers’ ethical behaviors but empirically, little attention has been given. The purpose of this paper is to examine how ethical leadership relates to employee’s moral voice through trust in the leader, leader−follower value congruence and moral efficacy. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a time-lagged research design, collecting multi-source data from 364 employees and their immediate supervisors, working in construction companies in Pakistan. Findings On the basis of an interactional approach, this study found that there was an interaction between ethical leadership, trust in the leader and leader−follower value congruence that affected moral voice, such that ethical leadership had the strongest positive relationship with moral voice when both trust and leader−follower value congruence were higher; and moral efficacy mediated the effect that this three-way interaction between ethical leadership, trust in the leader and leader−follower value congruence had on moral voice. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to examine the role of ethical leadership in promoting employees’ voice behavior using a time-lagged research design, particularly in construction industry.