Sustainable Influence of Ethical Leadership on Work Performance: Empirical Study of Multinational Enterprise in South Korea
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Theoretical Background and Hypotheses
2.1. Ethical Leadership
2.2. Ethical Leadership as a Precursor of Perceived Salience of Ethics Codes
2.3. The Mediating Role of Perceived Salience of Ethics Codes in the Relationship of Ethical Leadership to Work Performance
2.4. Moderated Mediation Role of Frequency of Interaction as Leader–Follower Distance
3. Methods
3.1. Sample and Procedure
3.2. Measurements
3.2.1. Ethical Leadership
3.2.2. Perceived Salience of the Ethics Code
3.2.3. Work Performance
3.2.4. Frequency of Leader–Follower Interaction
3.2.5. Controls
3.3. Analytical Strategy
3.4. Common Method Bias and Validity Check
4. Results
5. Discussion
5.1. Theoretical Contributions
5.2. Practical Implications
5.3. Limitations and Future Directions
6. Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
References
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Variable | Managers | Employees | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Frequency | Percentage | Frequency | Percentage | |
Gender | ||||
Female | 1 | 0.51 | 10 | 5.10 |
Male | 195 | 99.49 | 186 | 94.90 |
Age (years) | ||||
24 or younger | 0 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 |
25–29 | 0 | 0.00 | 24 | 12.24 |
30–34 | 0 | 0.00 | 50 | 25.51 |
35–39 | 2 | 1.02 | 12 | 6.12 |
40–44 | 29 | 14.80 | 26 | 13.27 |
45–49 | 105 | 53.57 | 41 | 20.92 |
50–54 | 59 | 30.10 | 37 | 18.88 |
55 or older | 1 | 0.51 | 6 | 3.06 |
Education | ||||
High School | 2 | 1.02 | 49 | 25.00 |
2 years College | 2 | 1.02 | 20 | 10.20 |
4 years College | 113 | 57.65 | 96 | 48.98 |
Master | 75 | 38.27 | 30 | 15.31 |
Doctor | 4 | 2.04 | 1 | 0.51 |
Job level | ||||
1 | 0 | 0.00 | 45 | 22.96 |
2 | 0 | 0.00 | 101 | 51.53 |
3 | 8 | 4.08 | 44 | 22.45 |
4 | 153 | 78.06 | 5 | 2.55 |
5 | 35 | 17.86 | 1 | 0.51 |
Job type | ||||
Planning and Management | 21 | 10.71 | 22 | 11.22 |
Sales and Marketing | 7 | 3.57 | 8 | 4.08 |
Production and Maintenance | 110 | 56.12 | 90 | 45.92 |
Technical and Engineering | 48 | 24.49 | 58 | 29.59 |
R&D | 2 | 1.02 | 1 | 0.51 |
Other | 8 | 4.08 | 17 | 8.67 |
Variable | Estimate | SE | t-Value c | Loading | AVE | CR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethical leadership | 1.00 | n/a | n/a | 0.75 | 0.70 | 0.96 |
1.19 | 0.10 | 12.57 | 0.85 | |||
1.14 | 0.11 | 10.22 | 0.71 | |||
1.23 | 0.12 | 10.50 | 0.73 | |||
1.27 | 0.13 | 9.77 | 0.69 | |||
1.55 | 0.13 | 11.89 | 0.81 | |||
1.25 | 0.11 | 11.39 | 0.78 | |||
1.44 | 0.12 | 11.66 | 0.80 | |||
1.00 | 0.10 | 10.54 | 0.73 | |||
1.24 | 0.11 | 11.66 | 0.80 | |||
Perceived salience of the ethics code | 1.00 | n/a | n/a | 0.81 | 0.74 | 0.89 |
0.89 | 0.08 | 10.55 | 0.78 | |||
1.02 | 0.10 | 10.43 | 0.77 | |||
Work performance | 1.00 | n/a | n/a | 0.71 | 0.67 | 0.86 |
1.01 | 0.10 | 10.31 | 0.87 | |||
0.95 | 0.09 | 10.26 | 0.83 |
Variable | Mean | SD | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ethical leadership | 6.30 | 0.63 | (0.93) | ||||||||
Perceived salience of ethics code | 6.31 | 0.65 | 0.50 *** | (0.82) | |||||||
Work performance | 5.81 | 0.81 | 0.05 | 0.14 † | (0.84) | ||||||
Gender | 0.95 | 0.22 | 0.07 | 0.07 | −0.02 | ||||||
Age | 4.74 | 1.84 | 0.19 ** | 0.27 *** | −0.16 * | 0.32 *** | |||||
Education | 2.56 | 1.04 | −0.08 | −0.07 | 0.02 | −0.12 † | −0.55 *** | ||||
Social responsibility | 6.08 | 0.71 | 0.33 *** | 0.37 *** | −0.01 | 0.11 | 0.27 *** | −0.07 | (0.72) | ||
Tenure with leader | 4.12 | 1.79 | 0.00 | 0.09 | 0.06 | 0.05 | 0.19 ** | −0.05 | 0.16 * | ||
Leader and Follower in same city | 0.96 | 0.20 | 0.09 | 0.09 | −0.10 | 0.07 | 0.08 | −0.11 | −0.04 | 0.11 | |
Leader–follower interaction frequency | 5.46 | 1.80 | 0.22 ** | 0.14 † | 0.05 | 0.09 | 0.11 | −0.08 | 0.00 | 0.06 | 0.02 |
Independent Variables | Dependent Variables | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
Perceived Salience of the Ethics Code | Work Performance | |||
M1 | M2 | M3 | M4 | |
Gender | −0.13 | −0.10 | 0.18 | 0.22 |
Age | 0.08 ** | 0.07 * | −0.12 ** | −0.14 *** |
Education | 0.06 | 0.06 | −0.10 | −0.12 † |
Social responsibility | 0.30 *** | 0.18 ** | 0.03 | −0.06 |
Tenure with leader | −0.01 | 0.01 | 0.05 | 0.05 |
Leader–follower same city | 0.30 | 0.16 | −0.45 | −0.53 † |
Frequency of leader–follower interaction | 0.04 † | 0.01 | 0.03 | 0.02 |
Ethical leadership (H1) | 0.41 *** | 0.01 | ||
Perceived salience of ethics code (H2) | 0.28 ** | |||
Constant | 3.54 *** | 2.01 *** | 6.34 *** | 5.32 *** |
R2 | 0.20 | 0.32 | 0.06 | 0.10 |
Adj. R2 | 0.17 | 0.29 | 0.03 | 0.06 |
F | 6.66 *** | 11.10 *** | 1.75 † | 2.37 * |
∆R2 | 0.12 | 0.04 | ||
∆F | 36.04 *** | 4.33 * |
Variables | Coefficient | SE | CI Lower Limit | CI Upper Limit |
---|---|---|---|---|
Indirect effect (H2) | ||||
Perceived salience of ethics code | 0.11 | 0.05 | 0.02 | 0.28 |
Conditional indirect effect of Leader–Follower interaction frequency (H3) | ||||
Low | 0.09 | 0.05 | 0.01 | 0.21 |
High | 0.12 | 0.07 | 0.00 | 0.29 |
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Kang, S.-W. Sustainable Influence of Ethical Leadership on Work Performance: Empirical Study of Multinational Enterprise in South Korea. Sustainability 2019, 11, 3101. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113101
Kang S-W. Sustainable Influence of Ethical Leadership on Work Performance: Empirical Study of Multinational Enterprise in South Korea. Sustainability. 2019; 11(11):3101. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113101
Chicago/Turabian StyleKang, Seung-Wan. 2019. "Sustainable Influence of Ethical Leadership on Work Performance: Empirical Study of Multinational Enterprise in South Korea" Sustainability 11, no. 11: 3101. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11113101