IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i15p8959-d869782.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Leader Conscientiousness and Ethical Leadership on Employee Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Individual Ethical Climate and Emotional Exhaustion

Author

Listed:
  • Tajneen Affnaan Saleh

    (Faculty of Management, Malaysia Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia)

  • Abdullah Sarwar

    (Faculty of Management, Malaysia Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia)

  • Md. Amirul Islam

    (Faculty of Management, Malaysia Multimedia University, Cyberjaya 63100, Malaysia)

  • Muhammad Mohiuddin

    (Faculty of Business Administration, Lval University, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

  • Zhan Su

    (Faculty of Business Administration, Lval University, Quebec, QC G1V 0A6, Canada)

Abstract

Employees working under conscientious leadership perceive their leaders as ethical leaders. This study investigates the conscientiousness of leaders as an essential trait of ethical leadership and the relationship between ethical leadership and employee-turnover intention. Additionally, we study the potential mediating roles of the individual-level ethical climate (self-interest, friendship, and personal morality) as well as the level of employees’ emotional exhaustion that contribute to the decision-making process of turnover intention. Building on social learning and social exchange theories, outcomes from nine industrial manufacturing organizations comprising 260 subordinates’ responses show that leaders’ conscientiousness is positively related to ethical leadership and negatively associated with employees’ turnover intention. Consistent with this hypotheses, results found that, in an individual-level ethical climate, employees experience diminished emotional exhaustion. The relationships are found to mediate between ethical leadership and turnover intention in manufacturing organizations. Additionally, it was also found that individual-level ethical climates cause a relatively positive impact on employees’ emotional exhaustion leading them to lower turnover intention.

Suggested Citation

  • Tajneen Affnaan Saleh & Abdullah Sarwar & Md. Amirul Islam & Muhammad Mohiuddin & Zhan Su, 2022. "Effects of Leader Conscientiousness and Ethical Leadership on Employee Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Individual Ethical Climate and Emotional Exhaustion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-17, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:15:p:8959-:d:869782
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/8959/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/8959/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James Avey & Michael Palanski & Fred Walumbwa, 2011. "When Leadership Goes Unnoticed: The Moderating Role of Follower Self-Esteem on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Follower Behavior," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 98(4), pages 573-582, February.
    2. Hair, Joe F. & Howard, Matt C. & Nitzl, Christian, 2020. "Assessing measurement model quality in PLS-SEM using confirmatory composite analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 101-110.
    3. Abdulrazak O. Balogun & Stephanie A. Andel & Todd D. Smith, 2020. "“Digging Deeper” into the Relationship Between Safety Climate and Turnover Intention Among Stone, Sand and Gravel Mine Workers: Job Satisfaction as a Mediator," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(6), pages 1-8, March.
    4. Hao Zhou & Xinyi Sheng & Yulin He & Xiaoye Qian, 2020. "Ethical Leadership as the Reliever of Frontline Service Employees’ Emotional Exhaustion: A Moderated Mediation Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-13, February.
    5. Newman, Alexander & Round, Heather & Bhattacharya, Sukanto & Roy, Achinto, 2017. "Ethical Climates in Organizations: A Review and Research Agenda," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 475-512, October.
    6. DeConinck, James B., 2015. "Outcomes of ethical leadership among salespeople," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1086-1093.
    7. Christian Resick & Gillian Martin & Mary Keating & Marcus Dickson & Ho Kwan & Chunyan Peng, 2011. "What Ethical Leadership Means to Me: Asian, American, and European Perspectives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 435-457, July.
    8. Colina Frisch & Markus Huppenbauer, 2014. "New Insights into Ethical Leadership: A Qualitative Investigation of the Experiences of Executive Ethical Leaders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 23-43, August.
    9. Ozgur Demirtas & A. Akdogan, 2015. "The Effect of Ethical Leadership Behavior on Ethical Climate, Turnover Intention, and Affective Commitment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 59-67, August.
    10. Brown, Michael E. & Trevino, Linda K. & Harrison, David A., 2005. "Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 117-134, July.
    11. Brown, Michael E. & Mitchell, Marie S., 2010. "Ethical and Unethical Leadership: Exploring New Avenues for Future Research," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 583-616, October.
    12. Akanksha Bedi & Can M. Alpaslan & Sandy Green, 2016. "A Meta-analytic Review of Ethical Leadership Outcomes and Moderators," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 517-536, December.
    13. Kelly Martin & John Cullen, 2006. "Continuities and Extensions of Ethical Climate Theory: A Meta-Analytic Review," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 69(2), pages 175-194, December.
    14. Somaye Gharibvand & Mohammad Nurul Huda Mazumder & Muhammad Mohiuddin & Zhan Su, 2013. "Leadership Style and Employee Job Satisfaction: Evidence from Malaysian Semiconductor Industry," Transnational Corporations Review, Ottawa United Learning Academy, vol. 5(2), pages 93-103, June.
    15. Nanhee Kim & Yun Jin Kang & Jinsoo Choi & Young Woo Sohn, 2020. "The Crossover Effects of Supervisors’ Workaholism on Subordinates’ Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Two Types of Job Demands and Emotional Exhaustion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-17, October.
    16. Walumbwa, Fred O. & Mayer, David M. & Wang, Peng & Wang, Hui & Workman, Kristina & Christensen, Amanda L., 2011. "Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader-member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 204-213, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rita Paralta & Eduardo Simões & Ana Patrícia Duarte, 2023. "Subjective Well-Being in Organizations: Effects of Internal Ethical Context and Ethical Leadership," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-17, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muel Kaptein, 2019. "The Moral Entrepreneur: A New Component of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1135-1150, June.
    2. Robert Cialdini & Yexin Jessica Li & Adriana Samper & Ned Wellman, 2021. "How Bad Apples Promote Bad Barrels: Unethical Leader Behavior and the Selective Attrition Effect," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 861-880, February.
    3. Kalra, Ashish & Briggs, Elten & Schrock, Wyatt, 2023. "Exploring the synergistic role of ethical leadership and sales control systems on salesperson social media use and sales performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    4. Zhen Wang & Haoying Xu, 2019. "When and for Whom Ethical Leadership is More Effective in Eliciting Work Meaningfulness and Positive Attitudes: The Moderating Roles of Core Self-Evaluation and Perceived Organizational Support," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 919-940, June.
    5. Junghyun (Jessie) Lee & Jeewon Cho & Yoonjung Baek & Rajnandini Pillai & Se Hyung Oh, 2019. "Does ethical leadership predict follower outcomes above and beyond the full-range leadership model and authentic leadership?: An organizational commitment perspective," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 821-847, September.
    6. Min-Seong Kim & Brijesh Thapa, 2018. "Relationship of Ethical Leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    7. Angela J. Xu & Raymond Loi & Hang-yue Ngo, 2016. "Ethical Leadership Behavior and Employee Justice Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Trust in Organization," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 493-504, March.
    8. Walumbwa, Fred O. & Hartnell, Chad A. & Misati, Everlyne, 2017. "Does ethical leadership enhance group learning behavior? Examining the mediating influence of group ethical conduct, justice climate, and peer justice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 14-23.
    9. Nathan Eva & Alexander Newman & Qing Miao & Dan Wang & Brian Cooper, 2020. "Antecedents of Duty Orientation and Follower Work Behavior: The Interactive Effects of Perceived Organizational Support and Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 627-639, January.
    10. Conna Yang, 2014. "Does Ethical Leadership Lead to Happy Workers? A Study on the Impact of Ethical Leadership, Subjective Well-Being, and Life Happiness in the Chinese Culture," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 513-525, September.
    11. Shirel Damti & Guy Hochman, 2022. "Personality Characteristics as Predictors of the Leader’s Ethical Leadership in Regular Times and in Times of Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-17, August.
    12. Q. Miao & A. Newman & J. Yu & L. Xu, 2013. "The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Linear or Curvilinear Effects?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 641-653, September.
    13. Palvi Pasricha & Bindu Singh & Pratibha Verma, 2018. "Ethical Leadership, Organic Organizational Cultures and Corporate Social Responsibility: An Empirical Study in Social Enterprises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(4), pages 941-958, September.
    14. Kubilay Gok & John J. Sumanth & William H. Bommer & Ozgur Demirtas & Aykut Arslan & Jared Eberhard & Ali Ihsan Ozdemir & Ahmet Yigit, 2017. "You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees’ Moral Awareness Minimizes Ethical Leadership’s Positive Impact on Workplace Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(2), pages 257-277, December.
    15. Yidong Tu & Xinxin Lu, 2016. "Do Ethical Leaders Give Followers the Confidence to Go the Extra Mile? The Moderating Role of Intrinsic Motivation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 129-144, April.
    16. K. Kacmar & Martha Andrews & Kenneth Harris & Bennett Tepper, 2013. "Ethical Leadership and Subordinate Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Organizational Politics and the Moderating Role of Political Skill," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 33-44, June.
    17. Miao Qing & Muhammad Asif & Abid Hussain & Arif Jameel, 2020. "Exploring the impact of ethical leadership on job satisfaction and organizational commitment in public sector organizations: the mediating role of psychological empowerment," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 14(6), pages 1405-1432, December.
    18. Akanksha Bedi & Can M. Alpaslan & Sandy Green, 2016. "A Meta-analytic Review of Ethical Leadership Outcomes and Moderators," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 517-536, December.
    19. David Pastoriza & Miguel Ariño, 2013. "Does the Ethical Leadership of Supervisors Generate Internal Social Capital?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(1), pages 1-12, November.
    20. DeConinck, James B., 2015. "Outcomes of ethical leadership among salespeople," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1086-1093.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:15:p:8959-:d:869782. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.