The dual paths that ethical leadership drives employees’ sustainability behaviors

Abstract

Ethical leadership has attracted enormous interest in recent years. Nevertheless, in spite of all this extensive writing, the nexus between ethical leadership and subordinate outcomes is still an interesting topic. Based on social learning theory, social identity theory, upper echelons theory, and substitutes for leadership theory, this study investigates the direct, indirect effects of ethical leadership on employees’ sustainability behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment (OCB-E) and the moderating role of agreeableness on the ethical leadership – moral identity relationship. The current study utilized partial least square structural equation modeling to test the proposed hypotheses using a data set of 406 full-time employees working in manufacturing companies in Vietnam. The testing results reveal that ethical leadership is positively related to OCB-E. This relationship could be mediated by two mechanisms suggesting the dual pathways that ethical leaders could motivate followers’ OCB-E: (1) by enhancing employees’ moral identity internalization and symbolization, and (2) by issuing and publishing corporate environmental strategy, which forms the organization’s green psychological climate. Regarding the moderating roles of agreeableness, the research findings highlight that this kind of personality lessens the motivational efforts of ethical leaders by impairing their direct effects on followers’ moral identity internalization. However, unexpectedly, agreeableness does not play a significant role in moderating the link between ethical leadership and moral identity symbolization. The results, which in large part validate the theoretical framework, make contributions and implications to research as well as practice.