How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model
Although the trickle-down effect of ethical leadership has been documented in the literature, its underlying mechanism still remains largely unclear. To address this gap, we develop a cross-level dual-process model to explain how the effect occurs. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize t...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
Springer Netherlands
2016
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/69821 |
| _version_ | 1848762143589007360 |
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| author | Wang, Z. Xu, H. Liu, Yukun |
| author_facet | Wang, Z. Xu, H. Liu, Yukun |
| author_sort | Wang, Z. |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Although the trickle-down effect of ethical leadership has been documented in the literature, its underlying mechanism still remains largely unclear. To address this gap, we develop a cross-level dual-process model to explain how the effect occurs. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that the ethical leadership of high-level managers could cascade to middle-level supervisors via its impact on middle-level supervisors’ two ethical expectations. Using a sample of 69 middle-level supervisors and 381 subordinates across 69 sub-branches from a large banking firm in China, we found that middle-level supervisors’ ethical efficacy expectation and unethical behavior–punishment expectation (as one form of ethical outcome expectations) accounted for the trickle-down effect. The explanatory role of middle-level supervisors’ ethical behavior–reward expectation (as the other form of ethical outcome expectations), however, was not supported. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:42:53Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-69821 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T10:42:53Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Springer Netherlands |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-698212019-02-19T05:36:20Z How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model Wang, Z. Xu, H. Liu, Yukun Although the trickle-down effect of ethical leadership has been documented in the literature, its underlying mechanism still remains largely unclear. To address this gap, we develop a cross-level dual-process model to explain how the effect occurs. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that the ethical leadership of high-level managers could cascade to middle-level supervisors via its impact on middle-level supervisors’ two ethical expectations. Using a sample of 69 middle-level supervisors and 381 subordinates across 69 sub-branches from a large banking firm in China, we found that middle-level supervisors’ ethical efficacy expectation and unethical behavior–punishment expectation (as one form of ethical outcome expectations) accounted for the trickle-down effect. The explanatory role of middle-level supervisors’ ethical behavior–reward expectation (as the other form of ethical outcome expectations), however, was not supported. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. 2016 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/69821 10.1007/s10551-016-3361-x Springer Netherlands fulltext |
| spellingShingle | Wang, Z. Xu, H. Liu, Yukun How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title | How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title_full | How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title_fullStr | How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title_full_unstemmed | How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title_short | How does ethical leadership trickle down? Test of an integrative dual-process model |
| title_sort | how does ethical leadership trickle down? test of an integrative dual-process model |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/69821 |