Leading others to go beyond the call of duty. A dyadic study of servant leadership and psychological ethical climate
| Published date | 08 November 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-08-2018-0285 |
| Date | 08 November 2019 |
| Pages | 620-635 |
| Author | Sen Sendjaya,Nathan Eva,Mulyadi Robin,Lyfie Sugianto,Ivan ButarButar,Charmine Hartel |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Leading others to go beyond
the call of duty
A dyadic study of servant leadership
and psychological ethical climate
Sen Sendjaya
Business School, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Nathan Eva
Business School, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
Mulyadi Robin
Alphacrucis College, Scoresby, Australia
Lyfie Sugianto
Business School, Monash University, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia
Ivan ButarButar
Sampoerna University, Jakarta, Indonesia, and
Charmine Hartel
University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –Interest in servant leadership has grown exponentially over the past decade as evident in the
surge of academic- and practitioner-oriented publications on the subject. While prior research has shown that
servant leadership leads to citizenship behavior, no study has explored the ethical pathway as the underlying
influence process despite the fact that servant leadership is an ethical approach to leadership. On the basis of
social learning theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine psychological ethical climate as a key mediator
between servant leadership and citizenship behavior.
Design/methodology/approach –Survey data were collected from 123 leader–follower dyads from eight
high-performing firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange, and analyzed using multiple regression analysis.
Findings –The results showed that the relationship between servant leadership and organizational
citizenship behaviors (OCBs) (both for OCBI and OCBO) is mediated by psychological ethical climate.
Practical implications –This study demonstrates the value of using a servant leadership approach in
order to foster a psychological ethical climate and increase OCBs. As such, the authors highlight the
importance of a systematic approach to develop servant leaders in organizations.
Originality/value –This research contributes to the understanding of the ethical mechanism that explains
the relationship between servant leadership and follower outcomes. Drawing on social learning theory, the
findings show that servant leaders are ethical climate architects through their role modeling behaviors and
interactions with followers.
Keywords Quantitative, Organizational citizenship behaviour, Servant leadership, Leadership,
Psychological ethical climate
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Given the importance of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to the success of
organizations,studies on the dimensionality,consequences and antecedents of OCB have been
well documented (cf. Organ, 2018; Podsakoff et al., 2009). OCB is typical ly defined as an
“individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal
reward system, andthat in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning oforganization”
(Organ et al., 2006,p. 3). Of various antecedents of OCB identified, leadershiphas been singled
out as a key predictor, in particular servant leadership (Ehrhart, 2004; Hunter et al., 2013;
Personnel Review
Vol. 49 No. 2, 2020
pp. 620-635
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-08-2018-0285
Received 3 August 2018
Revised 17 October 2018
12 February 2019
Accepted 28 July 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
620
PR
49,2
Ilies et al., 2007; Neubert et al., 2008; Walumbwa et al., 2010). Servant leadership is often
associated withpositive organizational, team andindividual-level outcomes, whichexplains a
considerably significant research interest on servant leadership over the last decade
(Eva et al., 2018). Intuitively, research examining the links between servant leadership and
OCB has flourished given the positive changes in followers that are expected in response to
their interactionswith servant leaders (van Dierendonck,2011). Given their innate orientation
to serve others altruistically, servantleaders naturally engage in extra-role behaviors andare
likely to be seen as positiverole model by their followers. We buildon Bandura’s(1977)social
learning theory which theorizes that individuals tend to adopt certain behaviors through
modeling credible sources and postulate that followers will likely to model OCB-related
behaviors endorsed by their leaders. Followers in turn will engage in behaviors that go
beyond the call of duty.
Earlier studies found that servant leadership is able to predict follower OCB through
mediators such as procedural justice climate (Ehrhart, 2004; Walumbwa et al., 2010), team
potency (Hu and Liden, 2011), trust (Schaubroeck et al., 2011) and service climate
(Walumbwa et al., 2010). Missing from these studies is the focus on the ethical mechanism
explaining how servant leadership affects OCB. The absence of ethical constructs from
these studies persists despite of the call to better understand the underlying influence
process by which servant leadership affects OCB (Van Dierendonck, 2011). In fact, it is a
glaring omission given the clear emphasis of ethics in virtually all existing theorizing of
servant leadership (for review, see Eva et al., 2019). Servant leadership is distinct from other
leadership approaches because of its emphasis on followers’development in the area of
ethics (Graham, 1991). The current study, therefore, seeks to address this gap by focusing on
the mediating role of psychological ethical climate.
We treat psychological ethical climate as a function of individual perception of the
organizational ethical atmosphere,followingWangandHsieh’s (2012) theorizing. In addition,
we consider it as an individual-level construct as it better fits the dyadic nature of the
leader–follower relationship observed in the current study. The mediating role of psychological
ethical climate itself has been examined in relation to employee commitment (Erben and
Gűneşer, 2007) and job satisfaction (Mulki et al., 2009; Wang and Hsieh, 2012), but not OCB.
We believe that employees are more likelytoengageinOCBiftheyareinleader–follower
relationships which promote moral reasoning. In its theorizing, servant leadership is thought to
foster reflective behaviors that appeal to higher moral ideals and values (Ciulla, 1995;
Yukl, 2010), but researchers are yet to gauge the propensity of servant leadership in affecting
ethical climate that will lead to positive work outcomes like OCB.
The purpose of this study, therefore, is to examine the mediating role of psychological
ethical climate in the relationship between servant leadership and OCB. Our study offers
four contributions. First, we test the key premise of servant leadership theory that servant
leaders always seek to enhance followers ethical reasoning and action, forming perceptions
of ethical climate that characterize their working norm. Considering the dearth of work on
servant leadership and ethical outcomes, this study extends the servant leadership literature
by examining a key tenet of servant leadership (i.e. followers’ethical development). Second,
we provide further evidence for predictive validity of servant leadership by examining its
effects on follower citizenship behavior through the mediating effect of psychological ethical
climate. In so doing, we also propose a novel underlying mechanism by which servant
leadership affects OCB, and as such enhancing our understanding of servant leadership’s
nomological network. Exploring the ethical pathway to explain how servant leadership
affects OCB is important given the claim that servant leadership is a morally attractive
leadership approach. Third, we assess the validity of psychological ethical climate as an
individual-level construct as theorized by Leung (2008). As such, it is distinct
from organizational ethical climate that is derived from a group-level consensus
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Leading others
to go beyond
the call of duty
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