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Perceived Ethical Leadership Affects Customer Purchasing Intentions Beyond Ethical Marketing in Advertising Due to Moral Identity Self-Congruence Concerns

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Abstract

Ethical leadership has so far mainly been featured in the organizational behavior domain and, as such, treated as an intra-organizational phenomenon. The present study seeks to highlight the relevance of ethical leadership for extra-organizational phenomena by combining the organizational behavior perspective on ethical leadership with a classical marketing approach. In particular, we demonstrate that customers may use perceived ethical leadership cues as additional reference points when forming purchasing intentions. In two experimental studies (N = 601 and N = 336), we find that ethical leadership positively affects purchasing intentions because of customers’ concerns for moral self-congruence. We show this by means of both mediation and moderation analyses. Interestingly, the effect of perceived ethical leadership on purchasing intentions holds over and above the ethical advertising claims (e.g., cause-related marketing) that are commonly used in marketing. We conclude by discussing the possible ramifications of ethical leadership beyond its effects on immediate employees.

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Funding

This study was not funded by a third party.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management Department, Kühne Logistics University, Großer Grasbrook 17, 20457, Hamburg, Germany

    Niels Van Quaquebeke, Jan U. Becker, Niko Goretzki & Christian Barrot

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  1. Niels Van Quaquebeke
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  2. Jan U. Becker
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  4. Christian Barrot
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Correspondence to Niels Van Quaquebeke.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in these studies that involved human participants aligned with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee, as well as with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Manipulation of Ethical Leadership Based on van Gils et al. (2015)

High Ethical Leadership Description

While switching TV channels the other day, you ended up watching an interview with Alex Anderson and some of his employees.

From his remarks throughout the interview, you could tell that Alex Anderson not only lives his personal life in an ethical way, but also manages the company ethically. That means that he appeared to be a reliable person who asks himself what is the right thing to do before making decisions. As a leader, he also seemed to take honest and balanced decisions in his work. He appeared to listen to what employees have to say and to keep their interest in mind when deciding. Moreover, he reported to discuss the importance of ethical norms at Aqua/Parcelnow and to discipline employees who violate ethical standards. You gained the impression that he defines success not only in terms of results, but also in the way the results are obtained. All in all, Alex Anderson seemed to set an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics.

Low Ethical Leadership Description

While switching TV channels the other day, you ended up watching an interview with Alex Anderson and some of his employees.

From his remarks throughout the interview, you could tell that Alex Anderson cares neither about living his personal life in an ethical way nor about managing his company ethically. That means that he did not really appear to be a reliable person who asks himself what is the right thing to do before making decisions. It seemed that in his work he does not always take honest and balanced decisions. He appeared neither to listen to what employees have to say nor to keep their interests in mind when deciding. Moreover, he reported never to discuss the importance of ethical norms at Aqua/Parcelnow and not to pay attention to whether employees behave in accordance with ethical standards. You gained the impression that he defines success only in terms of results and does not care about the way results are obtained. All in all, Alex Anderson seemed not to be a good example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics.

Appendix 2: Manipulation of Ethical Advertising in Study 1

figure a

Appendix 3: Manipulation of Ethical Advertising in Study 2

figure b

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Van Quaquebeke, N., Becker, J.U., Goretzki, N. et al. Perceived Ethical Leadership Affects Customer Purchasing Intentions Beyond Ethical Marketing in Advertising Due to Moral Identity Self-Congruence Concerns. J Bus Ethics 156, 357–376 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3577-4

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