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Ethical Leadership and Subordinates’ Occupational Well-Being: A Multi-level Examination in China

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Maybe this spate of suicides [at Foxconn] will also serve us as a wake-up call. We realize we must do a better job—Louis Woo, a Foxconn executive, 2010

Abstract

Prior research and managerial practices have often over-emphasized employees’ performance and ignored their occupational well-being. However, a series of employee suicide scandals in China have drawn people’s attention to employees’ occupational well-being and heightened the importance of how ethical leadership can enhance such well-being. Based on social exchange theory, this study examined the main effect of ethical leadership on subordinates’ occupational well-being in China, as well as the underlying mechanisms and contextual factors between them. Our sample comprised 302 employee questionnaires and 34 questionnaires completed by supervisors about their group. Using a multi-level approach, we implemented hierarchical linear modeling to examine the hypotheses. The results revealed that ethical leadership positively influenced the subordinates’ occupational well-being. This effect was partially mediated by distributive justice and interpersonal justice. Moreover, group level collectivism moderated the influence of ethical leadership on employees’ perception of distributive justice, interpersonal justice and their occupational well-being.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 71172203).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, People’s Republic of China

    Yanping Li, Jia Xu & Yidong Tu

  2. School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Xinxin Lu

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  1. Yanping Li
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  2. Jia Xu
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Correspondence to Yidong Tu.

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Early version of this paper has been accepted by 2012 Meeting of International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR) which was held at Hong Kong in July, 2012.

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Li, Y., Xu, J., Tu, Y. et al. Ethical Leadership and Subordinates’ Occupational Well-Being: A Multi-level Examination in China. Soc Indic Res 116, 823–842 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0321-z

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