Ethical leadership and reputation: Combined indirect effects on employee organizational deviance

Several studies have been conducted on ethical leadership in these past few years. Nonetheless, we still know fairly little concerning the mechanisms through which it affects organizational life and the boundary conditions that limit and/or enhance its effectiveness. The present study examines the relationship between ethical leadership and affective commitment to the organization, as a reflection of the quality of the employee-organization relationship (EOR) and proposes this relationship is conditional on the supervisor’s personal reputation for performance. Moreover, we propose the interaction effect of ethical leadership X reputation for performance on affective commitment to the organization has carryover effects for organizational deviance. Using a sample of 229 employees and their respective supervisors from 18 organizations we confirmed our hypotheses. Ethical leadership is positively related to employees’ affective commitment to the organization, particularly when supervisor’s reputation for performance is high, which in turn is associated with decreased organizational deviance. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.