TY - JOUR
T1 - Financially insecure and less ethical
T2 - Understanding why and when financial insecurity inhibits ethical leadership
AU - Qu, Yuanmei
AU - Babalola, Mayowa T.
AU - Ogbonnaya, Chidiebere
AU - Ren, Shuang
AU - Chen, Lu
AU - Yang, Mengxi
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos 72072019, 72102220, 72174096, and 72132009), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (grant no. ZYGX2020FRJH012), and the Research Innovation Fund Project of CWAS of UESTC accredited by Ministry of Education, China (grant no. CXJJ2022072702).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2023.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, among other crises (e.g., Russia–Ukraine conflicts and recession projections) threatening organizations’ financial conditions across the globe, supervisors may not only encounter challenges such as job cuts that test their ethical leadership, but also experience financial insecurity themselves. However, our knowledge of why and when supervisors’ ethical leadership behaviors may be affected in such a situation remains quite limited. In this research, we draw on uncertainty management theory (UMT) to examine the potential influence of financial insecurity on ethical leadership. Specifically, we suggest that financial insecurity triggers anxiety in supervisors, which inhibits their demonstration of ethical leadership. We also propose organizational pay fairness as a boundary condition for this process, such that supervisors who perceive their pay as fair are less susceptible to the anxiety resulting from financial insecurity than those who perceive their pay as unfair. Results from two multi-source, multi-wave studies supported our hypothesized model. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
AB - With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, among other crises (e.g., Russia–Ukraine conflicts and recession projections) threatening organizations’ financial conditions across the globe, supervisors may not only encounter challenges such as job cuts that test their ethical leadership, but also experience financial insecurity themselves. However, our knowledge of why and when supervisors’ ethical leadership behaviors may be affected in such a situation remains quite limited. In this research, we draw on uncertainty management theory (UMT) to examine the potential influence of financial insecurity on ethical leadership. Specifically, we suggest that financial insecurity triggers anxiety in supervisors, which inhibits their demonstration of ethical leadership. We also propose organizational pay fairness as a boundary condition for this process, such that supervisors who perceive their pay as fair are less susceptible to the anxiety resulting from financial insecurity than those who perceive their pay as unfair. Results from two multi-source, multi-wave studies supported our hypothesized model. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.
KW - anxiety
KW - ethical leadership
KW - financial insecurity
KW - organizational pay fairness
KW - uncertainty management theory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146167194&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85146167194&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/00187267221142751
DO - 10.1177/00187267221142751
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85146167194
SN - 0018-7267
JO - Human Relations
JF - Human Relations
ER -