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Title

An Examination of Ethical Leadership and Organizational Commitment

Author

Mitchell A. Sutherland, Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Department

H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship

Advisor

Frank Cavico

Committee Member

Timothy McCartney

Abstract

The primary purpose of this research study was to explore the relationship between ethical leadership (Brown, Trevino, & Harrison, 2005) and the three forms of organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Secondarily, this research explored the relationship between ethical leadership (Brown et al., 2005) and the four dimensions of transformational leadership (Bass & Avolio, 1994). This study extends recent research regarding ethics, leadership styles, and employee commitment by administering the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS), the Three-Component Model (TCM) of Commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1997), and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X). The data was collected from a cross-section of 130 business professionals representing a variety of industries, occupation characteristics, and levels of organizational and supervisory responsibility, age, education, and job tenure.

The hypotheses developed in this study found positive and statistically significant relationships between ethical leadership and two forms of organizational commitment; affective commitment (r = .55, p < .01) and normative commitment (r = .45, p < .01). The study also found highly positive and statistically significant relationships between ethical leadership and the idealized influence (r = .75, p < .01) and inspirational motivation (r = .70, p < .01) dimensions of transformational leadership.

NSUWorks Citation

Mitchell A. Sutherland. 2010. An Examination of Ethical Leadership and Organizational Commitment. Doctoral dissertation. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship. (109)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hsbe_etd/109.