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An Examination of Ethical Leadership and Organizational Commitment

  • Mitchell A. Sutherland

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

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
Date of AwardFeb 16 2010
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorFrank Cavico (Supervisor) & Timothy McCartney (Advisor)

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