Abstract:
This study aims to find out the answer “what makes a leader unethical”? Building upon the
premise of existing literature, it mainly incorporates the individual-level factors such as
individual personality, organizational ethical climate as organizational factor, and sociocultural
factors such as high in-group collectivism, high power distance and short terms
orientation and determine their effects on leader’s unethical behaviors. In addition to the
direct effects, this study also proposes the moderating effects of organizational ethical climate
and socio-cultural factors on the relationship between manager’s personality and manager’s
tendency to engage in unethical behaviors. Data will be gathered from employees that are
working in public sector organizations and their perceptions about their leader’s personality,
organizational ethical climate and their orientation towards socio-cultural factors will be
obtained. The tests for convergent and discriminant validity and reliability will be employed
through measurement model. SPSS and SMART-PLS programs have been used for analyzing
data normality, measurement model and structural equation model. The proposed hypotheses
will be tested by constructing the structural models. Based on the results, policy implications
would be drawn to reduce the unethical behaviors in organizations.
