Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership
In the field of organizational behavior, the influence of leadership in organizations and the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of employees have always been two hot topics studied by scholars. However, previous studies have mainly examined the OCB of baby boomers and Generation Xers. With m...
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doaj-38087e59170344a2b7a65a451c8883f82021-08-06T15:23:53ZengMDPI AGInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health1661-78271660-46012021-07-01188139813910.3390/ijerph18158139Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical LeadershipWei Su0Juhee Hahn1The Graduate School, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, KoreaDepartment of Business Management, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, KoreaIn the field of organizational behavior, the influence of leadership in organizations and the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of employees have always been two hot topics studied by scholars. However, previous studies have mainly examined the OCB of baby boomers and Generation Xers. With millennials now entering the workforce, they will highly likely not take the initiative to engage in OCB due to their different values. Scholars have found that millennials respond well to ethical leadership. Although this statement has a theoretical basis, empirical research regarding this topic is still insufficient. Thus, this study explores whether ethical leadership can effectively promote millennials’ OCB. Moreover, the mediating effect of group-level ethical climate and individual-level affective well-being, and the moderating effect of individual-level moral identity, were examined. The study hypotheses were verified based on 384 valid questionnaires collected from 61 teams using Mplus 8.3. The results showed that (1) ethical leadership was a positive predictor of millennials’ OCB; (2) ethical climate and affective well-being partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and OCB; and (3) moral identity moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and affective well-being and the indirect impact of ethical leadership on OCB. These findings provide empirical support for applying social learning theory, social information processing theory, and conservation of resources (COR)theory. This research also provides several managerial implications through which managers can more effectively improve the OCB of millennial employees.https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8139ethical leadershipethical climateaffective well-beingmoral identityorganizational citizenship behaviormillennials |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Wei Su Juhee Hahn |
spellingShingle |
Wei Su Juhee Hahn Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ethical leadership ethical climate affective well-being moral identity organizational citizenship behavior millennials |
author_facet |
Wei Su Juhee Hahn |
author_sort |
Wei Su |
title |
Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership |
title_short |
Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership |
title_full |
Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership |
title_fullStr |
Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership |
title_full_unstemmed |
Improving Millennial Employees’ OCB: A Multilevel Mediated and Moderated Model of Ethical Leadership |
title_sort |
improving millennial employees’ ocb: a multilevel mediated and moderated model of ethical leadership |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |
issn |
1661-7827 1660-4601 |
publishDate |
2021-07-01 |
description |
In the field of organizational behavior, the influence of leadership in organizations and the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of employees have always been two hot topics studied by scholars. However, previous studies have mainly examined the OCB of baby boomers and Generation Xers. With millennials now entering the workforce, they will highly likely not take the initiative to engage in OCB due to their different values. Scholars have found that millennials respond well to ethical leadership. Although this statement has a theoretical basis, empirical research regarding this topic is still insufficient. Thus, this study explores whether ethical leadership can effectively promote millennials’ OCB. Moreover, the mediating effect of group-level ethical climate and individual-level affective well-being, and the moderating effect of individual-level moral identity, were examined. The study hypotheses were verified based on 384 valid questionnaires collected from 61 teams using Mplus 8.3. The results showed that (1) ethical leadership was a positive predictor of millennials’ OCB; (2) ethical climate and affective well-being partially mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and OCB; and (3) moral identity moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and affective well-being and the indirect impact of ethical leadership on OCB. These findings provide empirical support for applying social learning theory, social information processing theory, and conservation of resources (COR)theory. This research also provides several managerial implications through which managers can more effectively improve the OCB of millennial employees. |
topic |
ethical leadership ethical climate affective well-being moral identity organizational citizenship behavior millennials |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/15/8139 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT weisu improvingmillennialemployeesocbamultilevelmediatedandmoderatedmodelofethicalleadership AT juheehahn improvingmillennialemployeesocbamultilevelmediatedandmoderatedmodelofethicalleadership |
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