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Journal of Business Ethics

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01-08-2013

How Ethical Leadership Influence Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: A Perspective of Intrinsic Motivation

Authors: Tu Yidong, Lu Xinxin

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2013

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Abstract

Drawing on the cognitive evaluation theory, we proposed a homologous multilevel model to explore how ethical leadership influenced employees’ innovative work behavior through the mediation of intrinsic motivation at both group and individual level. With questionnaires rated by 302 employees from 34 work units of two companies in the mainland of China, we conducted multilevel analysis to examine our hypotheses. The results showed that individual innovative work behavior was positively related to both individual perception of ethical leadership and group ethical leadership, while individual intrinsic motivation mediated the two relationships. Moreover, group intrinsic motivation mediated the relationship between group ethical leadership and innovative work behavior. The theoretical and practical implications were further discussed.

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The result revealed that Pearson correlation test of group ethical leadership and group intrinsic motivation was not significant (r = 0.275, p = 0.115). However, when we retest their relationship with the Spearman correlation test the result showed that group ethical leadership was positively correlated with group intrinsic motivation ((r = 0.361, p = 0.036).

Considering the sample at group level was relatively small, we adopted bootstrap method to regress group ethical leadership on group intrinsic motivation to calculate coefficient and significance.

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Title: How Ethical Leadership Influence Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: A Perspective of Intrinsic Motivation
Authors: Tu Yidong
Lu Xinxin
Publication date: 01-08-2013
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2013
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1455-7

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Erratum to: How Ethical Leadership Influence Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: A Perspective of Intrinsic Motivation