Leadership in organizations as a determinant of silence of employees on moral issues

由于腐败、违反健康和安全法规或社会不负责任的行为等不道德行为，经济和社会每年不得不支付数十亿美元。因此，关于组织中反对不道德行为的最佳方式存在着激烈的辩论。在这一背景下，领导者的行为及其对员工行为的影响被确定为关键因素。此外，对假设效果的全面理解需要对道德领导行为和非道德领导行为进行分析。然而，在领导力研究中，领导力的这个“黑暗面”到目前为止还没有得到足够的重视。此外，到目前为止，(非)伦理或(IM)道德领导导致真正的(非)伦理或(IM)道德员工行为的核心命题只得到了初步检验。拟议的研究项目试图利用一种基于新的理论派生模型的方法合理的设计(多层次、多来源、多方法、纵向)来缩小这一知识差距。这个模型描述了关于道德对立的领导风格(真实领导与滥用监督)对员工在道德问题上故意沉默的影响的创新假设，认为这是一种真正的道德(非)行为。此外，员工沉默的现象还包括不沉默或采取行动的方面。在不同的分析水平(二元、小组)和重要的组织结果(工作动机和绩效)，与员工在道德问题上的沉默有关的多个调解人和主持人被考虑在内。为了对这一模型进行实证检验，我们收集了四个不同组织在时间1(T1)从事卫生保健部门的数据。我们调查了737名员工和他们的94名主管。此外，20名主管和他们的28名员工参加了结构化访谈，重点是与道德问题有关的沉默的频率、动机和后果。这些数据被用来开发一种新的“情境判断测试”，用于在组织中保持沉默。在T2，计划重复所有评估并整合数据进行纵向分析。基于科学中的不道德行为，不幸的是，有必要首先在几项预备研究中开发测量真实领导力的新工具(N=705)。由于我们计划的这一意外修改，T2的措施尚不可用。我们提出的延长研究项目的目的是评估这些缺失的数据。综上所述，该项目将对组织中道德行为的重要驱动因素及其衡量提供新的见解，并为制定干预措施提供基础，以促进对工作中的道德关切和问题的公开讨论。

Economy and society have to pay billions every year due to unethical behavior, e.g. through corruption, violation of health and safety regulations or socially irresponsible action. Therefore, there is an intense debate about the best way to work against unethical behavior in organizations. The behavior of leaders and their influence on the behavior of their employees have been identified as crucial factors in this context. Moreover, a comprehensive understanding of the assumed effects requires both the analysis of moral leadership and unethical leadership behaviors. However, in leadership research this “dark side” of leadership has received insufficient attention up to now. Furthermore, the central proposition that (un)ethical or (im)moral leadership leads to genuine (un)ethical or (im)moral employee behavior has only been rudimentarily tested so far. The proposed research project seeks to close this knowledge gap using a methodologically sound design (multi-level, multi-source, multi-method, longitudinal) based on a new, theoretically derived model. This model describes innovative hypotheses about the effects of morally opposed leadership styles (authentic leadership vs. abusive supervision) on the intentional silence of employees on moral issues as a genuine ethical (non-)behavior. In addition, the phenomenon of employee silence also encompasses aspects of non-silence or taking action. Multiple mediators and moderators at different levels of analysis (dyad, group) and important organizational outcomes (work motivation and performance), which are associated with employee silence on moral issues, are considered. In order to test this model empirically, we collected data from four different organizations engaged in the health care sector at time 1 (T1). We surveyed 737 employees and their 94 supervisors. In addition, 20 supervisors and 28 of their employees participated in structured interviews focusing on the frequency, motives and consequences of silence related to moral issues. This data is used to develop a new “Situational Judgment Test” for silence in organizations. At T2 it was planned to repeat all assessments and integrate data for a longitudinal analysis. Based on unethical behavior in science it was, unfortunately, necessary to develop new instrument for the measurement of authentic leadership in several preparatory studies first (N = 705). Due to this unexpected modification from our plan, measures at T2 are not available yet. The proposed prolongation of our research project has the goal to assess this missing data. Taken together, the project will give new insights regarding important driving factors of ethical behavior and their measurement in organizations and provides a basis for developing interventions that promote an open discourse about moral concerns and issues at work.