Week 4 research paper

 

This week’s journal articles focus on transformational leadership and knowledge and knowledge sharing within an organization, please review these concepts and answer the following questions:

1. How do trustworthy and ethical leaders enhance knowledge sharing in organizations?  How does this impact the rate of information technology implementations?  How does this impact data management within organizations? 
2. How does servant leadership assist with transferring knowledge in an organization?
3. When thinking about data analytics, how does transformational leadership assist with building good data structures?

Be sure to use the UC Library for scholarly research. Google Scholar is also a great source for research.  Please be sure that journal articles are peer-reviewed and are published within the last five years.

The paper should meet the following requirements:

• 3-5 pages in length (not including title page or references)
• APA guidelines must be followed.  The paper must include a cover page, an introduction, a body with fully developed content, and a conclusion.
• A minimum of five peer-reviewed journal articles.

The writing should be clear and concise.  Headings should be used to transition thoughts.  Don’t forget that the grade also includes the quality of writing.

German Journal of
Human Resource Management

2016, Vol. 30(3-4) 225 –245
© The Author(s) 2016

Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/2397002216649855
gjh.sagepub.com

Ethical leadership’s
potential and boundaries
in organizational change:
A moderated mediation
model of employee silence

Kai C Bormann
TU Dortmund University, Germany

Jens Rowold
TU Dortmund University, Germany

Abstract
In this present study, we develop a model in which four forms of employee silence (acquiescent,
quiescent, prosocial and opportunistic silence) mediate the relationship between ethical
leadership and affective commitment to change. We argue that ethical leadership lowers all
four forms which in turn influence employees’ commitment to change initiatives. We also
examine the role of politics perceptions and personal change impact as moderators. The
sample consisted of 263 employees from different organizations and occupations in Germany
all facing organizational changes. Our results indicate that ethical leadership lowers only
acquiescent silence, which in turn predicts affective commitment change. However, the effect
diminished with high levels of politics perceptions and high levels of personal change impact.
We discuss implications for theory, future research and organizational practice.

Keywords
Affective change commitment, employee silence, ethical leadership, politics

Introduction

In today’s business world, the ability to adapt to change is becoming increasingly
important. With the advancement of globalization and shortened technology life cycles,

Corresponding author:
Kai C Bormann, TU Dortmund University, Center for Higher Education, Hohe Straße 141, D – 44139
Dortmund, Germany.
Email: kai.bormann@tu-dortmund.de

649855 GJH0010.1177/2397002216649855German Journal of Human Resource ManagementBormann and Rowold
research-article2016

Article

mailto:kai.bormann@tu-dortmund.de

http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1177%2F2397002216649855&domain=pdf&date_stamp=2016-08-24

226 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

continually developing environments leave an imprint on most organizational lives. How
organizations’ employees perceive those changes and react to them has been found to be
a crucial determinant of change success (Oreg et al., 2011). Due to their influential posi-
tion, much academic attention has been paid to organizational leaders and how they can
guide followers towards attitudes and behaviours that support change initiatives. Only
recently, the role of leadership ethicality was introduced to the change literature (Burnes
and By, 2012; Sharif and Scandura, 2014). Ethical leadership stresses the normative
appropriateness of leadership conduct and the reinforcement of such behaviours among
followers (Brown et al., 2005). Sharif and Scandura (2014) argued that ethical leadership
is especially important in times of organizational change, as ethical leaders increase
employees’ trust and reduce uncertainty. They also showed that ethical leadership fos-
ters organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), job satisfaction and performance in
times of change. While Sharif and Scandura provided preliminary empirical insights,
several avenues for ethical leadership research during change remain uncharted. Most
notably, change literature stresses the importance of applying change-related criteria as
well as providing support for underlying psychological processes (Meyer and Hamilton,
2013; Oreg et al., 2011). Therefore, the present study further develops the application of
ethical leadership through the use of a more change-related criterion, namely affective
commitment to change (ACC) (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002). Existing research indi-
cates that ACC is a crucial predictor of change success (Meyer and Hamilton, 2013).

In order to elucidate the process of how ethical leadership furthers employees’ ACC,
we explore the role of the emerging construct of employee silence as a potential media-
tor. Employee silence (Knoll and van Dick, 2013) refers to the organizational phenome-
non of withholding concerns and opinions about work-related issues. Employees do so
because of feelings of resignation (Acquiescent Silence), fear (Quiescent Silence), altru-
istic goals (Prosocial Silence) or self-serving goals (Opportunistic Silence). Past research
has shown the organizational relevance of silence. It is, for example, negatively related
to employee well-being and positively related to perceived strain (Knoll and van Dick,
2013). Silence is also of particular importance for understanding barriers to change as it
reduces the potential range of input and critical feedback necessary for change success
(Morrison and Milliken, 2000). While the leadership–voice relationship has been
addressed repeatedly (Avey et al., 2012; Wegge et al., 2010), the effects of (ethical) lead-
ership on different motives of employee silence add a new, unmapped perspective
(Frömmer et al., 2014). Discretionary behaviours such as voice are drivers for change
success (Meyer and Hamilton, 2013). The primary aim of our study is, therefore, to
examine the effect of ethical leadership on ACC through the mediating effect of reducing
employees’ desire to withhold opinions.

The secondary aim of this article is to explore the potential boundaries of ethical
leadership impact. We expect that the proposed indirect effect varies as a function of
organizational climate and individual change impact. Following this rationale, we
develop a model in which politics perceptions (Ferris and Judge, 1991) and the impact
of change initiatives on an individual’s job (Fedor et al., 2006) attenuate the indirect
effect of ethical leadership on ACC based on the shifted focus and cognitive demands
each factor entails. We argue that these factors diminish the potential for ethical leader-
ship behaviour. Figure 1 shows the proposed research model.

Bormann and Rowold 227

This study contributes to existing literature in several ways. For the first time,
employee silence is introduced as the tying link between ethical leadership and follow-
ers’ ACC. This further develops the application of ethical leadership and employee
silence to organizational change. In doing so, we also provide additional support for the
beneficial impact of both leadership and silence on an organization. Furthermore, by
linking ethical leadership to employee silence, this study is one of the first to examine
antecedents of silence. Lastly, by considering potential moderators we add to the grow-
ing but still small body of research on conditions of ethical leadership impact as well as
silence emergence and impact.

Ethical leadership, employee silence and affective change
commitment

Ethical leadership, as defined by Brown et al. (2005: 120), is ‘the demonstration
of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal rela-
tionships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way commu-
nication, reinforcement, and decision-making’. The normative appropriateness of
personal actions and interpersonal relationships refers to leader attributes such as
dependability, honesty and integrity. Exceeding simple altruistic characteristics, an
ethical leader promotes the ethical conduct of followers by, for instance, rewarding
ethical and disciplining inappropriate behaviour. Past research has shown ethical
leadership to be related to a plethora of organizational outcomes (Bedi et al., in press;
Ng and Feldman, 2015).

According to Brown et al. (2005: 120), one beneficial effect of ethical leadership is
that through conveying high moral standards ethical leaders ‘provide followers with
voice’. They involve followers in transparent decision-making and appreciate their opin-
ions. Consequently, different studies found a positive relationship between ethical lead-
ership and measures of employee voice (Avey et al., 2012; Walumbwa and Schaubroeck,
2009). However, there may be instances where employees observe violations of personal
standards (e.g. inefficacy or harassment), but fail to raise these issues. Withholding opin-
ions and concerns is discussed in the literature under the headings of organizational
(Morrison and Milliken, 2000) and, more recently, employee silence (Brinsfield, 2013;
Knoll and van Dick, 2013). For several reasons, employees decide not to invest their
resources in improving organizational procedures. Following the conception by Knoll

Figure 1. Research model.

228 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

and van Dick (2013), we differentiate between four forms. Silence can result from feel-
ings of resignation that an opinion is neither wanted nor valued by superiors (acquiescent
silence). The second form of silence (quiescent silence) refers to protective motives.
Employees withhold their opinions as they fear that speaking up might lead to unpleasant
consequences. Withholding concerns might also occur as a result of prosocial motives
(prosocial silence). Employees remain silent in order to help and benefit others. Lastly,
silence can stem from egoistic motives (opportunistic silence). Employees withhold
opinions and information to serve their own interests by disguising or misleading others.
Despite the fact that there may be a connection between employee silence and voice,
van Dyne et al. (2003) established that both constructs are not polar opposites but dif-
ferent and unique constructs. More precisely, compared to voice, silence provides fewer
behavioural cues and is more ambiguous to observe, its motives are more likely to be
misattributed, and it has more incongruent outcomes. Based on these findings and a
dearth of related studies, we see an inevitable need to expand research on the ethical
leadership–discretionary support relationship with regard to employee silence.

Linking ethical leadership to different forms of employee silence, we draw on social
learning theory (SLT) (Bandura, 1977, 1991) as a theoretical framework. According to
this theory, employees emulate a leader whose behaviour serves as an attractive role
model. Consequently, with regards to an ethical leader, employees receive just and car-
ing treatment and are urged to display responsible and thoughtful behaviours them-
selves. Employees reporting to an ethical leader should, for example, have less incentive
to withhold opinions and concerns out of a feeling of resignation (acquiescent silence).
They enjoy more work-related latitude compared to employees of less ethical leaders
(Piccolo et al., 2010), which should result in them having a certain amount of influence
on workplace practices themselves. Furthermore, they experience fair decision-making
(Brown and Trevino, 2006), which gives rise to the probability that concerns are raised
with the leader in the belief that they will address these issues properly. Besides silence
out of a feeling of resignation, we expect ethical leadership to reduce silence out of fear
of potential consequences (quiescent silence). On the one hand, ethical leaders instil
trust in their followers by strengthening self-efficacy in challenging situations (Ng and
Feldman, 2015). On the other hand, ethical leaders enhance followers’ perceived sense
of accountability: it is everybody’s duty to speak up when violations of personal stand-
ards are observed (Brown et al., 2005). Similarly, we draw on followers’ enhanced sense
of responsibility to propose a negative relationship between ethical leadership and
prosocial silence. Reporting colleagues’ errors might be perceived negatively as a form
of betrayal or whistleblowing. In contrast, ethical leaders strive to do the right thing,
basing actions on higher moral principles. They urge their followers to do the same.
Therefore, we expect followers to be more open to reporting colleagues’ violations of
work-related standards (Schaubroeck et al., 2012). Ethical leaders lower potential
thresholds for breaking prosocial silence as employees are assured that colleagues
whose errors they reveal will be treated with care and not be exposed to excessive pun-
ishment (Brown et al., 2005). With regard to opportunistic silence, we also expect a
buffering effect of ethical leadership. Ethical leaders promote altruistic values at the
workplace and, according to SLT, these motivational patterns trickle down to employ-
ees who also exhibit more altruistic thinking and actions (Schaubroeck et al., 2012).

Bormann and Rowold 22

9

Accordingly, employees’ motives for remaining silent due to egoistic motives should be
at least partly reduced.

Morrison and Milliken (2000) argued that silence may lead to less effective organiza-
tional change processes due to a reduced range of input and critical feedback. The
intriguing idea about examining motivated non-behaviour such as different forms of
silence is that it sheds light on what wittingly or unwittingly guides individuals in their
decision making. In other words, individuals may have different work-related targets or
foci they relate to in their attitudes and behaviours. Based on the examination of these
motivational patterns we argue that it is also possible to draw inferences about individu-
als’ propensity to be emotionally tied to change initiatives at work. The latter aspect has
been discussed in the literature as a part of commitment to change (Herscovitch and
Meyer, 2002). Based on the three-component model of organizational commitment
(Allen & Meyer, 1990), Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) illustrated that employees
develop different kinds of bonds with change initiatives (affective, normative and con-
tinuance commitment to change). While all three components have been shown to be
unique and relevant to an organization, affective commitment to change has emerged as
the strongest correlate to important change-related outcomes such as discretionary sup-
port and coping with change, and turnover intentions (Cunningham, 2006; Herscovitch
and Meyer, 2002). Affective commitment to change is defined as ‘a desire to provide
support for the change based on a belief in its inherent benefits’ (Herscovitch and Meyer,
2002: 475). Although the four silence motives capture different aspects and do not neces-
sarily coincide (van Dyne et al., 2003), we expect the ‘bottom-line’ effect regarding
affective attitudes towards change initiatives to stay the same. If employees have reason-
able motivation to withhold their opinions regarding work-related issues, their emotional
bond with change initiatives will be weak.

If employees show acquiescent silence, resignation has spread. This may go as far as
giving up on organizations. Past experiences have led employees to conclude that their
opinion is neither wanted nor valued (Knoll and van Dick, 2013). Accordingly, striving
for self-protection may deter employees from investing any further personal resources
for the sake of the organization (Hanisch and Hulin, 1990). However, additional personal
investment would certainly be necessary to overcome change challenges (Meyer and
Hamilton, 2013). Hence, it is very unlikely that employees exhibiting high levels of
acquiescent silence have the willingness to develop emotional ties to change initiatives.
For the relationship between quiescent silence and affective commitment to change, the
motive for self-protection may play an even larger role. When individuals remain silent
out of fear of the consequences, this presents a high degree of self-protective impetus.
Such individuals have the incentive to avoid situations of uncertainty which challenge
the status quo. Change, however, might cause such uncertainty, which again could bring
negative consequences like change of routines or loss of resources. Accordingly, if
employees exhibit quiescent silence it is highly unlikely for them to embrace change and
develop high levels of affective change commitment. Prosocial silence highlights an
individual’s affiliative or cooperative motivation. When individuals fail to report col-
leagues’ negative behaviour they signal that they value affiliation or the maintenance of
social capital over their contribution to organizational goals (Knoll and van Dick, 2013).
We expect that this cue is also important for understanding the emergence of affective

230 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

change commitment. Consequences of change initiatives (such as altered routines of col-
laborating with colleagues) likely collide with an individual’s interest in maintaining
social capital. Accordingly, prosocial motives for (non-)behaviour deter individuals from
developing high levels of affective change commitment. Lastly, remaining silent due to
opportunistic motives signals that an individual places egoistic goals above organiza-
tional ones. Individuals guided by opportunistic motives tend to develop informal ties to
promote their self-centred, hidden agenda (Ferris and Judge, 1991). This includes, for
instance, forming alliances to influence resource or task allocation. Here, change comes
as a threat as established routines and schemes might be broken up. It appears very
unlikely that individuals guided by opportunistic motives will develop emotional ties to
change initiatives. While a psychological tie to change initiatives seems possible when
that change also serves egoistic goals, we argue that such commitment would be more
calculative than emotional (Herscovitch and Meyer, 2002).

In conclusion, we expect ethical leadership to reduce all four silence motives, which
are all detrimental to employees’ affective commitment towards change initiatives.
Given previous findings supporting other mediators with regard to ethical leadership
impact, such as trust in the leader (Ng and Feldman, 2015), we propose partial mediation
with regard to the present study:

Hypothesis 1: Employee silence (1a: acquiescent silence; 1b:, quiescent silence; 1c: prosocial
silence; 1d: opportunistic silence) partially mediates the relationship between ethical leadership
and affective change commitment.

Moderating influences of politics perceptions and personal
change impact

Organizational research indicates that employee attitudes and behaviours are largely
dependent on the social context in which they are embedded (Kuenzi and Schminke,
2009; Rosen et al., 2009). An important aspect of social context is the climate governing
practices, policies and procedures within an organization. These climates can take differ-
ent shapes and affective tones. One such embodiment is the extent of organizational poli-
tics. According to Ferris and Judge (1991), organizational politics include behaviours by
organizational actors that are intended to promote and protect self-interest. A climate of
politics is characterized by behaviours such as forming informal alliances, using power
to influence decision-making, or fostering a personal agenda at the expense of legitimate
organizational goals (Ferris and Judge, 1991; Hochwarter et al., 2003). Past empirical
research has shown that politics perceptions have detrimental effects on employees’ job
satisfaction, commitment, strain and turnover intention (Chang et al., 2009; Miller et al.,
2008). There are preliminary insights that ethical leadership and politics perceptions are
also related constructs (Kacmar et al., 2011, 2013).

We propose that politics perceptions moderate the relationship between ethical leader-
ship and employee silence so that the buffering effect of ethical leadership is disrupted by
high levels and enhanced by low levels of politics perceptions. Organizations character-
ized by self-serving politicking signal to employees that egoistic behaviours (e.g. with-
holding information to protect their own resources or forming informal coalitions) are

Bormann and Rowold 231

encouraged and required for success at work. In such a context, promoting altruistic
behaviours through ethical leadership appears less promising as a means of making
employees speak up as compared to a context where politics are less apparent. Accordingly,
politicking represents an extraneous cognitive demand that impairs the information-
processing act of perceiving leadership (Maurer and Lord, 1991). An environment with
political activity blurs the perceived performance–reward relationship, effectively ques-
tioning the fairness and appropriateness of decision making, which in turn may signal to
employees that management and ethical leaders in particular are not offering proper
levels of guidance (Hochwarter et al., 1999). Ethical leaders may emerge in such a con-
text. However, their potential to reinforce ethical behaviour of followers is likely to be at
least partly overruled by informal structures favouring self-serving and pondering think-
ing. Alternatively, if a working context is characterized by low levels of politics percep-
tions, the opportunity for ethical leaders to influence followers is much more favourable
and less challenging. In sum, we propose the following moderating hypothesis:

Hypothesis 2: The indirect effect of ethical leadership on affective change commitment through
reducing employee silence (2a: acquiescent silence; 2b: quiescent silence; 2c: prosocial silence;
2d: opportunistic silence) is moderated by politics perceptions so that the relationship between
ethical leadership and employee silence is weaker when politics perceptions are high, attenuating
the indirect effect.

In environments with high levels of politics perceptions, ethical leaders are unlikely
to promote employees’ affective change commitment through reducing silence motives,
as followers are less amenable to altruistic leader behaviours. Ethical leadership should
be more promising in situations with low levels of politics. However, we argue that this
effect is also contingent on the impact the change initiative has on the individual. More
precisely, we expect that the impact of the change on the individual’s job (Fedor et al.,
2006; Herold et al., 2008) moderates the second stage of our mediation relationship
between ethical leadership, employee silence and ACC so that the relationship between
silence and ACC is weaker when the impact of change is high. We expect silence to
reduce emotional commitment to change initiatives. When an individual is highly
impacted by change he or she faces major challenges (a) to accept the loss of estab-
lished routines and resources that shaped an individual’s social identity, and (b) to
adjust to a new and uncertain environment. In such instances, an individual is focused
on coping with these challenges (Oreg, 2003) and is less capable and less likely to
assist the change by breaking silence on critical matters. In other words, coping with
high-impact change ties available psychological resources and superimposes other
work-related motivational cues such as self-protective, prosocial or self-serving
motives. In line with this rationale, Fedor et al. (2006) showed that employees were
most committed to high levels of change, which they viewed as valuable, only when
the implications for their own jobs were low. In a similar vein, despite the fact that
alternative leadership styles are concerned, the results from Herold et al. (2008) indi-
cate that the significant positive main effects of transformational and change leader-
ship tend to wane when the level of individual change impact increases. Therefore, we
hypothesize the following:

232 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

Hypothesis 3: The magnitude of the indirect effect of ethical leadership on affective change
commitment through reducing employee silence varies by politics perceptions (stage 1) and
change impact for the individual (stage 2) so that the indirect effect is (a) weaker when politics
perceptions are high regardless of the degree of change impact, (b) weaker when politics
perceptions are low and change impact is high, and (c) stronger when both moderators are low.

Method

Participants and procedure

Data for this study were obtained from employees from different organizations in
Germany. Respondents were contacted via email and informed about the research
project. As it was our goal to investigate the leadership process during organizational
change, a prerequisite for respondents to participate was the occurrence of a change
initiative at the time of the enquiry or shortly beforehand. To reduce common method
bias (Podsakoff et al., 2012), the survey was carried out in two waves. In the first
wave, respondents rated their line manager’s leadership behaviour. About two weeks
after the first survey, participants were again contacted and asked to answer a second
questionnaire. This questionnaire covered questions regarding perception of politics,
silence motives, nature of organizational changes, respondents’ affective commitment
to those initiatives and the control variable of cynicism. Responses to both question-
naires were matched using an individualized coding scheme.

The final sample consisted of 263 respondents. Fifty percent of the respondents were
male and the average age was 32 years (SD = 12). The respondents mainly worked in
profit-orientated (73%) organizations. Out of the rated leaders, 73% were male. Nineteen
percent belonged to lower-level management, 43% to middle-, and 38% to upper-level
management. On average the respondents had worked for their immediate leader for
three years (SD = 2), and the majority of respondents (53.1%) spent less than six hours
per week in direct contact with this leader. Reported changes referred to organizational
restructuring (e.g. new team or organizational structure), work processes (e.g. new rou-
tines or clients) and technological advances (e.g. new software).

Measures

Ethical leadership. Ethical leadership was captured using Brown and colleagues’ ethical
leadership scale (ELS) (2005) in its German validated version by Rowold and colleagues
(2009). The scale comprises nine items to be answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A sample item is ‘The leader I
rate listens to what employees have to say’.

Employee silence. For the assessment of the four different silence motives, we used Knoll
and van Dick’s (2013) measure. Each motive of employee silence was captured using
three items (sample item for acquiescent silence: ‘I remained silent at work because
nothing will change anyway’; quiescent silence: ‘I remained silent at work because of
fear of negative consequences’; prosocial silence: ‘I remained silent at work because I do
not want others to get into trouble’; opportunistic silence: ‘I remained silent at work so

Bormann and Rowold 233

as not to give away my knowledge advantage’). A 7-point Likert-type scale was used
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Affective change commitment. ACC was measured using six items from Herscovitch
and Meyer (2002) in a German version that had been used in previous studies (e.g.
Abrell-Vogel and Rowold, 2014). Sample items included ‘I believe in the value of the
change’ or ‘This change serves an important purpose’. The questionnaire was answered
on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Perceptions of politics. We assessed politics perceptions using a six-item scale developed
by Hochwarter et al. (2003) in a German translation, which was carried out using the
translation–back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1980). Sample items were ‘There is a lot
of self-serving behaviour going on’ and ‘People are working behind the scenes to ensure
that they get their piece of the pie’. A 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) was applied.

Change impact. We captured the impact of change on the individual with a single item
measure based on work by Herold et al. (2008) and Caldwell et al., (2004). Specifically,
we asked employees how the change initiative influenced their daily working routines.
The answering scheme ranged from 1 (not affected at all) to 5 (very strongly affected).

Controls. We controlled for the effects of transformational and transactional leadership
(measured in wave 1), as well as employee cynicism (measured in wave 2) on all mediat-
ing and dependent variables, to rule out an alternative explanation for the results (Bernerth
and Aguinis, 2016). Past research linking transformational and transactional leadership
to change-related attitudes suggests that heightened levels of ACC might also be due to
leaders inspiring followers through a compelling future vision (Abrell-Vogel and Rowold,
2014) or not relying on a contingent reward approach that cannot be maintained through
change (Conway and Monks, 2008). Additionally, both leadership styles have been noted
to show overlaps with ethical leadership (Brown and Trevino, 2006). We measured these
leadership styles using the 26-item Transformational Leadership Inventory (Podsakoff
et al., 1990) in its German validated version (Heinitz and Rowold, 2007; Krüger et al.,
2011) on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly
agree). In addition, we also controlled for effects of employee cynicism on the silence
motives and ACC. As change disrupts job routines and inevitably entails uncertainty and
fear of loss, members of an organization often react sceptically and cynically to given
change initiatives (Reichers et al., 1997). As a result, especially low levels of silence and
ACC might be explained by higher levels of cynicism. Cynicism was captured with
seven items developed by Cole et al. (2006) to be answered on a 7-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

Analytical procedure

Our hypothesized model of moderated mediation was tested using Haye’s SPSS macro
PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). We estimated the direct effects of ethical leadership on the

234 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

different silence motives and on ACC, the direct effects of the silence motives on ACC,
the indirect effects of ethical leadership on ACC, as well as the interaction effects regard-
ing the two moderators. To account for the influence of our control variables, we simul-
taneously estimated the effects of transformational leadership, transactional leadership
and cynicism on the silences motives and on ACC. In order to avoid biasing effects
resulting from multicolinearity when examining interaction effects, we standardized all
predicting variables prior to entering them into our model (Cohen et al., 2003).

Results

Factor structure, descriptive statistics and reliability

Prior to testing our hypotheses, we conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) to
determine the distinctiveness of our measures. Our target model consisted of 10 factors
(ethical leadership, four silence variables, ACC, politics perceptions, and the control
variables of transactional and transformational leadership as well as employee cynicism)
with all items loading on the intended factor. To reduce the number of items in our model
as regards transformational leadership, we first built the six facets according to Podsakoff
et al. (1990) and used them as indicators of the higher-order construct. With regard to
generally accepted cut-off values for model fit (Hu and Bentler, 1999), the CFA revealed
a satisfactory fit of our model (χ² = 2,130.34, p < .01; df = 1,083; Δχ² = 4,117.87, p < .01; Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) = 36,234.07; ΔAIC = 4,029.57; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .05, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .07) and superior fit compared to the baseline model where all items loaded on a single factor (χ² = 6,248.21, p < .01; df = 1,127; AIC = 40,263.64; RMSEA = .13, SRMR = .16).

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, bivariate correlations and reliability
scores for the variables studied.

Hypotheses test

All direct and indirect effects are depicted in Tables 2 and 3 respectively. As posited in
Hypothesis 1, ethical leadership was positively related to ACC through the mediating
effect of reducing employees’ silence. However, ethical leadership was only significantly
related to acquiescent silence (β = −.21, p < .05). Acquiescent silence was also signifi- cantly related to ACC (β = −.39, p < .01). Accordingly, the indirect effect of ethical leadership through acquiescent silence on ACC was significant and in the intended direc- tion (estimate = .09, p < .01). As ethical leadership did not significantly predict the three remaining silence motives, none of the remaining indirect effects was significant. In sum, only Hypothesis 1a could be supported. As ethical leadership still had a significant effect on ACC (β = .23, p < .01) in the presence of the four silence motives, our results indicate partial mediation.

In Hypothesis 2, we expected politics perceptions to moderate stage 1 of the media-
tion between ethical leadership, employee silence and ACC. As shown in Table 2, the
interaction between ethical leadership and politics perceptions on acquiescent silence

Bormann and Rowold 235

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236 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

was significant (β = .14, p < .01). We plotted the interaction and conducted simple slope analyses to interpret the effect. As indicated in Figure 2, ethical leadership had a negative relationship with acquiescent silence only when perceptions of politics were low (β = −.34, p < .01); the effect was insignificant when perceptions of politics were high (β = −.07, ns). None of the interaction effects regarding the three remaining silence motives was significant, leading to the rejection of Hypotheses 2b–2d. Our moderated mediation analyses (see Table 3) revealed that the indirect effect of ethical leadership on ACC through acquiescent silence was positive and significant when per- ceptions of politics were low (–1 SD; estimate = .14, p < .01). The indirect effect was no longer significant when perceptions of politics were high (+1 SD; estimate = .03, ns). Therefore, Hypothesis 2a was supported.

Hypothesis 3 proposed that the indirect effect of ethical leadership on ACC through
employee silence is dependent on both politics perceptions (stage 1) and personal
change impact (stage 2). We first tested whether change impact moderated the silence–
ACC relationship. As shown in Table 2, the interaction between acquiescent silence
and change impact was marginally significant (β = .13, p = .06). The interaction is
plotted in Figure 3. As expected, the negative relationship between acquiescent
silence and ACC was stronger when change impact was low (β = −.52, p < .01) as

Table 2. Bootstrapping results.

AS QS PS OS ACC

Controls
Cynicism .25** .09 .02 .25** −.04
Transformational

leadership
−.08 .12 −.04 .10 −.16

Transactional leadership −.02 −.08 −.06 .01 −.07
Politics perceptions (PP) .11 .28** .12 .20*
Change impact (CI) .04
Independent variable
Ethical leadership (EL) −.21* −.08 .10 −.07 .23**
Mediators
Acquiescent silence (AS) −.39**
Quiescent silence (QS) .04
Prosocial silence (PS) −.09
Opportunistic silence (OS) .07
Moderators
EL x PP .14** −.05 .00 .06
AS x CI .13†

QS x CI −.15*
PS x CI −.06
OS x CI .09
R² .26 .13 .02 .16 .22

N = 263; ACC: affective change commitment; SD: standard deviation.
**p < .01; *p < .05; †p < .10; two-tailed tests of significance.

Bormann and Rowold 237

opposed to high (β = −.27, p < .01).1 Next, we estimated the conditional indirect effect of ethical leadership through acquiescent silence at specific values of the moderators. In line with our argumentation, when politics perceptions were high, the effect of ethical leadership on ACC through reducing acquiescent silence was insignificant at all levels of change impact (–1 SD; estimate = .04, ns; +1 SD; estimate = .02, ns). In contrast, when perceptions of politics were low, the indirect effect was stronger when change impact was low (–1 SD; estimate = .18, p < .01) as opposed to high (+1 SD; estimate = .09, p < .05). Therefore, Hypothesis 3a was supported.

Discussion

Changing environments present some of the most frequent challenges to organizational
success. Accordingly, research is needed to understand how employees’ reactions to
change evolve. This present research addressed this call and examined how ethical
leaders can strengthen employees’ ACC through reducing employee silence, and how
this process is influenced by politics perceptions and change impact on the individual.
Our results revealed that ethical leadership reduced employees’ motives to remain
silent because of feelings of resignation, which, in turn, predicted ACC. However, we
also revealed important boundaries of this effect. As politics perceptions increased,
the effect diminished. Even when politics perceptions were low, high levels of change
impact on the individual reduced the magnitude of the indirect effect of ethical leader-
ship on ACC.

Table 3. Bootstrap analyses of the conditional indirect effects of ethical leadership on affective
change commitment.

Indirect effects through Acquiescent Silence

PE SE CaL95 CaU95

Unconditional
indirect effects

.09** .04 .01 .17

Low PP (–1 SD) .14** .05 .05 .26
Medium PP .08** .04 .02 .19
High PP (+1 SD) .03 .04 −.04 .13
Low PP (–1 SD)
Low CI (–1 SD) .18** .07 .07 .34
Medium CI .14** .05 .06 .26
High CI (+1 SD) .09* .05 .02 .23
High PP (+1 SD)
Low CI (–1 SD) .04 .05 −.08 .15
Medium CI .03 .04 −.06 .12
High CI (+1 SD) .02 .03 −.03 .11

PP: politics perceptions; CI: change impact; PE: point estimate; SE: standard error; CaL95: 95% confidence
interval lower limit; CaU95: 95% confidence interval upper limit.
**p < .01, *p < .05; two-tailed tests of significance.

238 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

Implications for organizational literature

This study provides important insights into the beneficial impact of ethical leadership
during organizational change. To our knowledge, this is only the second study to inves-
tigate ethical leadership impact in a change context. While Sharif and Scandura (2014)
showed that employees’ job satisfaction, OCB and performance can be furthered

Figure 2. Interaction effect of ethical leadership and politics perceptions on acquiescent
silence.
PP: politics perceptions.

Figure 3. Interaction effect of acquiescent silence and change impact on affective commitment
to change (ACC).
CI: change impact.

Bormann and Rowold 239

through exhibiting ethical leadership, we extend findings by incorporating a change-
related outcome in ACC. If leaders display honest, just and caring leadership behav-
iours, they are capable of strengthening followers’ emotional bond with change
initiatives. Our study also reveals important insights into the tenets underlying this pro-
cess. Sharif and Scandura (2014) attributed the beneficial impact to increased trust and
reduced uncertainty. Our results indicate that it is also the reduction of employee silence
due to feelings of resignation that drives the beneficial impact. That ethical leadership
is effective in change also corroborates findings from past research highlighting the role
of perceptions of justice. Several studies, including quasi-experimental approaches,
have established a causal link between fair management practices and employees’ atti-
tudes to change (Oreg and van Dam, 2009). Transferring this justice perspective to the
role of organizational leaders, we have shown that ethical leadership behaviour which
highlights just and balanced decision-making lowers employees’ motives to remain
silent and encourages them to commit to change initiatives. Further strengthening our
proposed role of ethical leadership during change, we also controlled for the related
leadership styles of transformational and transactional leadership. Consequently, ethi-
cal leadership’s beneficial impact came above and beyond the influences of those
related leadership constructs. With this, we address recent calls (Bedi et al., 2015) to
provide empirical evidence to contrast ethical leadership’s effects with those of other
leadership styles (e.g. Brown and Trevino, 2006).

Our analyses revealed that not all four forms of employee silence are equally impor-
tant. More precisely, only acquiescent silence was significantly influenced by ethical
leadership and predicted ACC. The remaining three forms of silence were not correlated
with either independent or dependent variables in our regression models. This demands
some further consideration. Most importantly, we found strong support for the crucial
role of acquiescent silence. When employees work for leaders who show ethical leader-
ship, they are less likely to withhold concerns because of feelings of resignation com-
pared to employees who work for less ethical leaders. We attribute this to experienced
work-related latitude (Piccolo et al., 2010) and fair decision-making (Brown and Trevino,
2006), which suggests that concerns are raised with the leader in the belief that they will
address these issues properly. The negative effect of acquiescent silence on ACC is also
in line with previous findings linking negative affective attitudes with lower levels of
change success (Reichers et al., 1997). Our findings regarding the different motives for
employee silence corroborate those of Knoll and van Dick (2013). In their study, out of
all four silence motives, acquiescent silence was the strongest correlate regarding job
satisfaction, organizational identification and turnover intentions. However, it was still
unexpected that in our study ethical leadership was unrelated to quiescent, prosocial and
opportunistic silence. A possible explanation could be that the effect of ethical leadership
is less proximal and more distal. For instance, with regard to opportunistic silence, we
hypothesized that ethical leaders who set an example of fair and altruistic behaviour
should directly reduce followers’ opportunistic motives for (non-)behaviour via social
learning. While we found no support for this assumption, follower cynicism and percep-
tions of politics did positively predict opportunistic silence. The more the social climate
within a work unit is characterized by cynical thinking and politicking, the more an
individual’s behaviour or non-behaviour is guided by opportunistic motives. As ethical

240 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

leadership was also negatively related to cynicism and politics, it is possible that ethical
leadership negatively impacts opportunistic silence in an indirect manner. In other words,
ethical leadership influences the social context in which followers are embedded (Kuenzi
and Schminke, 2009). They shape team climates of reduced cynicism and politics which,
in turn, trigger individual silence motives. Alternatively, it may be possible that the rela-
tionship between ethical leadership and silence is more conditional and that there are
moderators masking any direct association. Possible avenues following this path will be
discussed in the context of the implications for future research.

There is a growing but still thin body of research on moderators of the ethical leader-
ship–outcome relationship. Our results indicate that with increasing levels of politics
within teams, ethical leaders appear to be losing their grip on their employees. The
reducing effect of ethical leadership on acquiescent silence is absorbed. We attribute this
effect to the self-serving nature of political environments, where employees come to
believe that the altruism an ethical leader demonstrates is not the kind of behaviour to
mimic in terms of achieving goals within an organization. Kacmar et al. (2011) used an
organizational politics perspective to argue why ethical leadership’s effect on OCB
increases with higher levels of politics perceptions. They interpreted OCB as an embodi-
ment of political behaviour serving egoistic goals. Their results confirmed this proposed
effect for men only. Our study had a different approach as we elucidated motives behind
behaviours such as (not) speaking up. Our study, therefore, extends insights into the ethi-
cal leadership–OCB relationship by showing that, when considering motives underlying
(non-)behaviour, effects can be identified for women and men alike.

Another boundary of ethical leadership effects was the impact of changes on the indi-
vidual’s job. Our results indicated that with increasing levels of personal impact of the
change the beneficial effect of ethical leadership on ACC through acquiescent silence
decreased. This echoes past research which argued that organizational members approach
other-induced change initiatives with scepticism and refusal (Meyer and Hamilton, 2013).
A possible explanation is the role of cognitive overloads during change (Maurer and Lord,
1991). Individuals tend to be self-absorbed when coping with these challenges (Oreg
et al., 2011; Reichers et al., 1997) and therefore may be less amenable to leadership.

Limitations and directions for future research

There are several limitations in our research design with implications for future work.
First of all, we relied on cross-sectional data which prohibits any causal claims to be
made. To strengthen causal claims, researchers are recommended to pursue experimental
approaches to address this limitation in the future. Although we used multiple measure-
ment waves to reduce common method bias, a second limitation is the reliance on
employee ratings only. Thirdly, we gathered data on employees from different organiza-
tions with different forms and magnitudes of change initiatives. Hence, insights into
specific forms of change and their implications for leadership and employee silence
could not be gained. As this limitation also holds for the study of Sharif and Scandura
(2014), future work that examines the impact of ethical leadership during change within
single organizations with specific changes is urgently needed. A fourth limitation refers
to the measurement of the stage 2 moderator of change impact. This aspect was measured

Bormann and Rowold 241

with a single item due to the length of the questionnaire, and the interaction with acqui-
escent silence was only marginally significant. As personal change impact has been
measured on multi-item scales in the past (Caldwell et al., 2004; Herold et al., 2008), we
encourage researchers to replicate our interaction effect using validated measures.

Based on our results, we confirmed partial mediation regarding ethical leadership,
employee silence and ACC, meaning that there are other mechanisms whereby ethical
leadership fosters ACC. Future work could investigate mediating variables apart from
employee silence. For instance, Sharif and Scandura (2014) proposed enriched trust
and reduced uncertainty as mediating mechanisms, which to date still needs empirical
validation.

With regard to the emerging construct of employee silence, our study also presents
some intriguing avenues for future work. Comparing all four forms of silence, the results
indicated that acquiescent silence is, by a large margin, the most important one. With the
strongest correlations with our remaining focal variables we found similar relational pat-
terns to those of Knoll and van Dick (2013). Considering these results, two different
conclusions can be drawn. On the one hand, acquiescent silence could be the most rele-
vant form of silence to organizations. On the other hand, as more of a methodological
argument, it might simply be the most accessible motive. Confessing feelings of resigna-
tion might be more socially acceptable than betraying highly valued colleagues or reveal-
ing egoistic motives. Here, future work is needed to disentangle methodological from
content-driven arguments. As indicated earlier, the insignificant relationships between
ethical leadership and quiescent, prosocial and opportunistic silence might also be due to
moderators. As our results have shown that cynicism and perception of politics were
related to several forms of silence, it is possible that there are further aspects of the social
context (Rosen et al., 2009) that influence the aforementioned relationships. Climates
with different affective tones such as a focus on idea generation (Ekvall, 1996) or safety
practices (Zohar, 2000) could be tested in upcoming work. Such moderators could also
have been the reason for the insignificant relationships between affective change com-
mitment and quiescent, prosocial, as well as opportunistic silence. Alternatively, other
change-related criteria – possibly with a stronger focus on supportive behaviours
(Bouckenooghe, Schwarz and Minbashian, 2014) – could be applied in future work to
further examine the role of silence in change contexts.

Lastly, the role of organizational leadership could be examined further. For instance,
shared (Pearce et al., 2010) or instrumental (Rowold, 2014) leadership could be tested as
predictors for employee silence. Shared leadership highlights the emergence of informal
leaders among peers without formal leadership responsibilities. It is potentially fruitful
as its informal and team-bound nature should foster a team climate of mutual trust, which
lowers perceived barriers to raising voice on critical matters. Alternatively, instrumental
leadership captures contents of strategic leadership and work facilitation. Especially the
latter aspect, which builds on classic path–goal leadership theory, could be relevant to
silence. One the one hand, if leaders point out to followers what needs to be done to
achieve given goals and what each individual’s responsibilities are, a climate of obliga-
tion to raise voice on critical matters could develop. On the other hand, with its strong
focus on task orientation, close or intimate leader–follower relationships are less likely
to evolve, which could bolster opportunistic and reduce prosocial motives.

242 German Journal of Human Resource Management 30(3-4)

Implications for practitioners

As organizational change poses a major challenge to today’s corporate world, organiza-
tions are in need of dedicated and committed employees. Ethical leadership has been
shown in this study to be a crucial driver for change success. Accordingly, organizations
should be eager to further the display of ethical leadership among leaders. One way of
doing this could be a stronger focus on ethical leadership during leader selection processes.
For instance, the potential for ethical leadership could be assessed in the course of assess-
ment centres where ethical challenges could be simulated in role play, job interviews or
case studies. It is important that organizations also foster the development of current lead-
ers. Ethical leadership could be the topic of leadership training. Past research on the train-
ability of leadership behaviours showed promising results (Abrell et al., 2011). As our
analyses have revealed, ethical leadership had a unique impact above and beyond the
effects of transformational and transactional leadership, and training programmes need to
be developed that focus explicitly on the display of ethical leadership behaviours.

Another way of getting employees committed to change initiatives is by reducing
their incentives to remain silent because of feelings of resignation. While this study has
shown that ethical leadership is one way of achieving reduced acquiescent silence, there
may be other possible approaches. Organizations should have an incentive to establish
structures that ensure appropriate and transparent communication of decisions. In this
way, employees should have a better understanding for the higher-order reasons for cer-
tain possibly unpleasant decisions and their consequences. Possessing that knowledge
should then lead to reduced cynicism, which was also positively related to acquiescent
silence in this study. Preventing employees from remaining silent because of feelings of
resignation should also come from an organizational culture that is characterized by trust
and appreciation. When employees experience that raising their voice regarding critical
issues is valued highly by management and does indeed lead to positive changes within
task structures, there should be much less incentive for acquiescent silence, and vice
versa: A management’s inability to appreciate and take advantage of employees’ input
fosters a culture of mistrust and resignation.

Note

1. We also found a significant interaction effect regarding quiescent silence and change concern
(see Table 2; β = −.15, p < .05). However, as Hypothesis 3b proposed an indirect effect of ethical leadership through quiescent silence on ACC, and as neither the direct effect of ethical leadership on quiescent silence nor the indirect effect on ACC through quiescent silence was significant, we decided not to include the plot in this article.

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