A Dual-Path Model of Ethical Leadership’s Influence on Civil Servants’ Discretionary Work Behavior: Probing the Social Learning and Social Exchange Processes

Abstract

The study of ethical leadership has emerged as an important topic for understanding the effects of leadership in the public sector. Existing literature finds that ethical leadership can significantly affect the desirable outcomes of subordinates, but most scholars only research from a single theoretical perspective of social learning or social exchange. In addition, the boundary conditions of the downward effects of ethical leadership have not been fully studied, and there is still a lack of clear theoretical explanations for why ethical leadership cannot effectively affect employee behaviors. This research examines the mechanisms and boundary conditions of ethical leadership influencing civil servants’ discretionary work behaviors. A total of 256 civil servants have participated in this study. Results revealed that ethical leadership can indirectly affect civil servants’ helping behavior and extra effort behavior through moral efficacy, and can also indirectly affect civil servants’ extra effort behavior through felt obligation. Social distance weakened the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy, while power distance strengthened the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation. These findings broaden ethical leadership research in the public sector by differentiating the processes through which it affects civil servants’ discretionary work behaviors.

Keywords

civil servants ethical leadership helping behavior extra effort behavior

Introduction

Public administration scholars have increasingly emphasized the importance of ethical leadership in the management of public-sector organizations (Hassan et al., 2014; Moon & Jung, 2018; Potipiroon & Faerman, 2016). Ethical leadership refers to “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision-making” (Brown et al., 2005, p. 120). Through the adoption of such values as honesty, integrity, fairness, and holding employees accountable for ethical conduct (Brown et al., 2005; Den Hartog, 2015), ethical leaders in the public sector have been shown to reduce unethical behavior (e.g., Bashir & Hassan, 2020; Belle & Cantarelli, 2019; Kim, 2021; Miao et al., 2013; Young et al., 2019), and absenteeism (e.g., Hassan et al., 2014) while also enhancing organizational commitment (e.g., Potipiroon & Ford, 2017; Qing et al., 2019), work engagement (e.g., Lu & Guy, 2014; Mostafa & El-Motalib, 2020), and voice (e.g., Hassan, 2015; Hassan et al., 2014; Wright et al., 2016).

This research aims to examine the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ discretionary work behavior, which refers to those that go beyond formal job descriptions and are not recognized by the formal reward system (Resick et al., 2013). Two forms of discretionary work behaviors are the focus of this study, namely, helping and extra effort. Helping refers to those interpersonal altruistic behaviors intended to provide task-related support and assistance to coworkers (Kalshoven et al., 2013; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998), whereas extra effort is centered on “going above and beyond” at work, such as taking the initiative to solve problems, persevering in the face of adversity, and volunteering to complete extra tasks (Eisenbeiss & van Knippenberg, 2015; Macey & Schneider, 2008). Discretionary work behaviors are important especially for public management, considering the advantages of improving efficiency and achieving greater organizational responsiveness (de Geus et al., 2020; Ingrams, 2020). These behaviors could serve to fill in the gaps that conventional bureaucratic systems cannot cover due to limited resources and cumbersome administrative procedures (Shim & Faerman, 2015).

Although a plethora of previous research has already examined the influence of ethical leadership on employees’ discretionary work behaviors (for reviews, see Bedi et al., 2016; Den Hartog, 2015), the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear (Moore et al., 2019). Most previous studies suggest that ethical leaders influence these outcomes through the social learning process (e.g., Bai et al., 2017; Z. Wang et al., 2021), that is, followers will come to behave similarly to their leader through imitation and observational learning. Other studies suggest that ethical leaders influence these outcomes through social exchange by followers who will reciprocate when treated ethically by leaders (e.g., Hansen et al., 2013; Hassan et al., 2014). In this study, we aim to integrate both theoretical perspectives by examining the mediating roles of moral efficacy and felt obligation. Moral efficacy refers to employees’ belief in their ability to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action necessary to execute ethical behavior (Hannah & Avolio, 2010), while felt obligation refers to a prescriptive belief elicited by the reciprocity principle that benefits received from the exchange partner should be returned (Eisenberger et al., 2001).

Furthermore, this study also aims to shed light on the boundary conditions that govern both psychological processes. Ethical leadership is by nature a social influencing process whose effectiveness depends on how close or distant the leaders and the followers are (Anand et al., 2018). People are more likely to internalize the values and model the behaviors of those whom they perceive to be socially close to them (Liao et al., 2014), thus making social distance an important boundary condition to understand the social learning process of ethical leadership. This study posits that under higher social distance, ethical leadership should lead to lower moral efficacy because social distance amplifies perceived differences with ethical leaders and prevents social learning. Power distance reflects the degree to which individuals accept power asymmetry in societal institutions or organizations (Dorfman & Howell, 1988), which determines how employees perceive and react to authority (Javidan et al., 2006). For one thing, employees with high power distance are more likely to perceive leaders’ ethical treatment as additional benefits that go beyond the norms of interaction according to the hierarchical order and hence generate a stronger obligation to repay. For another, employees with high power distance tend to obey the leaders (Loi et al., 2012; Q. Wang et al., 2020), resulting in less impact of ethical leadership on their felt obligation. Given these opposing arguments, we generate and test competing hypotheses for the moderating effect of power distance.

Overall, this study makes three main theoretical contributions to the literature. First, by integrating social learning and social exchange theories, the investigation examines the underlying psychological mechanisms that drive two distinct pathways (i.e., moral efficacy and felt obligation), expanding the single theoretical perspective of previous ethical leadership studies. Second, by testing the moderating roles of social distance and power distance, this study further reveals how the distance perception differences amplify (or attenuate) the role modeling and dynamic exchange effects of ethical leadership. In doing so, it offers a more dialectical and comprehensive perspective for understanding the effectiveness of ethical leadership. Finally, this study was conducted in the public sector in China. Chinese civil service management is embedded in a social environment and administrative system characterized by authority (e.g., high power distance) and guanxi, which may have different effects on psychology, behavior, and interactions with Chinese public-sector employees. Thus, the findings contribute to an enriched understanding of ethical leadership in the Chinese public sector.

Theory and Hypothesis

Ethical Leadership and Discretionary Work Behaviors

Treviño et al. (2000) conceptualized ethical leadership both in terms of the moral person and a moral manager. As moral persons, ethical leaders are evaluated by followers as “normatively appropriate and altruistic motivated,” they are fair, principled, and genuinely concerned for employees and the broader society (Brown et al., 2005). These moral traits and behaviors make ethical leaders attractive and credible role models and guide their followers in the right way. As moral managers, ethical leaders make ethics an explicit part of their leadership agenda by communicating, proactively modeling, as well as using the reward system to encourage employee moral behaviors. Such explicit behaviors help ethical leaders to direct employees’ attention to ethics and infuse the organization with principles that guide ethical actions. Because of these features, considerable evidence suggests that ethical leadership has been linked to employees’ discretionary work behavior (for review, see Den Hartog, 2015).

Researchers mainly investigate the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinates’ discretionary work behaviors from two theoretical perspectives: social learning and social exchange (Bedi et al., 2016). According to social learning theory (Bandura, 1977), ethical leaders serve as credible role models for subordinates to observe and imitate, and subordinates exhibit similar moral attitudes and behaviors as their leader through the process of imitation and learning (e.g., Bai et al., 2017; Z. Wang et al., 2021). Based on social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), when subordinates perceive that ethical leaders have treated them positively, they are more likely to reciprocate by treating their leaders favorably in return (e.g., Hansen et al., 2013; Hassan et al., 2014).

Prior research has approved the important roles of both social learning theory and social exchange theory in explaining the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinate outcomes. However, researchers tend to choose only one theory in isolation to explain how ethical leadership affects subordinates’ behaviors. Only one exception investigated both theories (Walumbwa & Hartnell, 2011), yet it has not examined distinct explanatory pathways for social learning and social exchange mechanisms. This raises a question: Are the effects of these two mechanisms equivalent? In other words, it is unclear whether employees’ discretionary work behaviors associated with ethical leadership are a result of one or both of these processes. To gain a more nuanced understanding of the effects of how ethical leadership impacts discretionary work behaviors, this study will simultaneously examine both social learning and social exchange processes in the following sections.

Moral Efficacy as a Mediator

Moral efficacy refers to individuals’ confidence in their ability to execute ethical behaviors (Hannah & Avolio, 2010). Previous research has considered moral efficacy as a state-like that is influenced by external sources and could play an essential role in driving intention and behavior (Hannah & Avolio, 2010; Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998). Social learning theory notes that participant modeling plays a key role among the external factors that induce a sense of efficacy (Bandura, 1977). Given the role modeling function of ethical leadership in many ethical practices, ethical leadership would be a significant source of influencing the development of employees’ sense of moral efficacy.

According to Bandura’s (1977) identified sources of individual efficacy (i.e., performance accomplishments, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal), ethical leadership will promote employee moral efficacy in the following ways. First, ethical leaders create an environment that encourages employees to participate in ethical practices, communicate actively about ethical information, and give constructive feedback. By doing this, ethical leaders help subordinates reach their full potential in morally relevant areas and gain achievement experience. Second, according to social learning theory, employees usually obtain important information and guidance by observing ethical leaders as role models (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Brown et al., 2005). Through intentional displays of ethical behaviors, ethical leaders also provide employees with indirect learning opportunities (Treviño et al., 2000). In addition, ethical leaders express admiration and encouragement for the moral qualities of their employees, highlighting their moral strengths and confirming their abilities. This form of verbal persuasion promotes confidence by increasing the means of efficacy (Hannah & Avolio, 2010). Finally, evidence suggests that since ethical leadership emphasizes the process rather than the outcome, it reduces employees’ anxiety and stress about their work and provides them the confidence to act through emotional arousal (Walumbwa et al., 2011; Z. Wang et al., 2016).

According to previous studies, moral efficacy could increase one’s motivation to act ethically (Hannah & Avolio, 2010). Employees with high specific efficacy are more likely to act in ways that support their specific efficacy beliefs (Owens et al., 2019; Parker et al., 2010). Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed where employees are more likely to participate in helping behaviors and extra effort behaviors when they feel confident about their capacity to engage in ethically relevant behaviors.

Hypothesis 1: Ethical leadership has a positive indirect effect on (a) helping behavior and (b) extra effort behavior through moral efficacy.

Felt Obligation as a Mediator

Felt obligation refers to individuals’ beliefs that they are responsible for returning the benefits they receive from their exchange partner (Eisenberger et al., 2001). The principles of fairness and reciprocity in social exchange explain the psychological processes by which individuals develop such beliefs (Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960). Given that the guidance and related psychological support provided by ethical leaders is often perceived by employees as a “benefit” (Ogunfowora et al., 2021), we predicted that ethical leaders would motivate subordinates’ sense of reciprocal obligation.

According to the core principles of social exchange, this influence process is analyzed from both normative and instrumental aspects. Research indicates that ethical leaders are honest and respectful in their interaction with employees (Brown et al., 2005), they value the interests of employees, keep commitment (Brown & Treviño, 2006), engage in open communication, and provide moral guidance to subordinates (Avey et al., 2012). As a result of the ethical leader’s initiative to contribute resources, subordinates normally view this interaction as a positively imbalanced social exchange. The reciprocity normative reasons argue that this positive imbalance exchange condition evokes indebtedness whereby employees feel a strong obligation to return leadership favors (Emerson, 1976; Gouldner, 1960). Furthermore, ethical leadership behaviors are universally seen as trustworthy, and employees are more likely to develop long-term oriented social exchange relationships with such leaders (Hansen et al., 2013). Instrumental considerations for long-term relationship orientation may also contribute to employees’ sense of obligation to reciprocate. Social exchange emphasizes an interdependent bidirectional pattern in which rewards may enhance future benefits of interactions with ethical leaders (Bernerth et al., 2007; Liden et al., 1997). Therefore, in order to maintain this long-term exchange relationship, employees develop a sense of reciprocal obligation.

Studies have shown that when employees hold this obligation, they are motivated to act (Ogunfowora et al., 2021). On the one hand, felt obligation drives employees to behave in ways that are consistent with the ethical principles exhibited by ethical leaders, such as helping behavior and altruism in interpersonal interactions. Previous research has demonstrated that this reciprocity is particularly likely in the context of ethical leadership, with employees treated pro-socially in high-quality exchange relationships acting in more interpersonal helping (Brown et al., 2005). On the other hand, felt obligation also motivates employees to act in ways that benefit the organization, and they tend to devote more time and effort than is required by the organization. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 2: Ethical leadership has a positive indirect effect on (a) helping behavior and (b) extra effort behavior through felt obligation.

Social Distance as a Moderator

Social distance, as a type of psychological distance (Napier & Ferris, 1993), captures the closeness of an employee’s relationship with their leaders (Park, 1924). The greater the perceived closeness between followers and their leaders, the more likely they are to incorporate the leader’s principles into their own self-concept (Liao et al., 2014). This self-construction process is an important prerequisite for social learning, and it is the cognitive basis for role model construction (Bandura, 1977). Therefore, social distance could be predicted to moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy.

In social learning theory, a role model is defined as a “cognitive construction based on the attributes of people in social roles an individual perceives to be similar to him or herself to some extent and desires to increase perceived similarity by emulating those attributes” (Gibson, 2004, p. 136). The leadership distance literature suggests that social distance provides dynamic information about perception of closeness and attractiveness (Segall et al., 1990). Specifically, when employees perceive lower social distance (or high psychological proximity), they reinforce similarities with ethical leaders and tend to use them as a significant reference for self-definition. Furthermore, psychological proximity influences individual ethical judgment by enhancing moral intensity (Tumasjan et al., 2010). Employees, who feel social closeness to the ethical leader, tend to further infer and interpret the moral implications of the leader’s behavior, store it in retrievable memory, and draw motivation to replicate the behavior in the future (Manz & Sims, 1981). In contrast, when the social distance between subordinates and leaders is high, leadership morality may not resonate with employees, and employees become less likely to view leaders as role models. In sum, those with lower social distance could benefit more from the ethical leader in the learning process, leading to increased moral efficacy, with downstream implications for discretionary work behaviors. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 3: The positive indirect effect of ethical leadership on (a) helping behavior and (b) extra effort behavior through moral efficacy is negatively moderated by social distance, such that the relationship is stronger when social distance is low than when it is high.

Power Distance as a Moderator

At the individual level, power distance reflects differences in the extent to which an individual accepts the unequal distribution of power in institutions and organizations (Farh et al., 2007). Individuals with high power distance respect, defer to, and trust authority (Z. X. Chen & Aryee, 2007), whereas one with low power distance believes in equal rights for everyone (Earley & Gibson, 1998). Such beliefs relating to authority, status, and equality render power distance an important factor affecting how people perceive and react to leaders’ behavior (Kirkman et al., 2009; Loi et al., 2012), and set the tone for reciprocity in the dyadic relationship (Anand et al., 2018). Thus, although ethical leadership triggers employees’ discretionary work behaviors through a sense of reciprocal obligation, such active response varies across employee power distance.

Individuals with high power distance view authorities as superior and elite and identify more with the power differential between subordinate and leadership positions (Kirkman et al., 2009). They are more likely to be acutely aware of a leader’s behavior beyond the norms of interaction, as they commonly perceive that interactions with authority are strictly according to the hierarchical social order (Bochner & Hesketh, 1994; House et al., 2004). A similar logic suggests that abusive supervisory treatment is more consistent with high power distance employees’ perceptions of the relations between superiors and subordinates (Lian et al., 2012; Tyler et al., 2000). Therefore, when high-powered distance employees perceive ethical treatment by leaders as an added benefit (Du et al., 2022), they are more likely to feel indebted and engender a stronger need to reciprocate their leaders. For those with lower power distance, the leader’s authority is weakened, and they are more likely to perceive the leader as an equal, who should be fair and whose communication with subordinates is a two-way street. Based on the reciprocity principle, employees are less likely to feel obligated to respond when the leader’s ethical treatment is not seen as a form of benefit (Tyler et al., 2000).

However, there also exists a perspective that employees at high power distance tend to be submissive and obedient leaders (Farh et al., 2007; J. Gu et al., 2018). Therefore, whether the leader demonstrates ethics and fairness is not that important to them (Fan et al., 2021; Loi et al., 2012; Q. Wang et al., 2020). In contrast, ethical leadership is more beneficial for low power distance employees to develop social exchange relationships because they are more sensitive to whether the leader is fair or not (Liu et al., 2013). These opposing logical arguments lead us to formulate competing alternative hypotheses:

Hypothesis 4: The positive indirect effect of ethical leadership on (a) helping behavior and (b) extra effort behavior through felt obligation is positively moderated by power distance, such that the relationship is stronger when power distance is high than when it is low.

Hypothesis 5: The positive indirect effect of ethical leadership on (a) helping behavior and (b) extra effort behavior through felt obligation is negatively moderated by power distance, such that the relationship is weaker when power distance is high than when it is low.

Method

Sample and Procedures

Participants for this study consisted of civil servants from eight public-sector organizations in four cities in central China, including four local governments (governments of four cities), two finance bureaus (responsible for fiscal management of local revenues and expenditures), and two education bureaus (responsible for formulating and implementing local education policies). The personnel departments of these public-sector organizations were contacted through a personal network of Master of Public Administration (MPA) alumni from a top-tier university in central China to help recruit participants in the study. Notably, all of those public-sector organizations are affiliated with the Chinese administrative system, are led by the Chinese Communist Party, and operate in a highly politicized environment, thus were ideal for us. During the data collection process, two researchers visited these public-sector organizations to distribute and collect paper and pen questionnaires. Participants were informed of the purpose of the study and ensured that their responses would be anonymous and confidential.

To detect a small effect (ΔR² = .02) at an error probability of 0.05, two-tailed, with a power of 0.80, G*Power (Faul et al., 2009) indicated that the required sample size was N = 395. Therefore, we invited 400 civil servants to participate in our study. At Time 1, we asked participants to fill out questionnaires about their ethical leadership, social distance, power distance, and demographic information. A total of 374 responses were received, which made a response rate of 93.50%. One month later, at Time 2, all civil servants who completed the first questionnaire were invited to complete questions about their felt obligation, moral efficacy, helping behavior, and extra effort behavior. A total of 281 responses were received, yielding a response rate of 75.13%. After removing participants who failed an attention check or completed the survey in an unrealistically short or long time, we got 256 valid questionnaires. Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Across the entire sample, 56.6% were female, and 252 of those had a college degree. The average age of the participants was 30 (M = 30.52; SD = 6.82). On average, the civil servants had been working for their current supervisor for three years (M = 3.14; SD = 4.00) and for their organization for nearly five years (M = 4.61; SD = 5.62).

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics of Respondents.

Description	Frequency		Composition (%)
Gender
Male	145		56.60
Female	111		43.40
Education
Associate’s degree	6		2.34
Bachelor’s degree	182		71.09
Master’s degree	66		25.78
Doctoral degree	2		0.78
	Min	Max	M	SD
Age (years)	21	56	30.52	6.82
Organization tenure (years)	0	34	4.61	5.62
Co-work tenure (years)	0	31	3.14	4.00

Measure

All the survey materials were translated from English into Chinese following the standard translation and back-translation procedures (Brislin, 1980). Unless otherwise indicated, all items were on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1, “strongly disagree,” to 5, “strongly agree.”

Ethical leadership was assessed with the well-validated 10-item scale of Brown et al. (2005). Example items are “My supervisor makes fair and balanced decisions,” and “My supervisor can be trusted.”

We measured moral efficacy with a three-item scale developed by Owens et al. (2019). The civil servants were asked to rate their moral efficacy on a 7-point response scale ranging from 1, “strongly disagree,” to 7, “strongly agree.” The three items are: “I am confident about my ability to do my job in a way that meets the organization’s ethical standards,” “I am self-assured about my capabilities to perform my work activities in an ethical manner,” and “I have mastered the ethical rules, regulations, and skills necessary for my job.” Felt obligation was measured with a four-item scale developed by Methot et al. (2015). A sample item is “I often feel preoccupied thinking about how much I owe my supervisor for their help.”

The scale for measuring helping behavior was developed by Zhou and George (2001). Participants were asked to respond to four items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1, “strongly disagree,” to 7, “strongly agree.” A sample item is “I willingly share my expertise with my coworkers.” To measure extra effort behavior, we used the scale of Befort and Hattrup (2003), which includes four items and uses a 7-point answer format ranging from 1, “strongly disagree,” to 7, “strongly agree.” A sample item is “I volunteer to complete extra tasks.”

We measured power distance with six items from Dorfman and Howell (1988). Example items are “Subordinates should not express disagreements with their managers.” and “Managers should be able to make the right decisions without consulting with others.” We use a Lee et al.’s (1996) scale to measure social distance. There are five items on the original scale. Given the sensitivity of civil servants, we deleted “Do you mind your supervisor being a citizen in your country?” In addition, harmony is an important ancient Chinese principle as a key concept in ancient Chinese philosophy. Harmony is highly valued in Chinese culture, particularly in the civil service. Consistent with previous research (X. Gu & Tse, 2018), we replaced “mind” with “willing” and performed reverse scoring. A sample item is “Would you willing your supervisor becoming a close friend to you?”

Consistent with previous research, a number of civil servants’ demographic variables were controlled, including age, gender, educational level, organization tenure, and co-work tenure. Age, organization tenure, and co-work tenure are continuous variables, while gender and education are categorical variables. Gender is coded as 0 = female and 1 = male. Education is coded as 1 = Associate’s degree, 2 = Bachelor’s degree, 3 = Master’s degree, and 4 = Doctoral degree.

Analytic Strategy

For hypothesis testing, we used SPSS and its PROCESS macro. To test Hypotheses 1 and 2 (i.e., the mediating effect of moral efficacy and felt obligation), we employed bootstrap-based statistics to calculate the effect estimates and confidence intervals (CI) on which to base statistical inferences. We obtained 95% CIs for these effects by simulating 20,000 replications. To reduce potential multicollinearity (Aiken & West, 1991), the independent variable (i.e., ethical leadership) and moderators (i.e., social distance and power distance) were grand-mean centered (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998). We tested the conditional effects of ethical leadership on moral efficacy and felt obligation at high (+1 SD) and low (–1 SD) levels of social distance and power distance, respectively. In particular, we plotted the interaction graph and calculated the significance level and CIs for the simple slopes. Finally, we applied Preacher and Hayes’s (2004) suggestion to test the moderated indirect-effect hypotheses, which utilizes the bootstrap method for more reliable estimates. To be specific, we used Model 7 of PROCESS macro with 20,000 bootstrapped samples, which created CIs to test the indirect effects at high (+1 SD) and low (–1 SD) levels of the first-stage moderator.

Results

Validity and Reliability

To examine the construct validity of the variables used in this study, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of a seven-factor hypothesized model composed of ethical leadership, felt obligation, moral efficacy, extra effort behavior, helping behavior, power distance, and social distance. As shown in Table 2, our hypothesized seven-factor model (χ² = 1,033.80, df = 539, RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.91, TLI = 0.90, SRMR = 0.06) exhibited a better fit to the data than the model combining social distance and power distance (∆χ² = 278.77, ∆df = 6, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.85, TLI = 0.84, SRMR = 0.08), the model combining moral efficacy and helping behavior (∆χ² = 299.21, ∆df = 6, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.85, TLI = 0.84, SRMR = 0.06), the model combining felt obligation and extra effort behavior (∆χ² = 375.83, ∆df = 6, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.84, TLI = 0.82, SRMR = 0.09), the model combining moral efficacy and felt obligation (∆χ² = 411.12, ∆df = 6, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.83, TLI = 0.81, SRMR = 0.09), the model combining helping behavior and extra effort behavior (∆χ² = 478.30, ∆df = 6, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.82, TLI = 0.80, SRMR = 0.08), and the single-factor model (∆χ² = 2,918.98, ∆df = 21, RMSEA = 0.15, CFI = 0.35, TLI = 0.31, SRMR = 0.16).

Table 2.

Validity and Reliability of the Reflective Constructs.

Model	χ²	df	RMSEA	CFI	TLI	SRMR
Hypothesized seven-factor model	1,033.80	539	0.06	0.91	0.90	0.06
Alternative six-factor model¹: social distance and power distance combined	1,312.57	545	0.07	0.85	0.84	0.08
Alternative six-factor model²: moral efficacy and helping behavior combined	1,333.01	545	0.08	0.85	0.84	0.06
Alternative six-factor model³: felt obligation and extra effort behavior combined	1,409.63	545	0.08	0.84	0.82	0.09
Alternative six-factor model⁴: moral efficacy and felt obligation combined	1,444.92	545	0.08	0.83	0.81	0.09
Alternative six-factor model⁵: helping behavior and extra effort behavior combined	1,512.10	545	0.08	0.82	0.80	0.08
Alternative single-factor model	3,952.78	560	0.15	0.35	0.31	0.16

Note. RMSEA = root mean square error of approximation; CFI = comparative fit index; TLI = Tucker–Lewis index; SRMR = standardized root mean squared residual.

The exogenous variable item loadings and their reliability and convergent validity are shown in Table 3. The Cronbach’s alpha ranged from 0.74 to 0.92 across all measures, which are all within the acceptable range. In addition, the constructs’ convergent validity was calculated by construct reliability (CR), with all constructs showing over 0.7 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981)—between 0.74 and 0.92—indicating acceptable convergent validity. Except for power distance, other variables’ average variance extracted (AVE) also exceeds the acceptable standard of 0.5 (between 0.53 and 0.79).

Table 3.

Validity and Reliability of the Reflective Constructs.

Constructs	Indicator	Factor	α	CR	AVE
Ethical leadership	Ethical leadership 1	0.79	.92	0.92	0.53
	Ethical leadership 2	0.47
	Ethical leadership 3	0.76
	Ethical leadership 4	0.75
	Ethical leadership 5	0.84
	Ethical leadership 6	0.86
	Ethical leadership 7	0.72
	Ethical leadership 8	0.88
	Ethical leadership 9	0.74
	Ethical leadership 10	0.81
Moral efficacy	Moral efficacy 1	0.93	.92	0.92	0.79
	Moral efficacy 2	0.93
	Moral efficacy 3	0.92
Felt obligation	Felt obligation 1	0.80	.83	0.83	0.56
	Felt obligation 2	0.81
	Felt obligation 3	0.82
	Felt obligation 4	0.84
Helping behavior	Helping behavior 1	0.88	.91	0.91	0.71
	Helping behavior 2	0.90
	Helping behavior 3	0.88
	Helping behavior 4	0.88
Extra effort behavior	Extra effort behavior 1	0.88	.89	0.89	0.68
	Extra effort behavior 2	0.88
	Extra effort behavior 3	0.87
	Extra effort behavior 4	0.86
Social distance	Social distance 1	0.90	.88	0.88	0.65
	Social distance 2	0.85
	Social distance 3	0.85
	Social distance 4	0.82
Power distance	Power distance 1	0.60	.74	0.74	0.33
	Power distance 2	0.61
	Power distance 3	0.76
	Power distance 4	0.66
	Power distance 5	0.70
	Power distance 6	0.64

Note. CR = construct reliability; AVE = average variance extracted.

To satisfy discriminant validity, the square roots of the AVE values should be greater than the correlation coefficient of the construct and the other model constructs (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The square root of the AVE values in Table 4 exceeds the value of the correlations, verifying discriminant validity. Moreover, Table 4 provides the descriptive statistics and correlations among the study variables. As shown in this table, ethical leadership was found to have positive correlations with moral efficacy (r = .33, p < .01), felt obligation (r = .26, p < .01), helping behavior (r = .18, p < .01), and extra effort behavior (r = .13, p < .05). Moral efficacy was positively related to helping behavior (r = .61, p < .01) and extra effort behavior (r = .35, p < .01). Felt obligation was also positively related to extra effort behavior (r = .26, p < .01). These results showed preliminary support for the research hypotheses.

Table 4.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Among the Study Variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1. Age	—
2. Gender	.18**	—
3. Education	−.08	−.03	—
4. Organization tenure	.70**	.09	−.11	—
5. Co-work tenure	.54**	.00	−.18*	.72**	—
6. Ethical leadership	−.01	.11	−.04	.01	−.07	.73
7. Moral efficacy	−.16**	.00	−.02	−.15**	−.10	.33**	.89
8. Felt obligation	−.06	.19*	−.01	−.02	−.07	.26**	.13**	.75
9. Helping behavior	−.05	−.04	−.12	−.04	−.02	.18**	.61**	.01	.84
10. Extra effort behavior	−.08	.05	−.06	−.15*	−.20**	.13*	.35**	.26**	.38**	.82
11. Social distance	.01	−.26**	.07	−.03	−.06	−.38**	−.30**	−.36**	−.23**	−.22**	.81
12. Power distance	.13*	.10	.01	.12	.12	−.01	−.06	.12*	−.15*	−.08	.03	.57
M	30.52	0.43	2.25	4.61	3.14	3.58	5.38	2.71	5.42	4.07	4.11	2.62
SD	6.82	0.50	0.50	5.62	4.00	0.61	1.00	0.61	0.83	1.13	1.11	0.56

Note. N = 256. Square root of AVE presented on the diagonal. Gender is coded as 0 = female and 1 = male. Education is coded as 1 = Associate’s degree, 2 = Bachelor’s degree, 3 = Master’s degree, and 4 = Doctoral degree. AVE = average variance extracted.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Hypotheses Tests

Table 5 shows the results of the regression analysis. As shown in Table 5, after controlling for demographic variables, ethical leadership had a significant positive impact on moral efficacy (b = 0.54, SE = 0.10, p < .01). Ethical leadership explained 11% of the total variance in moral efficacy (ΔR² = .11). In addition, moral efficacy had a significant positive impact on helping behavior (b = 0.52, SE = 0.04, p < .01) and extra effort behavior (b = 0.36, SE = 0.07, p < .01). Moral efficacy explained 34% of the total variance in helping behavior (ΔR² = .34) and 8% of the total variance in extra effort behavior (ΔR² = .08). There were significant indirect effects of ethical leadership on helping behavior (indirect effect = 0.28, SE = 0.07, 95% CI = [0.16, 0.43]) and extra effort behavior (indirect effect = 0.19, SE = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.10, 0.32]) through moral efficacy. Because these CIs do not contain zero, Hypotheses 1a and 1b were both supported.

Table 5.

Results of Regression Analyses.

Variable	Moral efficacy				Felt obligation				Helping behavior		Extra effort behavior
Variable	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE
Age	−0.02	0.01	−0.01	0.01	−0.01	0.01	−0.01	0.01	0.00	0.01	0.02	0.01
Gender	−0.03	0.12	−0.14	0.12	0.21**	0.08	0.20**	0.07	−0.07	0.09	−0.03	0.14
Education	−0.06	0.12	−0.01	0.12	−0.01	0.07	0.01	0.07	−0.16	0.08	−0.18	0.13
Organization tenure	−0.01	0.02	−0.01	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.00	0.01	−0.01	0.02
Co-work time	−0.01	0.02	−0.02	0.02	−0.02	0.01	−0.02	0.01	0.00	0.02	−0.06*	0.02
Ethical leadership	0.54**	0.10	0.48**	0.10	0.25**	0.06	0.25**	0.06	−0.02	0.07	−0.03	0.12
Social distance			−0.22**	0.06
Power distance							0.01	0.07
Ethical leadership × Social distance			−0.17**	0.06
Ethical leadership × Power distance							0.09**	0.03
Moral efficacy									0.52**	0.04	0.36**	0.07
Felt obligation									−0.09	0.07	0.39**	0.11
R ²	.14		.21		.11		.15		.40		.20

Note. N = 256. b = unstandardized path coefficients.

p < .05. **p < .01.

As also shown in Table 5, the effect of ethical leadership on felt obligation was significant (b = 0.25, SE = 0.06, p < .01) and ethical leadership explained 6% of the total variance in felt obligation (ΔR² = .06). Felt obligation had no significant impact on helping behavior (b = −0.09, SE = 0.07, n.s.), and Hypothesis 2a was not supported. Felt obligation had a significant positive impact on extra effort behavior (b = 0.39, SE = 0.11, p < .01), which explained 5% of the total variance in extra effort behavior (ΔR² = .05). The 95% CIs did not include zero, indicating that felt obligation mediates the effect of ethical leadership on extra effort behavior (indirect effect = 0.10, SE = 0.04, 95% CI = [0.03, 0.19]), thereby providing support for Hypothesis 2b.

In line with Hypothesis 3, the interaction of ethical leadership and social distance had a positive impact on moral efficacy (b = −0.17, SE = 0.06, p < .01). The two-way interaction term between ethical leadership and social distance explained 3% of the variance in moral efficacy (ΔR² = .03). Furthermore, we conducted a simple slope test, as shown in Figure 1. The simple slope was positive for low social distance (the average minus one standard deviation, simple slope = 0.77, SE = 0.15, 95% CI = [0.47, 1.07], p < .01), but nonsignificant for high social distance (the average plus one standard deviation, simple slope = 0.22, SE = 0.12, 95% CI = [−0.01, 0.45], n.s.).

Figure 1.

The Moderating Role of Social Distance on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Moral Efficacy

The bootstrap results showed that the positive indirect relationship between ethical leadership and helping behavior via moral efficacy was more significant at the low level of social distance (indirect effect = 0.38, SE = 0.08, 95% CI = [0.23, 0.53]) as compared with the high level of social distance (indirect effect = 0.14, SE = 0.08, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.31]). The difference between the two effects was significant (indirect effect = −0.13, SE = 0.05, 95% CI = [−0.22, −0.01], excluding zero), providing support for Hypothesis 3a. The positive indirect relationship between ethical leadership and extra effort behavior via moral efficacy was more significant at the low level of social distance (indirect effect = 0.25, SE = 0.07, 95% CI = [0.14, 0.40]) as compared with the high level of social distance (indirect effect = 0.10, SE = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.005, 0.22]). The difference between the two effects was significant (indirect effect = −0.09, SE = 0.04, 95% CI = [−0.16, −0.01], excluding zero). Therefore, Hypothesis 3b was supported.

Results from Table 5 indicated that power distance positively moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation (b = 0.39, SE = 0.11, p < .01). The two-way interaction term between ethical leadership and power distance explained 3% of the variance in felt obligation (ΔR² = .03). Furthermore, as shown in Figure 2, simple slope tests suggest that the relationship between ethical leadership and extra effort behavior was positive when power distance was high (simple slope = 0.40, SE = 0.08, 95% CI = [0.24, 0.56], p < .01); however, this relationship became nonsignificant when power distance was low (simple slope = 0.11, SE = 0.08, 95% CI = [−0.05, 0.26], n.s.).

Figure 2.

The Moderating Role of Power Distance on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Felt Obligation

The bootstrap results showed that the positive indirect relationship between ethical leadership and extra effort behavior via felt obligation was significant at high level of power distance (indirect effect = 0.14, SE = 0.05, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.27]) but not significant at low level of power distance (indirect effect = 0.05, SE = 0.04, 95% CI = [−0.01, 0.13]). The difference between the two effects was significant (indirect effect = 0.10, SE = 0.06, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.24], excluding zero), thus supporting Hypotheses 4b.

Supplementary Analyses

We performed a number of supplementary analyses (see Table 6). First, although social learning theory and social exchange theory theoretically guide the placement of social distance and power distance, respectively, on each relevant path, we also considered a model wherein both moderators acted upon both theoretical paths. Specifically, we modeled interaction effects between ethical leadership and power distance on moral efficacy, as well as between ethical leadership and social distance on felt obligation. Neither the moderating effect of social distance on the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation (b = 0.04, SE = 0.03, n.s.) nor the moderating effect of power distance on the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy (b = −0.01, SE = 0.05, n.s.) reached significance. Further, our results remain substantively unchanged despite including these additional moderators; the interaction between ethical leadership and social distance on moral efficacy (b = −0.17, SE = 0.06, p < .01) and the interaction with power distance on the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation remained significant (b = 0.07, SE = 0.03, p < .01). Second, we additionally controlled for these moderators and their interaction terms as additional predictors of helping behavior and extra effort behavior. Consistent with our expectations above, the analysis revealed that moral efficacy (b = 0.34, SE = 0.07, p < .01) and felt obligation (b = 0.39, SE = 0.12, p < .01) were still significant predictors of extra effort behavior. In a similar vein, moral efficacy (b = 0.51, SE = 0.05, p < .001) was still a significant predictor of helping behavior. Finally, the exclusion of control variables from our model did not affect the significance of our results.

Table 6.

Results of Supplementary Regression Analyses.

Variable	Moral efficacy		Felt obligation		Helping behavior		Extra effort behavior
Variable	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE	b	SE
Age	−0.01	0.01	−0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.02	0.01
Gender	−0.14	0.12	0.12	0.07	−0.09	0.09	−0.06	0.14
Education	−0.01	0.12	0.01	0.07	−0.17*	0.08	−0.19	0.13
Organization tenure	−0.01	0.02	0.01	0.01	0.00	0.01	−0.01	0.02
Co-work time	−0.02	0.02	−0.02	0.01	0.00	0.02	−0.05*	0.02
Ethical leadership	0.48**	0.10	0.14*	0.06	−0.07	0.08	−0.10	0.12
Social distance	−0.22**	0.06	−0.15**	0.04	−0.07	0.04	−0.09	0.07
Power distance	−0.06	0.12	0.08	0.07	−0.12	0.09	−0.05	0.13
Ethical leadership × Social distance	−0.17**	0.06	0.04	0.03	0.03	0.04	0.04	0.06
Ethical leadership × Power distance	−0.01	0.05	0.07*	0.03	−0.03	0.04	−0.09	0.06
Moral efficacy					0.51**	0.05	0.34**	0.07
Felt obligation					−0.09	0.07	0.39**	0.12
R²	0.21		0.21		0.41		0.22

Note. N = 256. b = unstandardized path coefficients.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Discussion

Based on two-wave data gathered from 256 Chinese civil servants, findings revealed that ethical leadership had an indirect effect on helping behavior via moral efficacy. Ethical leadership was positively associated with extra effort behavior, and this relationship was mediated by moral efficacy and felt obligation. Consistent with the proposed hypotheses, findings suggest that social distance negatively moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy, which in turn influences helping behavior and effort extra behavior. In the meantime, power distance was argued to moderate the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation, which in turn influences effort extra behavior. These results have important implications for research on ethical leadership and civil servants’ work discretionary work behavior.

Theoretical Implications

First, by simultaneously examining social learning and social exchange as mechanisms of ethical leadership effectiveness, this work extends previous studies with a single theoretical perspective (Peng & Kim, 2020) and further constructs a dual-path framework to identify the unique predictive value of different mechanisms for ethical leadership influence on employee discretionary work behaviors. Through integrating the two theoretical views, the present research demonstrated that in the social learning process, ethical leadership drives employees to participate in helping behaviors and extra effort behaviors through eliciting moral efficacy. In the social exchange process, felt obligation effectively explained the relationship between moral leadership and extra effort behavior. These results indicate that the impact of ethical leadership on extra effort behavior is a result of both social exchange and social learning processes, whereas the impact of ethical leadership on helping behavior can only be explained by social learning process.

Second, this study enriches the understanding of ethical leadership boundary conditions by revealing how differences in employee distance perceptions amplify and diminish ethical leadership effectiveness. The results suggest that social distance reduces employees’ willingness to learn, when distinctions between them and ethical leaders are reinforced by social distance, employees are less likely to develop moral efficacy that motivates them to engage in discretionary work behaviors. By introducing a competing hypothesis, the findings suggest the positive moderating effect of power distance and reveal that when employees view ethical leadership treatment as an additional benefit, they develop a stronger sense of obligation to participate in extra effort behavior to repay ethical leadership. Theoretically, this finding deepens the understanding of power distance in the ethical leadership literature, although it challenges the view of most studies (J. Gu et al., 2018; Q. Wang et al., 2020).

Finally, this study examines the effects of ethical leadership on employee discretionary work behavior in the Chinese public sector, responding to the call for cross-cultural research on ethical public leadership (Mozumder, 2018). China’s party-political system, civil servant administrative system, and social norms shaped by a high power distance culture may have different effects on the psychology, behavior, and interactions of Chinese public-sector employees (C. Chen et al., 2021), such as reliance on authority (W. Wang et al., 2012) and valuing guanxi (i.e., relationship connections between two parties, C. C. Chen et al., 2015). In this study, the findings on social distance and power distance to some extent explain these potential cross-cultural influences. For example, employees who perceive social connectedness are more willing to learn from ethical leaders; employees who value authority are more likely to generate a stronger obligation to reciprocate from dynamic exchanges with ethical leaders. These findings are valuable for understanding ethical leadership in the context of China’s public-sector context.

Practical Implications

This research also has practical significance. First, it provides evidence of how leaders inspire public servants’ discretionary work behavior. The findings of this study indicate that enhancing employees’ felt obligation and moral efficacy are two effective ways. Given the relative validity of moral efficacy, public-sector organizations and leaders can use social learning pathway findings to enhance employees’ moral efficacy in their daily work practices. Such as actively providing opportunities for employees to engage in moral decision-making and moral practices; providing constructive feedback and encouragement to elicit positive emotions; and establishing moral role models to serve as a source of vicarious learning for employees. In addition, eliciting obligation is important for fostering long-term exchange relationships between ethical leaders and employees. Findings based on the social exchange path suggest that leaders should consistently treat subordinates ethically, as doing so motivates subordinates’ obligation to reciprocate in terms of both reciprocal norms and instrumental orientation.

Second, this study provides evidence for how ethical leadership achieves effectiveness in different pathways. The research findings indicate that employees are more willing to learn from ethical leaders when their perceived social distance is low. Thus, ethical leaders can enhance employees’ social learning intentions by proactively getting to know their subordinates and sharing their thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and expectations with them, to reduce the social distance between them. Furthermore, ethical leaders should be mindful of how they interact with employees with high power distances, and one effective strategy is to use both ethically and authoritatively. For high power distance employees, this can be a more forceful gesture.

Limitation and Future Research Direction

Although this research has a variety of contributions, several limitations and directions for future research are worth noting. First, all variables in our study were self-reported by the participants, which may raise concerns about social desirability bias. In future research, we encourage scholars to consider more objective measures of helping behavior and extra effort behavior (e.g., assessed by direct leadership). Moreover, although we collected data at two time points to avoid common method deviations, our mediating and dependent variables were collected at the same time point, and thus we cannot make conclusions on the causal effect of moral efficacy and felt obligation on discretionary work behaviors. Future research should use an experiment or three time points longitudinal survey to provide more conclusive evidence. Furthermore, survey research does not allow for in-depth observations of ethical leadership and followers’ behavior. Accordingly, future studies should examine the relationship between ethical leadership and discretionary work behaviors using in-depth interviews, replicating previous interview research (Downe et al., 2016), to inform public administrators about ethical leadership styles that most effectively promote public employees’ discretionary work behavior.

Second, while most of our hypotheses are supported by evidence, one is not. Clearly, we did not find evidence suggesting that felt obligation plays a mediating role between ethical leadership and helping behavior. This may be because it is the leader rather than the colleague who makes public employees felt obligation. Therefore, public employees are more likely to adopt leader-oriented discretionary work behaviors (e.g., extra effort behavior) rather than coworker-oriented discretionary work behaviors (e.g., helping behavior). Nonetheless, coworker-oriented discretionary work behaviors can indirectly contribute to the organization. Future research could explore under what circumstances felt obligation promotes public employees’ discretionary work behaviors. Moreover, the concept of discretionary work behavior covers a wide range, there are other types of discretionary work behaviors that need to be studied (e.g., voice behavior). Future research could look into other types of discretionary work behaviors in public-sector organizations.

The third limitation of our study was that we only looked at the moderating mechanisms of power distance and social distance on the relationship between ethical leadership and subordinates’ discretionary work behaviors. We did not include organizational context factors that potentially impact public employees’ discretionary work behaviors. As a result, we need to take into account other organizational context factors, such as organizational collectivism, climate, and culture, that may influence public employees’ discretionary work behavior. Future studies could look at the various organizational contexts linked with public employees’ discretionary work behaviors in order to help public administrators adopt the ethics program that best meets the peculiarities of their organizations.

Finally, as the samples for this research came from the Chinese public sector, we cannot be certain about the extent to which our findings are generalizable to other cultures’ contexts. Influenced by Confucian culture, Chinese society generally values authority and gratitude (C. Chen et al., 2021), which may be the reason why the social exchange effect of ethical leadership is even stronger under the condition of high power distance. Future studies should ascertain the generalizability of our findings in other countries and cultures.

Conclusions

Drawing from social learning theory and social exchange theory, our research used moral efficacy and felt obligation as mediators, and social distance and power distance as moderators to explain when and how ethical leadership is related to civil servants’ discretionary work behaviors. A key finding of our study is that ethical leadership influences civil servants’ discretionary work behaviors through different mechanisms, which have their boundary conditions. Specifically, social distance moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and moral efficacy, while power distance moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and felt obligation. Therefore, our research confirms that the downward influence of ethical leadership on civil servants’ discretionary work behaviors is not a straightforward process. In addition to striving to become ethical leaders, leaders have to pay attention to the process of interaction with subordinates to enhance subordinates’ discretionary work behaviors. Future research can further explore other moderating factors on this basis.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 71972183).

ORCID iDs

Beijing Tan

Zijing Wang

Author Biographies

Beijing Tan is currently working toward a PhD degree in management with the School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. Her research interests include leadership, organizational ethics, and emotion.

Zijing Wang is currently working toward a PhD degree in management with the School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. Her research interests include leadership, organizational ethics, and creativity.

Shusong Zhao works at the School of Public Administration, Central South University, Changsha, China. His research interests are leadership, organizational ethics, and behavioral public management.

Jianqiao Liao is the director of the Laboratory of Management Skills and Efficiency, School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. His research interests are power distance and performance management.

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