How ethical leadership influences professional learning communities via teacher obligation and participation in decision making: A moderated-mediation analysis

Abstract

This study tested a moderated-mediation model of the processes linking principal ethical leadership and professional learning communities in China, in which teacher obligation is included as a mediator, and teacher participation in school decision making is considered as a moderator. The results from 3374 teachers revealed significant direct and indirect effects of ethical leadership on the professional learning communities via teacher obligation. Teacher participation in decision making significantly moderated the effects of ethical leadership on both teacher obligation and on the professional learning communities. The positive effects of principal ethical leadership were strengthened when teachers perceived high participation in school decision making.

Keywords

Ethical leadership professional learning communities teacher obligation teacher participation in decision making moderated mediation

Introduction

In order to adapt to the changing social and economic environment, large-scale and sustainable educational reforms have been on the agenda around the world (Fullan, 2000). Educational policymakers and researchers have developed a variety of strategies to respond to the increased requirements of educational reforms. Among these strategies, the emphasis on ongoing, collaborative, reflective and growth-promoted teacher learning has been suggested as a powerful step towards enhancing curricula, teaching, students’ learning, and achieving school improvement (Harris and Young, 2000; Stoll et al., 2006). Consequently, concepts such as learning organisations, teacher professional learning and professional learning communities (PLCs) have flourished. PLCs, referring to shared responsibility, reflective dialogue and deprivatised practices among teachers to improve instruction for student learning (Ho et al., 2016), have been widely recognised as an effective and continuous way to promote school capacity for sustainable improvement during the past three decades (Hallinger et al., 2014; Vanblaere and Devos, 2016; Yin and Zheng, 2018).

Although there has been a great deal of research on PLCs, few studies have paid attention to their ethical dimension. This oversight is extremely salient when some researchers argue that, because of classroom isolation and performance accountability, there is subtle resistance from teachers to engaging in PLCs (Datnow, 2011; Hargreaves, 1994; Little, 1990). The Chinese education system is characterised by its relative centralisation (Zheng et al., 2019). Teachers are required to participate in PLCs at arranged times and places following strong state- and school-mandated policies (Qiao et al., 2018). This kind of administratively imposed, regulated and compulsory PLC is often criticised as ostensible collaboration (Datnow, 2011; Hargreaves, 1994). A genuine PLC cannot emerge without the underlying beliefs, ethical code obligations and norms (Little, 1990). Therefore, we propose that it is important to deepen the understanding of PLCs through the lens of ethics and obligation.

Given the importance of PLCs, it is thus natural that a body of research has aimed to develop a deep understanding of how a school functions as a PLC, and the influencing factors (Hallinger et al., 2014; Ning et al., 2015; Vanblaere and Devos, 2016; Wang et al., 2017; Yin and Zheng, 2018; Yin et al., 2019; Zheng, et al., 2019). Principal leadership is the most influential factor which directly and indirectly influences schools and teachers (Hallinger et al., 2014; Liu and Hallinger, 2018; Liu et al., 2016; Vanblaere and Devos, 2016). Therefore, a large body of research has linked PLCs with principal leadership (Hallinger et al., 2014; Vanblaere and Devos, 2016; Wang, 2016; Zheng et al., 2019). Instructional leadership, transformational leadership and distributed leadership are most discussed in the PLC literature (Seymour, 2017; Sharon, 2015; Zheng et al., 2019). Moreover, the integrated leadership model combining instructional, distributed and transformational leadership has been proposed in recent years as affecting PLCs (Hallinger et al., 2014; Vanblaere and Devos, 2016). Yet few studies have paid attention to the effect of ethical leadership on PLCs, despite the fact that researchers have increasingly recognised that principals’ ethical-oriented behaviours are closely related to the positive outcomes of the teachers within a school (Chu and Fang, 2017; Eyal et al., 2011; Sam, 2020).

Given a series of education reforms of performance evaluation and accountability around the world, principals often face ethical dilemmas between effectiveness and good in their schools (Yin et al., 2014). Educational researchers and practitioners have reached a consensus that leadership as a highly moral endeavour is particularly important for effective school development and for the best interests of students (Greenfield, 1995; Sergiovanni, 1995; Waheed, et al., 2019). Ethical leadership has been defined as ‘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: 120). Educational leadership in China is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese philosophies of Confucianism, with emphasis on the strong moral obligation (Chinese: de) of principals (Walker and Qian, 2018). That is, principals are expected to behave according to the principles of justice, unselfishness, tirelessness and treating teachers well. When teachers perceive highly ethically oriented behaviours exhibited by their principals, they are more likely to be willing to do the right things to pursue the school’s improvement based on the social learning mechanism. Thus, ethical norms are highly valued and are associated with effective principals in the professional standards and performance evaluation of principals in China (Ministry of Education (MoE), 2013).

Previous research has suggested that the effect of principal leadership on PLCs is indirectly mediated by teachers’ psychological attributes, such as trust, efficacy and commitment (Hallinger et al., 2014; Liu and Hallinger, 2018; Yin et al., 2019). Teacher obligation is regarded as teachers’ prescriptive belief and internalised accountability and commitment to promoting school improvement (Hackman and Oldham, 1976; Lauermann and Karabenick, 2013). In the popular Chinese philosophy of Confucianism, Heaven, Earth, the King, the Parent and the Teacher are the core concerns. There is a traditional emphasis on the strong moral obligation of teachers in China. Professional standards for primary and middle school teachers in China issued by the MoE (2012) stated that teachers should be ethically moral, obliged and patient, and should care for students. Teachers with a high level of obligation not only perform externally imposed formal duties, but also tend to be internally motivated, self-regulated and proactive regarding school improvement (Daniels et al., 2017; Lauermann and Karabenick, 2013). Ethically oriented principals as role models represent characteristics such as honesty, trustworthiness, responsiveness, fairness and selflessness. Based on social exchange theory (SET) (Blau, 1964), teachers are likely to engender the feeling of obligation to reciprocate in kind, which in turn should foster PLCs. Thus, teacher obligation was selected as the mediator in our study.

Despite the accumulated knowledge regarding the mediating mechanisms linking educational leadership and PLCs, the existing literature remains silent regarding under what conditions ethical leadership plays a stronger or weaker role in shaping teachers’ PLCs (Eva, et al., 2019; Liu and Hallinger, 2020; Zhang et al., 2020). Teacher participation in school decision making refers to teachers’ active engagement in, or at least shared influence on, the choice-making processes in instructional or managerial domains, such as curriculum management, student assessment, school finances and staff development (Bacharach et al., 1990; Bogler and Somech 2005; Somech, 2010). Chinese traditional culture deeply reveres power and status (Walker and Qian, 2018). For a relatively long time, principals, as the main authority figures, have played a central role in school decision making. Teachers tend to accept principals’ decisions without raising questions or expressing open disagreement (Liu and Hallinger, 2020; Walker and Qian, 2018). To promote democratic management and school improvement, the professional standards for teachers in China encourage teachers’ participation in decision making in schools (MoE, 2012). When teachers’ interests and voices are taken into account in a high level of participative decision making, this will promote satisfaction between teachers and principals, and increase teachers’ loyalty to principals (Honingh and Hooge, 2014; Somech, 2010; Zhang et al., 2020). Thus, we propose that teachers’ participation in decision making amplifies the positive social exchange relationship between teachers and principals. Teachers will react more actively to ethical leadership, thereby affecting the interactive effects on teacher obligation and their PLC behaviours. In this way, we further explore the boundary conditions in which ethical leadership operates.

The research questions guiding this study are:

1. What are the effects of principal ethical leadership on teacher obligation and PLCs?

2. Does teacher participation in school decision making moderate the effects of principal ethical leadership on teacher obligation?

3. Does teacher participation in school decision making moderate the effects of principal ethical leadership on PLCs through teacher obligation?

The rationale for establishing this moderated-mediation model is elaborated in the following sections.

Literature review

As described above, this study focuses on the moderated-mediated relationships among four constructs: principal ethical leadership, PLCs, teacher obligation, and teacher participation in school decision making. In this section, we define and review the related research on each of these constructs.

Ethical leadership and PLCs

Schools differ from most kinds of organisations in terms of their unique moral connotations (Greenfield, 1995). This has gradually been integrated into leadership theories such as the transformational, authentic, spiritual and servant leadership theories in the past three decades (Greenfield, 1995; Sağnak, 2017; Sergiovanni, 1995). As a distinct leadership style, ethical leadership emphasises the values, responsibility and vision associated with appropriate conduct and purposeful effort to promote the ethical conduct of teachers (Sergiovanni, 1995). Principals with ethical leadership are fair, principled and genuinely concerned about teachers. They also set, communicate and reinforce high moral standards in their schools (Brown et al., 2005). Many studies have examined the effects of ethical leadership on teacher outcomes such as voice behaviour, job commitment and job satisfaction (Chu and Fang, 2017; Sağnak, 2017; Sam, 2020).

PLC is a buzz word in the educational field. It originated in the western context and has been widely researched in many countries during the past three decades. However, there is still no universal definition of PLCs (Hallinger et al., 2014; Qiao et al., 2018; Stoll and Louis, 2007). Generally speaking, PLCs focus on teachers’ ongoing, reflective, collaborative learning and supportive interactions to make a difference for students (Stoll and Louis, 2007; Stoll et al., 2006). China has a long tradition of promoting teachers’ professional competency through collaborative teacher learning in schools. PLC practices are institutionalised in Chinese schools in the form of teaching-study activities (jiaoyan huodong), collective lesson preparation (jiti beike), classroom observation and commentary (tingpingke) and demonstration lessons (zhanshike). These collective activities introduced from the Soviet Union in the 1950s are regular activities in Chinese teachers’ daily practices of exchanging teaching experiences, and are often regarded as the most important feature contributing to Chinese teachers’ high professional competency and students’ outstanding performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2019; Yin and Zheng, 2018).

Our choice of ethical leadership as the antecedent of PLCs is informed by Bandura’s (1977) social learning theory (SLT). According to SLT, teachers learn to behave and comply with moral norms by observing the actions, decisions and attitudes of principals. That is, principals’ attitudes and behaviours may exert great influence on teachers, resulting in their assimilation of principals’ ethical standards. As a kind of interpersonal and morality-relevant phenomenon, PLCs are regarded as a kind of extra-role ethical involvement which requires increased time and effort. Ethical principals demonstrating moral values such as selflessness, caring, openness and fairness are useful for activating the moral concerns and values of teachers (Brown et al., 2005). Thus, teachers tend to adopt desirable moral attitudes and behaviours for the whole school improvement instead of for personal benefit. In this way, we propose that ethical leadership may promote the PLCs in a school.

The mediation of teacher obligation in the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs

Several recent studies have tested the mediation effects of some general work attitudes on the relationship between principal leadership and PLCs, such as teacher efficacy, teacher value orientations, trust in colleagues and trust in principals (Chen et al., 2016; Liu and Hallinger, 2018; Ning et al., 2015; Yin et al., 2019). In the present research, we propose teacher obligation as a prosocial motivation which may mediate the above relationship.

A body of research has shown that teacher obligation is associated with a range of positive outcomes, such as teacher engagement (Daniels et al., 2017), better instructional practices (Wahlstrom and Louis, 2008) and students’ academic success (Park et al., 2019; Wu et al., 2013). Considering the importance of teacher obligation, some studies began to investigate the school-level mechanisms promoting teacher obligation. Researchers found that a number of school contextual factors (e.g. transformational leadership, shared leadership, principal support and leader–member exchange) were associated with teacher obligation (Park et al., 2019; Wahlstrom and Louis, 2008).

As one of the most influential conceptual paradigms for understanding workplace behaviours, SET considers that the employee–organisation linkage is in essence an exchange relationship, and emphasises the socio-emotional aspects of the relationship (i.e. feelings of obligation and trust) (Blau, 1964; Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005). Based on reciprocity rules, SET helps explain the influence of ethical leadership on PLCs mediated by teacher obligation in our study. Specifically, by demonstrating fairness, unselfishness and consideration in work and non-work domains to teachers, ethical leadership attaches importance to long-term social exchanges rather than short-term economic exchanges with teachers. Within that broad exchange framework, principals are supportive, trustworthy and reliable in their treatment of teachers. In return, teachers may cherish the relationship, be deeply involved in high levels of social exchanges and reciprocate with a strong feeling of obligation for the whole school improvement. Thus, they will engage in PLCs valued by their principals as well as their schools (Elstad et al., 2011; Louis et al., 2016). The exchange relationship places more emphasis on Chinese culture, which is characterised by a high power distance and strong value of relationalism (Song et al., 2009). Therefore, we expect that ethical leadership may enhance PLCs through triggering teachers’ felt obligation toward the whole school’s goals.

The moderation of teacher participation in school decision making

A number of previous studies demonstrated that leadership effectiveness is contingent upon other factors (Bedi et al., 2016; Chu and Fang, 2017; Dust et al., 2018; Zhang et al., 2020). Bedi et al. (2016) conducted a meta-analytic review to contend that geographical locations and organisational sectors (i.e. for-profit vs non-profit) of study samples moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and follower outcomes. Chu and Fang (2017) examined the moderating effect of teachers’ work values in the relationship between principals’ ethical leadership and teachers’ work commitment.

Teacher participation in school decision making which emphasises collective responsibility, democratic management and a common mission has attracted significant research attention since the 1980s (Bogler and Somech, 2005; Honingh and Hooge, 2014; Smylie and Brownlee-Conyers, 1996). When teachers have more opportunities to participate in school decision making, they may feel appreciated and valued by their principals. Their voices are heard and respected with regard to school decisions. Participative decision making also facilitates the exchange and communication of information within a school. With more opportunities to participate in school decision making, teachers are more likely to develop shared meanings and values about schools, and they may have more explicit knowledge about their teaching and school management (Bogler and Somech, 2005; Sarafidou and Chatziioannidis, 2013). Thus, greater opportunities to participate in school decision making are more likely to improve the high-quality principal–teacher exchange relationship, and teachers tend to feel obliged to reciprocate and engage in positive work behaviours. In contrast, teachers who lack opportunities to contribute to the important decision making in their schools have less understanding of their school goals. They are likely to pay more attention to their own interests due to a lack of felt obligation to contribute to school improvement. The self-serving behaviours may undermine the quality of teachers’ exchange relationships with their principals. That is, we assume that teacher participation in school decision making potentially represents an important moderator of the ethical leadership effects. Specifically, the relationship between ethical leadership, teacher obligation and PLCs may be weakened due to the lack of opportunities for teachers to participate in school decision making.

In summary, we propose the following hypotheses (see Figure 1):

H1: The relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs is partially mediated by teacher obligation.

H2: Teacher participation in school decision making moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and teacher obligation, such that the relationship is stronger among teachers with high participation in school decision making than those with low participation.

H3: Teacher participation in school decision making moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and the PLCs via teacher obligation, such that the relationship is stronger in the context of high teacher participation in school decision making than in that of low participation.

Method

Participants

The data for this study came from a 2018 research project to promote senior high school teacher development in Qingdao, a city in northern China. Data collection and analysis were anonymous. Background information of the project, such as project aims, guarantees of anonymity, voluntary participation, and instructions to fill out the questionnaire were introduced before questionnaire distribution.

With the support of the Qingdao Municipal Education Bureau, we collected data from 65 senior high schools, constituting 90.3% of the total number of senior high schools in Qingdao (N = 72) (Qingdao Municipal Education Bureau, 2018). Of particular note, we did not include international senior high schools or special education schools in this study. With the permission of principals, 4000 copies of the questionnaire along with a cover letter were distributed, and 3374 teachers from 65 schools returned their questionnaires, yielding a return rate of 84.35%. Among the respondents, 1313 (38.90%) were males, and the mean teaching experience was approximately 15.14 years (standard deviation (SD) = 9.29). The majority of the respondents (N = 2948, 87.30%) held a bachelor’s degree, 12.60% (N = 424) held a graduate degree and 0.1% (N = 2) held a high school diploma. In addition, 17.40% (N = 579) of the respondents had a senior professional rank, 39.80% (N = 1323) had a 1st grade professional rank, and 42.80% (N = 1422) had a 2nd or 3rd grade professional rank or no ranking. According to the Educational Statistics Yearbook of China (Xie, 2013), the overall teacher sample was broadly consistent with the national teacher population in these characteristics. Table 1 shows the demographic distribution of the sample.

Figure 1.

The proposed moderated mediation model linking ethical leadership to professional learning communities in China.

Table 1.

Demographic characteristics of the sample (N = 3374).

	n	%
Teacher gender
Female	2061	61.10%
Male	1313	38.90%
Age
<=28	507	15.30%
29–39	1279	38.40%
40–50	1096	37.20%
>= 51	352	10.60%
Education background
High school diploma	2	0.10%
Bachelor’s degree	2948	87.30%
Graduate degree	424	12.60%
Professional rank
Senior	579	17.40%
1st grade	1323	39.80%
2nd/3rd grade or no ranking	1422	42.80%

Measures

Following our theoretical model, all variables in this study were conceptualised as individual-level constructs and were assessed using a Likert scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. As the main constructs were developed in the western context and the items of teacher obligation originally targeted postal workers as the participants, all scales used in this study were carefully translated into Chinese and then back-translated into English by two bilingual speakers to obtain equivalent versions, following the procedures recommended by Brislin (1980). Also, we invited 10 experienced educators (teachers, principals and educational policy makers) to discuss the Chinese version of the items one by one and to suggest changes to the wording, ensuring that the items were suitable for teacher samples and could be well understood by the participants.

Ethical leadership

Ethical leadership was developed by Brown et al. (2005). The scale was validated and widely used by other studies (e.g. Dust et al., 2018; Sağnak, 2017). This scale consisted of 10 items with a single dimension. A sample item is: ‘When making decisions, my principal asks what is the right thing to do.’ The Cronbach’s alpha was .97 in this study.

PLCs

A 16-item scale developed by Ho et al. (2016) was used to measure PLC. This scale comprised the four facets of a PLC, namely, shared responsibility (four items), deprivatised practices (four items), reflective dialogue (four items) and organisational learning (four items). The sample items included: ‘I share a similar set of values, beliefs and attitudes related to teaching and learning with my school’ (shared responsibility); ‘I always welcome having my colleagues observe my teaching for sharing’ (deprivatised practices); ‘I often exchange ideas on teaching and share curriculum materials with my colleagues’ (reflective dialogue); and ‘I have a strong commitment to teachers’ professional learning in my school’ (organisational learning). Due to our interest in examining the overall PLC, we conducted a second-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to check whether the four dimensions loaded on a single latent factor. The second-order factor model achieved an excellent fit (confirmatory fit index (CFI) = .96; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = .05; standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) = .03). The Cronbach’s alpha of the overall PLC was .97 (.90 for organisational learning, .90 for shared responsibility, .89 for de-privatised practices and .96 for reflective dialogue).

Teacher obligation

The six items from Eisenberger et al. (2001) were used to assess teacher obligation in this study. A sample item is: ‘I feel a personal obligation to do whatever I can to help the school achieve its goals.’ The Cronbach’s alpha was .87 in the present study.

Teacher participation in school decision making

We used the six items from the scale developed by Leithwood and Jantzi (1999) to measure teacher participation in school decision making. A sample item is: ‘There is an appropriate level of autonomy for teachers in decision making.’ The Cronbach’s alpha was .93 in this study.

Control variables

Considering the possible influence of teachers’ demographic variables on the relationships between variables of interest, we included teachers’ gender (1 = male, 2 = female), age (1 = < 28; 2 = 29–39; 3 = 40–50; 4 >= 51), educational background (1 = high school diploma; 2 = bachelor degree; 3 = graduate degree) and professional rank (1 = 2nd/3rd grade or no ranking; 2 = 1st grade; 3 = senior) as the control variables in the present study.

Analytical strategy

All analyses were executed using Mplus 7.4 (Muthén and Muthén, 2017) with maximum likelihood estimations (ML). Initially, descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations between the variables were calculated. Prior to testing the hypothesised relationships, we conducted CFA for the proposed model to ensure construct distinctiveness among the variables.

The latent moderated structural equation (LMS) procedure was used to test the hypothesised moderation effects (Cheung and Lau, 2017). In contrast with multiple regression, LMS produces more accurate parameter estimates and confidence intervals (CIs). It also allows modelling of second-order factors with multiple dimensions (Muthén and Muthén, 2017). Since the LMS approach does not provide traditional indices to assess overall model fit (Cheung and Lau, 2017), we first confirmed that the main-effect-only models fit the data well. Indices including CFI, RMSEA and SRMR suggested by Hu and Bentler (1999) were estimated. In addition, we took into account the χ ²/df metric which tends to be less sensitive to sample size. The criterion for the value of χ ²/df is from less than 2 to 5 (Ullman, 2013).

Secondly, we tested the mediated effects of teacher obligation on the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs. The bootstrapping method using a large number of random resamples with replacement from the original data was calculated to examine the indirect effects (Preacher and Hayes, 2008). The effect is significant when the CI does not include zero.

Thirdly, we evaluated a model with latent interaction between ethical leadership and teacher participation, as well as the estimation of the path from this latent interaction to teacher obligation (Cheung and Lau, 2017; Hayes, 2015). According to Cheung and Lau (2017), bias-corrected bootstrap CIs should be created for each estimated parameter because neither the interaction terms nor the mediating effects are normally distributed. Through bootstrapping, the distribution of effects is empirically approximated and used for calculating the CIs. We generated 1000 bootstrap samples for this analysis.

Finally, the conditional indirect effects of ethical leadership on PLCs through teacher obligation was estimated at low (−1 SD), medium (mean) and high (+1 SD) moderator levels in order to understand the nature of the moderated-mediation effect. Moderated-mediation indices and conditional indirect effects were evaluated using bias-corrected bootstrap CIs based on a 1000 bootstrap sample (Cheung and Lau, 2017; Hayes, 2015).

Results

Descriptive analyses

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables. As shown in Table 2, ethical leadership was positively related to teacher obligation (r = .46, p < .01) and PLCs (r =.56, p < .01), and teacher obligation was positively related to PLCs (r = .71, p < .01). Additionally, teacher participation in school decision making was positively related to ethical leadership (r = .77, p < .01), teacher obligation (r = .40, p< .01) and PLCs (r = .52, p < .01). The correlations between most of the variables were in the expected direction. For the effects of control variables, teachers’ gender (r = .02, p > .05) and educational background (r = .00, p > .05) had no significant relationship with PLCs, while teachers’ age (r = .04, p < .05) and professional ranks (r = .07, p < .01) were positively related to PLCs.

Table 2.

Means, standard deviations and correlations among the variables (N = 3374).

Variable	CR	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1 Gender	--	--
2 Age	--	-22**	--
3 EB	--	.16**	–.24**	--
4 PR	--	–.21**	.77**	–.16**	--
5 EL	.97	.04*	–.01	.02	.02	--
6 TO	.87	–.03	.07**	.00	.09**	.46**	--
7 PDM	.93	.04*	–.04*	.04*	.01	.77**	.40**	--
8 PLC	.97	.02	.04*	.00	.07**	.56**	.71**	.52**	--
M	--	.62	2.92	1.74	2.12	4.37	4.55	3.94	4.50
SD	--	.49	1.02	.73	.33	.76	.55	.90	.56

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001 (two-tailed).

CR: construct reliability; EB: educational background; PR: professional rank; EL: ethical leadership; TO: teacher obligation; PDM: teacher participation in decision-making; PLCs: professional learning communities.

Reliability and validity

We assessed the reliability of the measurement scales using Cronbach’s alpha coefficients (see Table 2). The reliability coefficients for the scales ranged from .87 to .97, indicating sufficient levels of reliability (Nunnally, 1978). Then, we tested the hypothesised four-factor model. The hypothesised four-factor model (i.e. ethical leadership, teacher obligation, teacher participation in school decision making, and PLCs) exhibited a good model fit (CFI = .95, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .05).

Hypothesis testing

We tested the hypotheses following three steps. To examine whether teacher obligation acted as a mediator between ethical leadership and PLCs (Hypothesis 1), the bootstrapping approach was used (Preacher and Hayes, 2008). In this study, 95% bias-corrected CIs for the indirect effects were computed using 1000 bootstrapped samples. Bootstrap analyses revealed that the indirect effects of ethical leadership on PLCs through teacher obligation was significant (b = .25, 95% bias-corrected CI [.22, .29]). The direct effect of ethical leadership on PLCs was also significant (b = .31, 95% bias-corrected CI [.27, .36]). The model indicated a good model fit (CFI = .95, RMSEA = .06, SRMR =.05). Consistent with our Hypothesis 1, the results indicate that the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs was partially mediated by teacher obligation. In addition, because all of the control variables, namely, teacher age (b = .02, 95% bias-corrected CI [–.00, .04]), gender (b = –.01, 95% bias-corrected CI [–.03, .01]), educational background (b = .02, 95% bias-corrected CI [–.00, .04]) and professional rank (b = –.01, 95% bias-corrected CI [–.04, .02]), had no significant relationship with PLCs, we did not enter them into the further moderated-mediation model.

Hypothesis 2 focuses on the moderating role of teacher participation in school decision making in the relationship between ethical leadership and teacher obligation, such that this relationship would be attenuated as teacher participation in school decision making decreased. In support of Hypothesis 2, teacher participation in school decision makingg had a significant positive moderating effect between ethical leadership and teacher obligation (b = .16, 95% bias-corrected CI [.13, .09], boot standard error (SE) = .02, p < .05). To illustrate the interactions, we plotted the relationships, showing the high and low degrees of teacher participation in school decision making by values 1 SD above and below the mean (see Table 3 and Figure 2). The results show that ethical leadership had a more positive association with teacher obligation when teacher participation in school decision making was higher (+1 SD) as compared with when teacher participation in school decision making was lower (–1 SD).

Table 3.

Unstandardised coefficients for testing the main and mediating effects (N = 3374).

	Teacher obligation	PLCs
Ethical leadership	.39*** [.34 .45]	.16*** [.14 .19]
Teacher participation in decision making	–.003 [–.05 .05]	---
Interaction: Teacher participation in decision-making × ethical leadership	.16*** [.13 .19]	---
PLCs	.51***[.45 .57]	---

*p < .05.

**p < .01.

***p < .001.

PLCs: professional learning communities; Bootstrap sample = 1000; 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals reported as: [Lower limit confidence interval, Upper limit confidence interval].

Figure 2.

The interaction between ethical leadership and teacher participation in decision making with regard to teacher obligation.

To test Hypothesis 3, we used 95% bias-corrected CIs for the indirect effect conditioned by teacher participation in school decision making on the basis of 1000 bootstrap samples (see Table 4). In support of Hypothesis 3, the bootstrapping tests showed that when teacher participation was higher, the indirect impact of ethical leadership on the PLCs via teacher obligation was stronger (b = .61, SE = .06, p < .001, 95% CI [.49, .72]); when teacher obligation orientation was lower, the indirect effect was weaker (b = .46, SE = .04, 95% CI [.37, .54]). Taken together, the results support the hypothesised moderated-mediation model.

Table 4.

Conditional indirect effects of ethical leadership on PLCs at various levels of teacher participation in school decision making.

	Estimate	SE(Boot)	95% LLCI	95% ULCI
Moderated mediation	.08	.01	.07	.10
+1 Standard deviation	.61	.06	.49	.73
Mean	.53	.05	.43	.64
-1 Standard deviation	.46	.04	.37	.54

LLCI: lower limit confidence interval; ULCI: upper limit confidence interval.

In other words, the present study established teacher obligation as a motivational mechanism linking ethical leadership and PLCs in schools. The relationship between ethical leadership became stronger with high teacher participation in school decision making. Table 4 shows these results at three levels of teacher participation in school decision making (–1 SD, mean and + 1 SD).

Discussion

This study explores the relationships between ethical leadership and PLCs through the mediation of teacher obligation and the moderation of teacher participation in school decision making. As predicted, a strong positive relationship existed between ethical leadership and PLCs. The PLCs in the school were promoted when teachers perceived ethical leadership by their principal. The results also revealed that teacher obligation mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs, and that teacher participation in school decision making moderated the relationship between ethical leadership and teacher obligation. That is, the effect of ethical leadership on teacher obligation was stronger when teachers participated more in school decision making. Moreover, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on PLCs via teacher obligation was also stronger when teachers held higher levels of participation in decision making rather than lower levels, such that it played a moderating role in this relationship.

Compared with previous studies, the present study takes a step forward in the following two aspects. First, we expanded the antecedents of PLCs to ethical leadership through the inclusion of the ethical dimension of PLC practices. Second, we illustrate the mechanisms through which ethical leadership influenced PLCs by incorporating teacher obligation as a mediator, and teacher participation in school decision making as a moderator. This helps us disentangle the complexities of the relationships between principal leadership and PLCs, and hence contributes to a deeper understanding of PLC building and development in school contexts. Before elaborating the theoretical and practical implications of these findings, we would first like to state the limitations of this study.

Limitations and directions of future research

There are four limitations related to the design and analyses of our study. Firstly, the cross-sectional nature of this study yielded associations among the variables in the model. This precludes us from making causal inferences among the study variables. Therefore, we recommend that future work should adopt a mixed-methods design, which may enable researchers to conduct a dynamic evaluation of the directions of the paths among the constructs we investigated in this study.

Secondly, this study only collected data from a single city (Qingdao) in northern China. Considering that China is a vast country with dramatic regional differences in terms of social and economic development, we cannot claim the generalisability of our findings. Moreover, China is deeply influenced by Confucian traditions. As social development has advanced, teachers have changed their opinions about authority (Liu and Hallinger, 2020). However, their respect for and compliance with principals remain a major characteristic. Confucianism emphasises ethical leaders who exhibit unselfishness and full engagement, and who work tirelessly for the common good. Also, professional standards of educational leadership in mainland China take morality as the first criterion of effective leadership. That is, morality is highly valued, but teachers have more tolerance for unethical behaviour because of the high power distance in Chinese culture. When teachers adhere to social exchange rules in China, they may also be influenced by social hierarchy rather than fairness (Cheng et al., 2015; Truong et al., 2017). Therefore, it is suggested that future research consider greater diversity in the sample, and include samples from other cultural contexts to confirm the external validity and generalisability of the results.

Thirdly, all of the data were drawn from a single source, and were self-reported by respondents, indicating a risk of common method bias. Although common method bias may not constitute a serious problem in our study because it is less likely to be a reason for the significant findings of interaction effects (Evans, 1985), we have to admit that it would be better for future research to measure the variables from diverse sources to increase the validity of the measures.

Fourthly, considering the nested nature of data collected from school settings, the multi-level issue (i.e. school- and teacher-level data) should be addressed in data analysis. However, due to the complexity of the moderated-mediation model and the number of latent variables, we did not conduct multi-level analysis in this study, which constitutes another limitation. We strongly suggest that researchers should adopt multi-level structural equation modelling to examine multi-level moderated-mediation effects in future work (Preacher et al., 2016).

Nonetheless, this preliminary research initiates a line of research on ethical leadership in school settings. There are still a number of factors which may be closely associated with the constructs of interest (e.g. teachers’ perceptions of principal caring, faculty trust in the principal and in colleagues) and which hence play the roles of mediator or moderator. We suggest that future work should extend this line of research and take other potential mediators or moderators into consideration.

Theoretical implications

The majority of prior studies have consistently adopted a social cognitive theory to explain the effects of leadership on teachers’ work behaviours (e.g. Dou et al., 2016; Liu and Hallinger, 2020). Our study integrates SLT and SET, which allows for more theoretical accuracy in exploring how ethical leadership may exert influence on PLCs. We contribute to ethical leadership theory and PLCs research in the following ways.

First, the theory and construct of ethical leadership were primarily developed in western countries (Ma and Tsui, 2015). It is still unclear whether the theoretical model of ethical leadership holds up in other cultural settings. To respond to the call for more context-sensitive educational leadership theories (Dimmock and Walker, 2005; Liu and Hallinger, 2020; Walker, 2010), our research tested the robustness and validity of ethical leadership theory and explained the cascading effect of ethical leadership on PLCs in mainland China, an eastern context deeply influenced by Confucianism. Specifically, we tested the under-examined, yet theoretically central, mechanism of principals’ ethical role modelling. According to the principal responsibility system in China, and the Confucian-based values which emphasise a strong respect for hierarchy, principals, as the main authority figures, have control of resources, teacher evaluation and personal decision-making (Walker and Qian, 2018); as such, teachers are more likely to emulate their appropriate behaviour intentionally or subconsciously, thereby generating congruent values among teachers and motivating their engagement in PLCs (Bedi et al., 2016; Brown et al., 2005). Our findings highlight a critical yet overlooked component of the social learning mechanism of ethical leadership theorising in Chinese schools.

Second, our study sheds new light on why and how exercising ethical leadership can help motivate teachers to engage in PLCs, enlightened by SET. Organisational analyses of schools suggest that schools may be ‘loosely coupled’ entities (Weick, 1982). Principals find it difficult to exercise supervision, control and evaluation over the core technology in schools because teaching is characterised by ambiguity, and teachers’ work cannot be clearly defined (Hallinger and Murphy, 1985). Under conditions of uncertainty, it is more important for principals to treat teachers with integrity, sincerity and respect to establish high-quality social exchanges; in return, teachers may feel obliged to transcend their individual interests and to orient themselves to school interest with positive work attitudes and behaviours. The traditional culture of relationalism in China also promotes this kind of reciprocal relationship (Hwang, 2000). In this sense, our study echoes the call for more evidence of how teacher obligation influences their behaviours, and what conditions are favourable for developing teacher obligation in educational contexts (Lauermann, 2014; Lauermann and Karabenick, 2013). Meanwhile, our findings also expand the application of SET to deeply understanding principal–teacher working relationships in China, where cultural traditions emphasise reciprocity in relationships.

Third, SET is often used to illuminate the role of affective factors (e.g. commitment, trust and psychological capital) associated with leader–follower interactions (Berkovich and Bogler, 2020; Liu et al., 2016). Our results further expand the application of SET to accentuate the importance of the contextual boundary conditions of the effects of ethical leadership on PLCs (Yammarino and Dubinsky, 1994). That is, participative decision making may be beneficial to developing high-quality principal–teacher exchange relationships by satisfying teachers’ higher-order needs (Lam et al., 2002). Teachers feel respected and valued by their principals when they have more opportunities to participate in school decision-making processes. As a result, teachers will experience higher levels of obligation in response to ethical leadership, and will be more proactive when it comes to engaging in PLCs. Thus, the present results accentuate the value of incorporating the potential moderator of teacher participation in school decision making into the theoretical framework in order to reveal the complexity, and to contribute to a better understanding, of the mechanism of teacher obligation in the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs. Future research might explore and identify additional boundary conditions in the indirect relationship between school leadership and PLCs through teacher obligation. Teacher characteristics (i.e. political skill, proactive personality and fit perceptions) and situational factors (i.e. enabling school structure, collaborative culture and perceived organisational support) may moderate the extent to which teachers respond to ethical leadership. Examining the influence of such factors can significantly advance the understanding of boundary conditions under which teacher obligation links ethical leadership to the PLCs.

Practical implications

This research has some implications for school leadership and teacher learning. First, our findings affirm that when principals demonstrate normatively appropriate conduct to teachers, they will be seen as fair, honest and trustworthy, and as being genuinely interested in the teachers’ welfare. This is important for contributing to both teacher obligation and PLCs. The results have responded to the call for examining the importance of positive leadership, teachers’ perceptions of principal caring, and social relationships in schools (Louis and Murphy, 2017; Louis et al., 2016; Murphy et al., 2017). Therefore, practitioners should make efforts to facilitate principals’ ethical leadership capabilities by looking out for specific personality traits when selecting, promoting or training, which has been found to predict ethical leadership. In addition, the capacity to provide ethical leadership can also be learned through the experience of being treated ethically (Louis et al., 2016).

Secondly, the mediating role of teacher obligation suggests two opportunities for management practice. The first involves the treatment of highly responsible teachers. Other than directly intervening in instruction, effective school leaders should also act ethically, cultivate an ethical climate and nurture interpersonal relationships within the school to satisfy highly responsible teachers’ needs and to address their ethical issues (Louis and Murphy, 2017; Murphy et al., 2017). They will then be more likely to work together towards school improvement, even if the monetary return is uncertain. Second, given that teacher obligation is dynamic and can be enhanced through communications and interactions, principals should interact with teachers with openness and truthfulness. This can enhance teachers’ obligation, which in turn will promote their engagement in PLC practices.

Thirdly, for a relatively long time, teachers were treated as ‘objects’ rather than ‘agents’ in education reform (Liu et al., 2016). China has proposed a series of professional standards in order to regulate teachers’ professional learning. However, the traditional top-down approach to push teachers’ engagement in PLCs may be ineffective because it underestimates the role of teacher obligation. According to the findings of our study, teacher obligation is not fixed but alterable, and can be promoted when they feel cared for, trusted, valued and fairly treated by principals. Therefore, our results suggest that the ethical dimension of principals’ work may be a key to understanding teachers’ underlying beliefs, values and behaviours. That is, increasing emphasis should be placed on promoting positive leadership and principal–teacher relationships in school improvement (Louis and Murphy, 2016).

Finally, our findings accentuate the moderation effects of teacher participation in school decision making on the relationship between ethical leadership and PLCs. For teachers who are provided with more opportunities in school decision making, the positive effect of ethical leadership on teacher obligation and PLCs would be stronger. Due to the Confucian cultural traditions, principals in China have traditionally played the role of a ‘great man/woman’ in their schools and communities. Most principals are accustomed to enacting a top-down, directive management role that entails maintaining social distance between themselves and teachers (Liden, 2012). Teachers also tend to accept decisions in order to perform like a ‘good citizen’. The benefits of teacher participation in school decision making shown in this study suggest that principals should motivate teachers to reflect their work roles beyond classrooms and professional beliefs from ‘followership’ to ‘leadership’ (Emira, 2010; Fullan and Hargreaves, 1992). In this way, principals can bring substantial changes to the organisational structure, communication patterns, authority distribution and interpersonal relationships in their schools (Smylie and Brownlee-Conyers, 1996). Therefore, leadership development programmes should engage principals in learning how to motivate productive teacher participation in decision making in the workplace.

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 work was supported by MOE (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China) Project of National Education Sciences Planning (grant number EFA 180458).

ORCID iD

Hongbiao Yin

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