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German Journal of Human Resource Management

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

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DOI: 10.1177/2397002216649855 gjh.sagepub.com

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

Kai C Bormann TU Dortmund University, Germany

Jens Rowold TU Dortmund University, Germany

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

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

Introduction

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

Corresponding author: Kai C Bormann, TU Dortmund University, Center for Higher Education, Hohe Straße 141, D – 44139 Dortmund, Germany. Email: [email protected]

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

Article

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

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

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 227

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

Ethical leadership, employee silence and affective change commitment

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

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

Figure 1. Research model.

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

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 229

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moderating influences of politics perceptions and personal change impact

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 231

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

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

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

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

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

Method

Participants and procedure

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

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

Measures

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 233

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

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

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

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

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

Analytical procedure

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

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

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

Results

Factor structure, descriptive statistics and reliability

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

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

Hypotheses test

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 235

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

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

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

Table 2. Bootstrapping results.

AS QS PS OS ACC

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

leadership −.08 .12 −.04 .10 −.16

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

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

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

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

Discussion

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

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

Indirect effects through Acquiescent Silence

PE SE CaL95 CaU95

Unconditional indirect effects

.09** .04 .01 .17

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

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

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

Implications for organizational literature

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

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

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

Bormann and Rowold 239

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limitations and directions for future research

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

Bormann and Rowold 241

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

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

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

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

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

Implications for practitioners

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

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

Note

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

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