Ethical Leadership and Prohibitive Voice – the Role of Leadership and Organisational Identification

Abstract

This article extends previous research on ethical leadership and voice behavior, by investigating the relationship between ethical leadership and prohibitive voice. Prohibitive voice is defined as speaking up with concerns or worries regarding factors that may harm organisational functioning. The article reports on a cross-sectional study of Norwegian employees, investigating the relationship between ethical leadership, leadership identification, organisational identification and prohibitive voice. In the article leadership identification is understood as a process where the employee incorporates the leader’s values and goals into his or her selfconcept. Organisational identification on the other hand is when the employee starts seeing the organisational values, norms and goals as his or her own. Testing our results in a dual-process model, we find that ethical leadership is positively and significantly related to prohibitive voice. Moreover, we find that this effect is mediated by organizational identification. We find no significant mediation effect of leadership identification. Implication for theory and research are discussed.