Using 525 respondents from the banking and insurance sectors in Spain, supervisor ethical leadership (SEL), conceptualized to involve the practice of moral virtues, was examined for its relationship to employee job satisfaction, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviour. Consistent with social exchange theory, SEL was directly and positively associated with both job satisfaction and affective commitment. The relationship between ethical leadership and employee organizational citizenship was best represented by a model where the effect was fully mediated by job satisfaction and affective commitment. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2011 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. JEL Classifications: M12, M14, M16Keywords: ethics, ethical leadership, moral virtues, job satisfaction, affective commitment, organizational citizenship behaviour Résumé La présente étude examine la relation entre le leadership éthique du superviseur (SEL), conceptualisé pour prendre en compte la pratique des vertus morales, et la satisfaction professionnelle, l'engagement affectif et le comportement de citoyenneté organisationnelle des employés. Elle s'appuie sur 525 répondants issus des secteurs de la banque et des assurances. Les résultats indiquent que conformément à la théorie de l'échange social, le SEL est directement et positivement relié à la fois à la satisfaction professionnelle et à l'engagement affectif. La relation entre le leadership éthique et la citoyenneté organisationnelle de l'employé est mieux représentée par un modèle dans lequel l'effet est complètement médié par la satisfaction professionnelle et l'engagement affectif. L'article s'achève par une analyse des implications des résultats et par des propositions de pistes de recherche future.

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Purpose This paper aims to process underlying the relationship between supervisor servant leadership and employee organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in hotels. Specifically, it analyzes the mediating role of empathy – individual level – and service climate – group level – in the relationship between supervisor servant leadership and employee OCB. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis uses original data on hotels located in historic cities in Spain. A survey provided a sample of 343 work-group-level (supervisors) and 835 individual-level (employee) from a sample of 171 hotels. Findings The most interesting finding is the indirect effect of supervisor servant leadership on employee OCB through the mediating role of both employee empathy – individual level – and group service climate – group level. Practical implications The findings suggest that hotel supervisors should adopt servant leadership to enhance OCB in their workgroups. This paper also provides insights into other ways to increase employee OCB, namely, through human resources initiatives that enhance employee empathy and shape a service climate within groups. Originality/value This paper is one of the few that analyzes the relationships between supervisor servant leadership, employee empathy, group service climate and employee OCB in a unifying cross-level model. It is also the first to analyze employee empathy as a positive outcome of supervisor servant leadership, as well as a mechanism to explain the relationship between servant leadership and employee OCB. Finally, it is one of the few studies that analyzes all these relationships in conjunction within the hospitality industry.

Today’s organizations are operating in a highly competitive and changing environment that pushes them to continuously adapt their organizational structures to such environment. However, the success of change initiatives may face a barrier in the response of employees, especially when they lack readiness to change. While leadership can shape the culture of an organization and a culture of effectiveness can help increase employees’ readiness to change, ethical leaders, who serve as a guide and offer support, can also make a difference by reducing uncertainty. Yet existing research on the role of ethical leadership in the enhancement of the employees’ readiness to change is practically non-existent. Far less is the research that analyses the mechanisms that ethical leadership can use to foster employees’ readiness to change. This study aims to investigate whether the ethical leadership of middle–lower echelons influences on employees’ readiness to change positively (H1) and if this relationship is mediated through shaping an organizational culture of effectiveness (H2). Using data from 270 direct reports of middle–lower managers in public foreign trade Egyptian companies, the findings reveal that ethical leadership enhances employees’ readiness to change and that this impact is partially mediated by an organizational culture of effectiveness. Thus, with these findings, new light is shed on the positive role of ethical leadership and the mechanisms it uses to enhance employees’ readiness to change.

In the current highly interconnected modern world, the role of consumers has changed substantially due to their active collaboration with companies in product and process innovation. Specifically, consumer participation has become key to the development of successful products and services, as companies have come to rely more and more on consumers' opinion as a source of innovative ideas and brand value. However, whereas existing research has focused on identifying the different elements involved in consumers' co-creation, there is still the need to comprehend better this complex mechanism by integrating distinct dimensional insights. With an integrative review of research into three important perspectives, one nurturing from the Service-Dominant logic , another one based on the information and communication technologies (ICTs) platforms, and (the ethical values-driven) Marketing 3.0 paradigm , this article proposes a conceptual framework in which consumers' ethical values and transcendent motivations play an important role in encouraging their engagement in co-creation activities. In this connection, and with consumers increasingly embracing the need to fulfill a social and ethical function in society, the co-creation process is here comprehended as a means to emphasize the social and moral aspects of co-creation. This article also identifies the important, supportive role of the Marketing 3.0 paradigm and Web 3.0 tools to initiate the co-creation process, as well as the important valuable benefits attained by both companies and consumers after consumers engage in this process. Importantly, these benefits are highlighted to increase when ethical products are the object of these co-creation activities. All these insights have notable implications for both research and managerial practice.