Ethical Leadership and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Mediation of Trust and Psychological Well-Being

Abstract

Purpose Nurses’ behaviors are largely influenced by their managers’ leadership style. The relationships between ethical leadership, trust, psychological well-being, and organizational citizenship behaviors have rarely been investigated in nursing studies. The current study attempted to examine the relationships between perceived ethical leadership, trust, psychological health, and nurses’ organizational citizenship behaviors towards their patients in the context of Chinese hospitals. Methods This research adopted a cross-sectional research design. Participants were 495 nurses solicited from six hospitals in China. Hayes’s PROCESS and SPSS 22 were employed to analyze the data. Results This study demonstrated ethical leadership perceived by nurses is positively associated with trust in management and psychological well-being. Trust in management is also positively associated with nurses’ organizational citizenship behaviors. The indirect effects of perceived ethical leadership on organizational citizenship behaviors through trust in management and psychological well-being were statically significant. Conclusion This study adds value to the literature by revealing ethical leadership boosts nurses’ trust in leadership and their psychological well-being, resulting in more organizational citizenship behaviors towards patients in the context of the Chinese hospitals. It is suggested that the hospital management creates an environment in which all members are treated fairly to boost nurses’ psychological health and improve their service quality toward patients’ satisfaction.

Effect of Chief Executive Officer’s Sustainable Leadership Styles on Organization Members’ Psychological Well-Being and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

“…Organization members' psychological well-being had a statistically significant positive (+) effect on organizational citizenship behavior. This supports the results of previous studies by Huang et al [60], Kang et al [90], Kim and Park [197], and Xu et al [62] and can be summarized as follows. Organizational citizenship behavior increases as psychological well-being increases, that is, organization members embrace life positively, have higher self-esteem (confidence) and clear life goals, take care of work that falls under their responsibilities, live so as to realize their creativity and potential, and are content with the results of life.…”

“…Organization members with high psychological well-being participate more in organizational citizenship behavior such as helping others and complying with regulations [60][61][62]194,195]. Furthermore, organization members with high psychological well-being have a more positive impact on the organization as a whole than those with low psychological well-being [63,64,196].…”

“…From a corporate perspective, organization members with high psychological wellbeing have a positive perception about the organization, support their colleagues, put forth more effort than expected, and have more consideration for others [59]. If psychological well-being is high, there is a higher probability of organizational citizenship behavior appearing positive [60][61][62]. Psychological well-being is thus positively (+) related to organizational citizenship behavior and is closely related to the organization's performance creation [63,64].…”

A cross sectional study of the impact of psychological capital on organisational citizenship behaviour among nurses: Mediating effect of work engagement

“…Thus, it is understandable that they are willing to put in more extra-role behaviour for organisational performance. Furthermore, nurses in this study showed higher levels of organisational citizenship behaviour than those surveyed during the COVID-19 pandemic (Huang et al, 2021). This was probably because the COVID-19 epidemic situation in China has stabilized during the survey period of this study, and there are almost no COVID-19 cases in the survey area for a long time.…”

Effect of Ethical Climate in Hotel Companies on Organizational Trust and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

“…Wong et al [56] explored the effect of justice on organizational trust and the effect of organizational trust on OCB, where organizational trust was divided into the two factorstrust in supervisors and the organization. However, Huang et al [57], while studying its impact on OCB, identified trust as a single factor-trust in management. Yoon et al [58] also examined the impact of organizational trust on OCB as a single factor.…”