Swinburne Business School, Swinburne U. of Technology
The role of emotional, as opposed to cognitive and behavioral, mechanisms linking leadership and ethical decision making is a nascent area of research. Drawing on affective events theory and the affect theory of social exchange, we extend prior research on gratitude as a moral emotion that may positively or negatively affect employees’ ethical decision making as a consequence of receiving other-centric leadership behaviors. That is, an employee could benefit one party with whom they have a close relationship (i.e., a servant leader), which has a corresponding negative impact on a third party (i.e., a customer). The purpose of the current research is to examine how the experience of gratitude shifts based on the stimulus from servant leadership behaviors, and, in turn, leads to the appraisal of that event that affects their ethical decision making. In addition, we include in our study model the moderating roles of psychological entitlement and perspective taking. Across three sequential studies, multisource data was collected to test the six study hypotheses: independent surveys using Prolific for Study 1 (n = 105) and Study 2 (n = 169), and experience sampling methodology for Study 3 (n = 114). The research findings suggest the important role that servant leaders can play in nurturing employee gratitude in the workplace. It also outlined boundary conditions that impinge on the relationship between employee gratitude and employee ethical decision making. Theoretical and practical contributions of the study are discussed at the conclusion.
