The congruence effect of ethical values of leaders and followers on ethical climate

Although research on organizational ethical climate (OEC) has attracted ample attention, research on antecedents of OEC remains relatively scarce. This study investigates the critical internal drivers of OEC: leader and followers. Specifically, by integrating social cognitive theory and balance theory, we use a dyadic approach to consider leaders' and followers' ethical values in predicting OEC. We also investigate whether and how the congruent ethical values of leaders and followers predict OEC. We conducted a multilevel field study with 155 leader-follower dyads and used polynomial regression with response surface analysis. Our results reveal that there is a main effect of ethical values of leaders and followers on OEC as independent ethical identities, but their congruent ethical values do not predict OEC. Theoretical and practical implications or our findings has also been discussed.