Integrating ethics and inclusion: How and when upper-level managerial leadership impact supervisory inclusiveness

This study seeks to integrate behavioral ethics and organizational diversity, equity, and inclusion research in effort to extend our understanding of the workplace factors that impact the engagement of inclusive leadership. For this purpose, we rely on social information processing theory to explain how and when upper-level managerial leadership impacts middle-level supervisory inclusiveness. We clarify these baseline relationships by integrating the role of supervisor organization-based self-esteem and negative affectivity into our model. We test our conceptual model in a multi-source field study consisting of 124 supervisor-employee dyads. Our study finds that upper-level managerial ethical leadership positively impacts middle-level supervisor organization-based self-esteem and upper-level managerial abusive leadership negatively impacts supervisor OBSE. In turn, supervisor OBSE positively impacts supervisory inclusiveness. Additionally, we find that supervisor negative affectivity moderates these relationships. Specifically, the relationships between (1) upper-level managerial ethical leadership and supervisor OBSE and (2) upper-level managerial abusive leadership and supervisor OBSE are stronger when supervisor negative affectivity is high compared to low. In summary, our first-stage moderated-mediation model is supported. We conclude by discussing implications, limitations, and future research.
Author(s): Darryl B. Rice [sup.1] , Nicole C. J. Young [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.259956.4, 0000 0001 2195 6763, Miami University, , 400 E. High Street, 45056, Oxford, OH, USA [...]