Ethical leadership and organizational commitment in the Canadian Armed Forces : an analysis of perceived supervisor ethical leadership as a predictor of organizational commitment in a Canadian Armed Forces sample

Abstract

Ethical leadership and organizational commitment are two concepts that have been important to organizations in recent years. Research has demonstrated that these two concepts are linked. The current study set out to determine the antecedents and consequences of supervisor ethical leadership and in particular, organizational commitment as a consequence of supervisor ethical leadership. The current study investigated these relationships using a sample consisting of Canadian Armed Forces Army personnel (N = 468). Perceived supervisor ethical leadership was found to be directly and positively correlated with employee affective and normative commitment, and not correlated with employee continuance commitment. As well, no difference was found in the perceptions of supervisor ethical leadership for female military personnel as compared to male military personnel. The hypotheses that employee education level would be positively related to perceptions of ethical leadership and that employee age and rank would moderate the relationship between perceived supervisor ethical leadership and employee affective commitment were not supported.