A Meta-analytic Review of Ethical Leadership Outcomes and Moderators Akanksha Bedi 1 • Can M. Alpaslan 1 • Sandy Green 1 Received: 12 December 2014 / Accepted: 15 March 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract A growing body of research suggests that fol- lower perceptions of ethical leadership are associated with beneficial follower outcomes. However, some empirical researchers have found contradictory results. In this study, we use social learning and social exchange theories to test the relationship between ethical leadership and follower work outcomes. Our results suggest that ethical leadership is related positively to numerous follower outcomes such as perceptions of leader interactional fairness and follower ethical behavior. Furthermore, we explore how ethical leadership relates to and is different from other leadership styles such as transformational and transactional leader- ship. Results suggest that ethical leadership is positively associated with transformational leadership and the con- tingent reward dimension of transactional leadership. With respect to the moderators, our results show mixed evidence for publication bias. Finally, geographical locations of study samples moderated some of the relationships be- tween ethical leadership and follower outcomes, and em- ployee samples from public sector organizations showed stronger mean corrected correlations for ethical leadership– follower outcome relationships. Keywords Ethical leadership Á Follower work outcomes Á Social exchange Á Social learning Á Transformational leadership Á Transactional leadership Over the last decade, corporate scandals such as Enron, WorldCom, Nortel, AIG, and Lehman Brothers have at- tracted a great deal of attention. The subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 brought corporate greed and excess to the forefront and highlighted the issue of ethics in leadership. For decades, organizational researchers have defined ethi- cal leadership in normative terms (Ciulla 1998). Most of this research focuses on moral principles and arguments leaders ‘‘should’’ use to constitute and shape their leader- ship styles and ethical decision-making (Brown 2007). In contrast, research that defines ethical leadership in de- scriptive terms or what ‘‘is’’ ethical leadership has only recently started to emerge (Brown and Trevin ˜o 2006). According to this research, ethical leaders are fair, honest, and principled individuals that use various forms of re- wards, punishments, and communication mechanisms to influence their followers’ ethical behavior (Brown et al. 2005). Within this literature, scholars have generally used social learning theory (Bandura 1977) and social exchange theory (Blau 1964) to explain the beneficial effects of follower perceptions of ethical leadership (referred to as ethical leadership from this point forward) on follower work outcomes. Examples include higher levels of job satisfaction (Avey et al. 2012), trust in leadership (Brown et al. 2005), and lower levels of counterproductive work behaviors (Den Hartog and Belschak 2012). In this study, we contribute to the literature on ethical leadership in at least two ways. First, we use social learning (Bandura 1977) and social exchange theories (Blau 1964) to conduct a meta-analysis of ethical leadership and its & Akanksha Bedi abedi@csun.edu Can M. Alpaslan calpaslan@csun.edu Sandy Green sandy.green@csun.edu 1 David Nazarian College of Business and Economics, California State University Northridge, California 91330, USA 123 J Bus Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2625-1