Article
Global Business Review
1–15
© 2019 IMI
Reprints and permissions:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/0972150918811255
journals.sagepub.com/home/gbr
1
Assistant Professor, Institute of Management Sciences, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India.
2
Professor, Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.
Corresponding author:
Damini Saini, Institute of Management Sciences, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, Janki Puram, Uttar Pradesh 226031, India.
E-mail: daminisaini01@gmail.com
Leading the Indian Managers to
Satisfaction: The Mediating Role
of Ethical Climate
Damini Saini
1
Sunita Singh Sengupta
2
Abstract
The theme of this study revolves around the ethical approach of the top management and ethical
climate of the organizations which directly or indirectly influence the job-related attitudinal behaviour
of employees. In this article, an attempt is made to explore whether ethical leadership in Indian context
impacts the ethical climate and perceived satisfaction of employees. The study also analyzes the
meditating effect of ethical climate upon the relationship of ethical leadership and managerial satisfaction.
This research study employed a quantitative method using a cross-sectional survey design to assess
the effect of ethical leadership on the organizational ethical climate and managerial satisfaction. A non-
probability, convenience sample was obtained from this population group and was based on accessibility.
This study used internal consistency reliability, Pearson correlation and hierarchical regression as
statistical techniques. The following research study examined the potential of ethical leadership to foster
the levels of ethical climate and found that ethical leadership acts as an antecedent of ethical climate.
Further, the employees led by highly ethical leaders reported highly satisfied, and moderating effect
of ethical climate also found positive. Generalization of this study's results to circumstances in other
countries may not be possible because the target population was employees in Indian corporations.
The study is helpful in addressing the gap of empirical analysis in relation with ethical leadership, ethical
climate and in managerial context in the Indian service sector corporations.
Keywords
Ethical leadership, managerial satisfaction, ethical climate, India.
Introduction
Academicians started focusing upon business ethics for more than four decades ago, but it had acquired
prominence after the well-known downfall of corporations like Enron and WorldCom globally. In India
it took prominence in the 1990s, when the leading scholar Chakraborty (1987, 1991,1995, 1998) started
contributing much in the field of ethics in Indian organizations. Chakraborty (1997) stated that until the