Descriptive Results: Ethical Leadership and Ielt in the Netherlands

This chapter outlines the descriptive results of the survey research. As such, it serves two purposes. The first is to provide background information to the studies reported in Chapters 7 and 8. The second is to extend and validate the findings of the exploratory research in Part I of the dissertation by examining the fourth subquestion of the dissertation: to what extent do working adults in the Netherlands endorse the ideal-typical implicit ethical leadership theories identified in the Q-study (see Chapter 4)? Figure 4.2 in Chapter 4 illustrates the main aspects of the five ideal-typical IELT. The present chapter begins by highlighting the extent to which respondents endorse each of these IELT. It then discusses the ethical leadership characteristics and behaviors that respondents perceive in their direct supervisor57. This includes both the results on Brown et al.’s (2005) Ethical Leadership Scale as well as results on the extent to which respondents found the IELT-vignettes to match the leadership provided by their direct supervisor. As an indication of the varying work contexts in which the respondents operate, the chapter concludes with a brief report of the descriptive results of the main work characteristics of interest hierarchical position, job autonomy, task significance, task publicness, and moral task complexity. Relevant correlations between the various variables are discussed in more detail in Chapters 7 and 8.