Ethical Leadership and OCB : The Mediating Role of Organizational Trust and the Moderating Role of Perceived External Prestige

Addressing numbers of calls for future research on understanding the theoretical mechanisms that explain the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational citizenship behaviour, this study focused on how organizational trust mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and OCB. It also looked at how perceived external prestige might moderate this mediated relationship. Our theoretical model was tested using data collected from 21 organization located in South Korea, our sample of 617 participants showed that ethical leadership could significantly affect OCB through organizational trust. Further, it was found that perceived external prestige moderates the indirect effect of ethical leadership on OCB via organizational trust such that indirect effect is strong among employees with high PEP levels. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.