MEASURING INSTRUMENTS

Measures of the exogenous and endogenous latent variables comprising the ethical climate structural model are needed in order to obtain empirical evidence that the relationships postulated by the structural model provides a valid description of the manner in which the core ethical values, ethical leadership, organisational justice and ethical climate combine to

affect leadership effectiveness. In other words, the research hypotheses as expressed above had to be operationalised by creating an exogenous and an endogenous measurement model (Theron, 2012). Operationalisation of the latent variables entails the creation of empirically measurable observed/indicator variables. Operationalising the latent variables in the structural model creates two additional measurement models (an endogenous and exogenous model) which results in a comprehensive LISREL model when integrated with the structural model (Theron, 2012).

Effect indicators were used to represent the latent variables. In order to improve the likelihood that the operationalised structural model would be identified, the requirement was to have at least two or more indicator variables per latent variable. The two measurement models describe how the exogenous and endogenous latent variables reflect themselves in indicator/observed variables. To come to valid conclusions on the ability of the effective ethical leadership structural model, evidence is needed, however, that the indicator variables are indeed valid and reliable measures of the latent variables they are linked to in accordance with the measurement models (Diamantopoulos & Siguaw, 2000).

The following measurement instruments were used in this study to operationalise the latent variables in the model and to test the structural relations hypothesised by the model.

3.6.1 Leader effectiveness

A 5-item Leader Effectiveness Questionnaire (LEQ) was developed for the purpose of this study (Engelbrecht, 2013). Three items were adapted from Bass and Avolio’s (1989) MLQ and the other two were developed by Engelbrecht (2013). The items in the LEQ focus on motivating team performance beyond expectations; meeting team objectives; effective team representation by the leader; team members’ satisfaction with their leader; and followers’ perceived overall effectiveness of the leader.

3.6.2 Ethical climate

Ethical climate in the organisations was measured by the original Ethical Climate Questionnaire (ECQ) of Victor and Cullen (1988) which consists of descriptive statements originally designed to describe the various dimensions of ethical work climate. The ECQ originally consisted of 36 items respectively from the five ethical climate dimensions, namely caring, law and code, rules, instrumental and the independence dimensions. Only 19 items from four of the ethical climate dimensions (i.e., caring, law and code, rules and independence) were utilised for the purpose of this study. These items comprised seven

items from the caring dimension, four items from the law and code dimension, four items from the rules dimension and four items from the independence dimension.

The ECQ items were administered on a 6-point scale with responses ranging from ‘disagree strongly’ to ‘agree strongly.’ Respondents were asked to evaluate the extent to which each item was true of their departments/organisations. The instruments placed respondents in the role of observers reporting on and evaluating the perceived ethical climates, rather than focussing on whether respondents perceive the ethical climates as being good or bad (Victor & Cullen, 1988; Cullen, Victor & Bronson, 1993). The internal consistencies (Cronbach’s alpha) of the four sub-scales were as follows: the caring, law and rules sub-scales all had high alpha coefficients (.92, .88, and .85 respectively). The independence (alpha = .69) scale was relatively lower, yet sufficient for establishing internal consistency (Nunnally, 1978; Wimbush et al., 1997).

3.6.3 Organisational justice

Organisational justice was measured by Niehoff and Moorman’s (1993) 21-item justice scale. In addition, one item from Colquitt et al.’s (2001) scale was also included in the justice scale. The additional item focuses on the sustaining of ethical and moral standards by the leader (Colquitt et al., 2001).

Niehoff and Moorman’s (1993) justice scale consists of one dimension measuring perceptions of distributive justice and two dimensions measuring perceptions of procedural justice. Distributive justice was measured using five items assessing the fairness of different work outcomes, including pay level; work schedule; work load; and job responsibilities. Procedural justice was measured with items designed to tap both formal procedures and interactional justice. Formal procedures (seven items) measured the degree to which job decisions included mechanisms that insured the gathering of accurate and unbiased information; employee voice; and an appeals process. Interactional justice (nine items) measured the degree to which employees felt their needs were considered in, and adequate explanations were made for, job decisions. This scale was based on one used by Moorman (1991) and reported reliabilities above .90 for all three dimensions. All items used a six-point response format.

3.6.4 Ethical leadership

Ethical leadership was measured by the revised 17-item Leadership of Ethics Scale (LES) which was developed by Engelbrecht and Heine (Heine, 2013). The objective of the LES was to develop an ethical leadership measure that can be differentiated conceptually from a

measure of behavioural integrity (one of the latent variables of this study). The revised LES was based on items from different measures of ethical leadership (Brown, Trevino & Harrison, 2005; Mayer et al., 2012; Spangenberg & Theron, 2005; Yukl, Mahsud, Hassan & Prussia, 2011).

One item from Mayer et al. (2012) was included in the revised LES. This item measures the extent to which the leader treats his/her followers with respect.

Nine items from the Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS) developed by Brown et al. (2005) were included in the revised LES. The ELS combines different leader behaviours such as acting fairly and rewarding ethical conduct.

Three items from the Ethical Leadership Inventory (ELI) were integrated in the revised LES. The ELI developed by Spangenberg and Theron (2005) place emphasis on the ethical vision of an ethical leader. The three items of this scale were included because they introduce the dimension of an ethical vision and the transferring of ethical leadership into the organisation (Heine, 2013).

Four items from Yukl et al. (2011) were also included in the revised LES. The four items included in the LES elaboration on the ethical practices of ethical leaders and were therefore considered appropriate to contribute to the constitution of the final questionnaire (Heine, 2013).

The LES has high reliability and was assessed and confirmed through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (Heine, 2013). The Cronbach’s alpha of the LES was reported to be .97, indicating a high level of internal consistency. It can be regarded as highly satisfactory as it considerably exceeded the recommended value of 0.70 (Nunnally, 1978). EFA confirmed the uni-dimensionality of the LES. All 17 items in the LES loaded satisfactory (> 0.50) on the single underlying factor. Through examination of Heine’s (2013) CFA results, it was found that the null hypothesis of close fit for the refined LES measurement model was not rejected (H0: RMSEA ≤ 0.05). This is an indication that the measurement model fits the data well and that the quality of the fit is good.

3.6.5 Integrity

Integrity was measured by the 20-item Behavioural Integrity Survey (BIS) originally developed by Engelbrecht and Heine (as cited in Heine, 2013) and further revised by Engelbrecht and Wolmarans (2013) for the purpose of this study. The items in the revised BIS (BIS-R) place emphasis on the consistency, promise fulfilment, fairness, trustworthiness

and honesty the leader should regard as important in order to exhibit integrity (Palanski & Yammarino, 2007).

Ten items from various measures assessing different dimensions of integrity were adapted and included in the BIS-R. These were from Butler (1991) (four items), Bews (2000) (one item), Kalshoven et al. (2011) (one item), Ferris & Travaglione (2003) (one item), Dietz & Den Hartog (2006) (two items) and Avolio et al. (2008) (one item).

An additional item was developed by Engelbrecht (2013) for inclusion in the BIS-R, accentuating the role of conscientiousness in integrity.

The nine items of the BIS (Heine, 2013) were also incorporated in the BIS-R. The BIS revealed a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96, which greatly exceeded the minimum cut-off score of 0.70. The EFA results supported the uni-dimensionality of the BIS. All nine items in the BIS loaded satisfactorily (> 0.50) on the single underlying factor. The CFA results revealed that the null hypothesis of close fit for the BIS measurement model was not rejected (H0: RMSEA ≤ 0.05). This indicates that the measurement model fitted the data well (Heine, 2013).

3.6.6 Altruism

Langley’s (1992) Values Scale was used to measure the altruism sub-scale. The scale included five items, in the form of statements that describe the leader’s behaviour. Respondents had to rate their immediate supervisors by indicating their response alternatives on a six-point Likert scale, ranging from ‘disagree strongly’ to ‘agree strongly’. The reliability coefficient obtained by Langley (1992) for the altruism subscale was 0.86 and construct validity was evidenced by the nature of the factor structure.

3.7 METHOD BIAS

Method bias refers to the presence of nuisance variables due to method-related factors (Van der Vijver, 2002). Three types of method bias can exist: sample bias (incomparability of samples on aspects other than the target variable), instrument bias (problems due to measurement instrument characteristics), and administration bias (due to administration problems, i.e. communication between testers and test-takers) (Van der Vijver, 2002). The possibility of method bias should especially be considered in contexts where measures are developed for the use of multi-cultural test takers.

Taking both this stance as well as the self-reporting nature of the instruments utilised for the study into consideration, the threat of method bias in the form of instrument bias was a possibility. The manner in which the first-line employees completed the measures was

conducted in the form of self-report, fill-in questionnaires. Research concerning self-report measures can be considered as a source of concern, based on the potential inflation of correlations between measures assessed by the same method (i.e., self-report) (Meade, Watson & Kroustalis, 2007). To eliminate the possibility of method bias in this study, various employees from different cultural contexts were involved in the assessment of ethical leadership and the leader’s effectiveness of the organisation.