Leader behavior, job performance, and service quality : ethical perspective from banking sector

This study aimed to examine the relationships between ethical leadership behavior, ethical work climate, employee job performance, and customer service quality. The impact of ethical leadership on three types of ethical climates-egoist, benevolent, and principled-, employee job performance, and customer service quality were analyzed, as were the relationships between all of these variables as well. Data were gathered from 379 bank branch employees and 406 bank customers in Izmir, Turkiye. Results of the PLS-SEM analysis revealed that ethical leadership behavior affects benevolent and principled ethical climates, but contrary to the hypothesis suggested, it also has a positive effect on an egoistic climate. However, the results indicate that the egoist and benevolent climates do not have a significant influence on job performance, but the principled climate positively affects the job performance of employees. In addition, ethical leadership affects job performance positively. However, ethical leadership and service quality, as well as job performance and service quality, are not significantly related. These findings further suggest that ethical leadership behaviors affect an ethical working climate and have a positive effect on employee job performance and quality of service.