TITLE:
Small Business Leadership and Ethical Attributes That Influence Employee Job Satisfaction
AUTHORS:
LaJuan Perronoski Fuller
KEYWORDS:
Ethics, Leadership, Job Satisfaction, Small Business Management
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.10 No.1,
January
20,
2022
ABSTRACT: Organizational leadership studies acknowledge that leadership styles
positively affect job satisfaction. Currently, there are limited ethical,
theoretical studies to investigate the relationship with job satisfaction.
Therefore, there is a need for additional ethical leadership theories to
explain conditions that may improve on negative organizational phenomena. This
study investigated the relationship between the foundational leadership theory
and job satisfaction. Foundational leadership is an inward (internal) and
outward (employee perceived) examination of ethical decisions based on
integrity, assurance, and pragmatism. The findings were based on 330 full-time
entry and mid-level employees between ages 18 - 60+
across various industries in the United States. Cronbach’s alpha confirmed that
integrity, assurance, and pragmatism is reliable measurement for ethical
leadership. Pearson correlation revealed that the foundational leadership
attributes of integrity, assurance, and pragmatism significantly correlate with
employee job satisfaction. Finally, multiple linear regression results
determine that ethical leadership training programs can teach Foundational
Leadership to create job satisfaction. However, recurring leadership training
should reinforce foundational leadership assurance (FLA) to foster job
satisfaction within the leader-member exchange relationship.