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First published online June 15, 2020

A Multidimensional Measure of Responsible Leadership: Integrating Strategy and Ethics

Swati Agarwal https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6776-3000 [email protected] and Kanika T. BhalView all authors and affiliations

Volume 45, Issue 5

https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601120930140

Abstract

Research on leadership generally discusses the normative and strategic perspectives of leadership separately. However, in the context of stakeholder theory and corporate sustainability, researchers and practitioners have called for the integration of these two seemingly disparate perspectives to create a hybrid leadership framework. In this regard, theoretical work on responsible leadership (RL) combines the disciplines of ethics and strategy to propose integrative behaviors. Nonetheless, RL mostly has been explored as a one-dimensional concept with stakeholder welfare as the focus. Although this aspect is salient, leaders must display other ethical and strategic behaviors to respond to the changing demands of business. Therefore, we combine such behaviors into one RL framework. Through a strategic lens, we define the first two dimensions of RL as sustainable growth focus and multistakeholder consideration. Furthermore, these goal-setting behaviors are looked upon as genuine when they depend on leaders’ ethical behaviors. Therefore, we consider ethical leadership to be an inherent part of RL through the dimensions of the moral person and moral manager. Across four quantitative studies, we test the construct validity of the suggested four-factor structure of RL as well as its ability to predict relevant organizational outcomes such as individual followers’ moral courage and citizenship behaviors toward stakeholders.

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Biographies

Swati Agarwal is a research scholar at IIT Delhi with interest in Leadership Ethics and OB. She is an MBA from MICA, Ahmedabad and B.E. from Punjab University, India.

Kanika T. Bhal is dean (Planning) and professor (HR/OB) at IIT Delhi. A PhD from IIT Kanpur, she has been a visiting fellow at the Sloan School of Management, MIT, Cambridge, USA. Her research interests have been in the areas of leadership, culture, and ethics. She has published over 70 articles in refereed international and national journals, and has authored one and co-authored two books (published by Sage), besides having supervised several doctoral and Masters’ level theses in these areas. Her research has found financial support from the government as well as the industry and she has done sponsored research for Dalmia Group, MHRD, and GLOBE project with the Fordham University (and Wharton Business School) and the US Air Force. She has been providing consulting expertise both to the government as well the business on various policy and strategy-related issues. She has been a consultant to organizations like Fifth Central Pay Commission of India, First National Judicial Pay Commission of India, DRDO, Tibetan Govt., UPSC, DGS&D, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, National Institute of Communicable Diseases and many private organizations including Hewlett Packard (USA).

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Group & Organization Management

Volume 45, Issue 5

Pages: 637 - 673

Article first published online: June 15, 2020

Issue published: October 2020

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Swati Agarwal

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6776-3000

[email protected]

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Kanika T. Bhal

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India

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Notes

Swati Agarwal, Research Scholar, Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, IV Floor, Vishwakarma Bhavan, Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, Delhi 110016, India. Email: [email protected]

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