Examining Ethical Leadership: An Insight into Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Ethical Performance

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue V, May 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Examining Ethical Leadership: An Insight into Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Ethical Performance

Chikelu Okey Felix. PhD, Bala Aliyu Kardi, Ahmed Tijani
Waziri Umaru Federal Polytechnic, Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State, Nigeria

Abstarct:- This paper explores the construct of ethical leadership, the antecedents and outcomes of corporate social responsibility due to internal and external forces which propels responsiveness. Ethical leaders take post conventional decisions; they make long-term judgments which have positive effect on general organizational activities. It investigates the influence of ethical leadership values in the firm’s performance with regards to her economy, operational, commercial and its relationship with corporate social responsibility. Data were collected from 196 respondents from food and beverage companies in South East Nigeria. The conceptual model designed was empirically tested and the major result indicated that ethical leadership has a significant positive effect on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the general organizational operational performance. On the other hand, corporate social responsibility (CSR) was found to have statistical positive effect on commercial, operational and organizational performance while operational performance significantly and positively influence commercial performance that propels economic performance. Against the above backdrop, the results gave an insight into the role of ethical leadership in the food and beverage companies which helps in internalization and initiation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities which creates room for future research implication and new model development.

Keywords: Ethical Leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, Organizational Performance

I. INTRODUCTION

Ethical leaders are simple, humble, with high integrity and strong will character. Nowadays, corporate ethical decline and lapses creates the need for ethical consciousness which shows that leadership skills alone are no longer enough in modern organization management (Brown, & Treviño, 2006). The term corporate social responsibility (CSR) more or less referred to as organizational commitment to stakeholders through strategies, operational procedures and practices designed to link it with its immediate environment. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no longer community based level functions alone, it has expanded over the years into positive ideological force for social change and other corporate social responsibility initiative and policies. On the other hand, internal legitimacy is as a result of internal and external support of stakeholders that propels social and financial level.

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