BUS603: Managing People

As with any field research, the present research contains several limitations that offer opportunities for further research efforts. First, this study was conducted in a specific industry and cultural context (i.e., public foreign trade in Egypt), so the generalization of the findings of this study demands caution. These findings are in line with existing theories, but Egyptian culture presents contextual characteristics that may have affected them. For example, Egypt is highly collectivistic, so people closely identify with the group or team to which they belong, which could have contributed to the mediating effect of an organizational culture of effectiveness that emphasizes teamwork. In addition, Egypt is highly avoidant of uncertainty, short-term oriented – which leads to see the change with fear – and restrained. Accordingly, the participants in this study could have been more sensitive to the influence of ethical leadership, as it is a factor that may reduce the level of uncertainty, fear, and pessimism among employees. Thus, further research should include additional industries and design cross-cultural studies to test for the universality (or context sensitivity) of the findings of this study and their underlying theories.

Second, the data were cross-sectional, which limits the causal conclusions. However, prior meta-analytic research suggests that ethical leadership is a strong antecedent of positive outcomes in employees, which suggests that causality leads from ethical leadership to employees' readiness to change, not the reverse. However, future work might address longitudinal studies to provide stronger evidence of the causal relations herein identified.

Another limitation is that the study variables were based on self-reported data, which can create common method bias concerns. The current study followed procedural remedies to avoid this bias and the post hoc test that was conducted suggests that this bias was not a problem. However, future research could extend the findings by measuring employees' readiness to change using team colleagues' or managers' scores.

Finally, this investigation focused on managers' ethical leadership as a trigger for an organizational culture of effectiveness and employees' readiness to change. However, interactions with team colleagues who have a strong ethical focus might also play a role here. Shah and Shah, for example, find that having good relations with peers, who play a role in shaping the organizational culture, increases employees' readiness to change. Thus, future studies could evaluate this possibility in accounting for employees' readiness to change. Overall, the findings of this study provide interesting insights for management literature and offer new opportunities for future research.