Ethical Leadership in South Africa and Botswana

Cheteni, Priviledge and Shindika, Emmanuel (2016): Ethical Leadership in South Africa and Botswana. Published in: Brazilian Administration Review , Vol. 14, No. 2 (28 July 2017): pp. 2-17.

Abstract

This study was conducted to investigate the extent of ethical leadership practices in African public utilities, given the relatively high corruption reported in its institutions, with consequences of seriously constrained development of the national economy and significant hindrance to good governance. Our aim was to establish potential benefits from ethical leadership in public sector agencies, by analysing ethical leadership characteristics of leaders in the public sector from Botswana and South Africa. We measured ethical leadership perceptions utilizing a combination of scales in an attempt to encompass the larger breadth of ethical leadership scales in literature, to determine how employees perceived their managers in terms of being moral people and moral managers. A total of 108 respondents completed questionnaires. Results indicate that there were significant differences between the perceptions of managers’ moral conduct. South African leaders were perceived as relatively weaker moral managers as compared to those in Botswana.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Africa, Corruption, Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS), Managers, Moral
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H7 - State and Local Government ; Intergovernmental Relations; M - Business Administration and Business Economics ; Marketing ; Accounting ; Personnel Economics > M0 - General

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