The Relation between Machiavellianism, Organizational Commitment and Ethical Leadership: A Field Research on Academicians in Turkey

Abstract

Organizational commitment and ethical leadership practices are regarded as crucial in the process of achieving organizational goals in modern organizational structures and as variables that need to be enhanced within administrative policies of organizations. According to literature, the Machiavellian characteristics of the employees typically stand out as an unwanted phenomenon in organizations. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between Machiavellianism, organizational commitment and ethical leadership in universities. A questionnaire was conducted on 385 academic staff serving in universities around Turkey and frequency, t-test, ANOVA and regression methods were utilized in the analysis of the research data. According to research findings, a positive relationship was found between the continuance commitment and normative commitment which are among sub-dimensions of organizational commitment and Machiavellianism tendency. It was observed that ethical leadership was positively related to all sub-dimensions of organizational commitment, that is, ethical leadership behaviors were an important determinant in terms of organizational commitment. No relation was found between the tendency of Machiavellianism and ethical leadership behaviors.