Ethical Leadership and Organizational Cynicism: Studying the Mediating Role of Ethical Climate

Organizational cynicism as one of the main problems of current organizations, has many negative consequences for the organizations in personal and organizational level. Therefor studying solutions for diminishing this phenomenon, is vital. Considering importance of ethical concerns in organizations, this paper studies the impact of ethical leadership on decreasing organizational cynicism directly and through the ethical climate. Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization of Zanjan form the research population. Data gathered by standard questionnaire has been analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results show that there is not significant (direct negative) effect between ethical leadership and organizational cynicism, but if ethical leadership set the stage for flourishing ethical climate, it can decrease organizational cynicism. In this regard, the positive direct impact of ethical leadership on ethical climate has been confirmed.