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Abstract
Drawing upon social exchange theory and extant literature on climate and leadership, the goal of this research was to look at the role of employee perceived ethical organizational climate as a potential mechanism through which a benevolent paternalistic leadership style relates to employee affective organizational commitment in Mexico. The research is guided by the following major question: What is the relationship, if any, between benevolent paternalistic managerial behavior, employee perceptions of ethical organizational climate, and affective organizational commitment in Mexico? The study sample consisted of 152 retained subjects, all of whom had a confirmed substantial working experience within Mexico. The survey instrument consisted of the “Paternalistic Leadership Scale” developed by Pellegrini and Scandura (2006, 2008), the “Ethical Organizational Climate Scale” developed by Victor and Cullen (1987), the “Organizational Commitment Scale” originally developed by Allen and Meyer (1990) and later revised by Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993), and some demographic questions. Using SPSS 26 the data was subjected to exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and reliability analyses to assess the factor configuration of the measures. Regression analysis using SPSS 26 was used to test whether the independent and mediating variables have the suggested influence on the dependent variable. The results for the four hypotheses proposed in the dissertation were supported. Specifically, our results showed that benevolent paternalistic management is positively related to both affective organizational commitment (H1) and to employee perceptions of a caring ethical organizational climate (H2); employee perceptions of caring ethical organizational climate is positively related to affective organizational climate (H3), and partially mediates the relationship between benevolent paternalistic management and affective organizational commitment (H4).