The relation between religiosity, family cohesion and ethical leadership: a study of family firms in Turkey

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links among different forms of religiosity, family cohesion and ethical leadership in family firms operating in Turkey.

The study was conducted with 210 respondents working in 51 family firms operating in Istanbul. Data regarding ethical leadership perceptions were collected separately from employees (non-family member) and managers (family member), and responses were matched in firm level to investigate the relations between variables calculated separately as perceptions of managers and employees. Confirmatory factor analysis and reliability statistics were used for ascertaining the dimensionality and factor structures of the constructs. Correlation analysis, structural equation modeling and bootstrapping method were used for investigating the relationships among variables.

Results of the study demonstrated that family cohesion, intrinsic religiosity and spiritual well-being-oriented religiosity were positively, while secular religiosity was negatively related with ethical leadership levels rated by family member managers. Although none of these variables showed significant correlations with ethical leadership perceptions of non-family member employees, ethical leadership perceptions of the family managers and ethical leadership perceptions of employees were positively correlated, and intrinsic religiosity and spiritual well-being-oriented religiosity had significant indirect effects on ethical leadership perceptions of employees.

Given the lack of studies addressing the links between different forms of religiosity with ethical leadership especially in the Turkish context and the gap regarding research designs analyzing these relationships from the perspectives of managers and employees, the study provides important contributions.