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Fostering Creative Interdisciplinarity: Building Bridges between Ethical Leadership and Leaders’ Interpersonal Communication Competence

Anne Laajalahti

Public Relations and the Power of Creativity

ISBN: 978-1-78769-292-3, eISBN: 978-1-78769-291-6

ISSN: 2398-3914

Publication date: 24 September 2018

Abstract

Recently, ethical leadership has become a widely studied research topic. Simultaneously, many studies have begun to emphasise the role of interpersonal communication competence (ICC) in successful leadership. However, there has been little discussion on the links between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. To address this research gap, this study aims to compare and combine the research traditions of ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC. The study is based on two literature reviews examining (a) ethical leadership (substudy 1; N = 27) and (b) leaders’ ICC (substudy 2; N = 18). The research questions are as follows: (a) How are the requirements of leaders’ ICC noticed in the literature of ethical leadership? (substudy 1) (b) How are the requirements of ethical leadership noticed in the literature of leaders’ ICC? (substudy 2) The findings reveal that (a) studies in ethical leadership rarely pay attention to leaders’ ICC and (b) studies in leaders’ ICC do not often discuss ethical aspects of ICC, at least explicitly. While a larger sample would have been preferred, the study contributes to previous research by addressing a research gap between ethical leadership and leaders’ ICC and suggests integrating these research traditions to better understand the nature of ethics and ICC in leadership. By promoting novel interdisciplinary research perspectives, the study provides a foundation for further research and development of (a) a competence-based approach to ethical leadership and (b) an ethics-focused approach to competent leadership communication.

Keywords

  • Corporate communication
  • Ethicality
  • Ethical leadership
  • Interpersonal communication competence (ICC)
  • Leadership communication
  • Organisational communication

Citation

Laajalahti, A. (2018), "Fostering Creative Interdisciplinarity: Building Bridges between Ethical Leadership and Leaders’ Interpersonal Communication Competence", Public Relations and the Power of Creativity (Advances in Public Relations and Communication Management, Vol. 3), Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 23-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-391420180000003002

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018 Emerald Publishing Limited

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