The Effects of Ethical Leadership and Ethical Climate on Organizational Broken Windows

Ethical leadership and organizational ethical climate are increasingly recognized as important factors for preventing workplace misconduct and sustaining organizational integrity. Although previous studies have separately examined ethical leadership, ethical climate, and unethical organizational behavior, limited empirical research has investigated their integrated effects on organizational broken windows within the framework of broken windows theory. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effects of employees’ perceptions of ethical leadership and organizational ethical climate on perceptions of organizational broken windows. In addition, the mediating role of organizational ethical climate in the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational broken windows was examined. The empirical data were collected in Türkiye between March and April 2026 from 356 white-collar employees working in both public and private-sector organizations, using convenience sampling. Participants were employed in sectors including healthcare, education, and manufacturing. Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire and analyzed using validity and reliability analyses, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, and structural equation modeling (SEM) using SPSS and AMOS. The findings revealed that perceived ethical leadership negatively affected perceptions of organizational broken windows (β = –0.30, p <0.05), explaining approximately 9% of the variance in the dependent variable. Organizational ethical climate also had a statistically significant negative effect on perceptions of organizational broken windows (β = –0.29, p <0.05), accounting for approximately 8% of the variance. In addition, ethical leadership was found to have a strong positive effect on organizational ethical climate (β = 0.85, R² = 0.75). However, the mediating effect of organizational ethical climate on the relationship between ethical leadership and organizational broken windows was not statistically significant. The findings suggest that strengthening ethical leadership practices and fostering ethical organizational environments may help organizations prevent the normalization and spread of unethical workplace behavior. The study contributes to the business ethics and organizational behavior literature by empirically integrating ethical leadership, organizational ethical climate, and organizational broken windows within a single structural framework and by extending broken windows theory to organizational settings.