关键词: 责任型领导, 企业社会责任, 利益相关者, 领导力

Abstract: In light of the increasing societal and environmental problems, corporates and their leaders are expected to contribute to public welfares, such as public administration (health, education, and social security) and environmental protection. Accordingly, the concept of responsible leadership was proposed and highlighted, increasingly garnering incredible attention in recent years. Among the large number of studies on responsible leadership, many scholars posited that such leadership style could help corporates copy with the global challenges and maintain their competitive advantages. Considering the important role that responsible leadership plays in balancing economic benefits and social benefits, this current research summarizes existing literature on responsible leadership with regard to definitions, measurements and theories, while providing some suggestions for the future research. To date, researchers defined responsible leadership mainly in three perspectives, including relational perspective, procedural perspective and behavioral perspective. For example, Pless and Maak (2005) defined responsible leadership as a value-based leadership style that emphasizes ethical principles driven relationship between leaders and stakeholders. Voegtlin (2011) understood responsible leadership as awareness and consideration of the consequences of a company’s actions for all stakeholders, as well as the exertion of influence by enabling the involvement of the affected stakeholders and by engaging in an active stakeholder dialogue. Besides, Stahl and de Luque (2014) classfied responsible leadership into two types of socially responsible behavior: “doing good” and “avoiding harm.” Doing good means that leaders engage in activities that are aimed at enhancing societal welfare (e.g., goes beyond minimum legal requirements to provide employment opportunities for disabled workers). Avoiding harm means that leaders refrain from activities that have harmful consequences for others (e.g., strictly enforces safety regulations). In terms of measurements, Voegtlin (2011) and Doh et al (2011) respectively explored the constructs of responsible leadership and developed a scale to measure it. Such scales have been given support of good reliability and validity. Additionally, this paper provides an overview of existing research on responsible leadership, and summarizes seven theoretical perspectives for explaining the antecedents and consequences of responsible leadership. Moral identity and personality can predict the emergence if responsible leadership. However, through the lens of situational strength theory, big five personality, cognition, moral philosophy and affective trait have a predictive effect on responsible leadership only when the strength of situational factors is low. The consequences of responsible leadership include attitudinal and behavioral outcomes in both individual level and organizational level. In terms of individual level outcomes, responsible leadership can shapes followers’ job performance and ethical behaviors through affective events, social-exchange relationship, social learning mechanism and social information processing. In terms of organizational level outcomes, responsible leadership can contribute to the organizational performance and sustainable business through the accumulation of social capital and corporate social responsibility practice. Future research can exert efforts to distinguish the multi-pathways linking responsible leadership to work outcomes. For example, does the social-information induced cognitive pathway explain more variance in the mediating effect of responsible leadership on work outcomes than affective-event driven emotional pathway? Besides, indigenous scholars also can explore the mergence mechanism of responsible leadership in Chinese context from the perspective of collectivism orientation. , In light of the increasing societal and environmental problems, corporates and their leaders are expected to contribute to public welfares, such as public administration (health, education, and social security) and environmental protection. Accordingly, the concept of responsible leadership was proposed and highlighted, increasingly garnering incredible attention in recent years. Among the large number of studies on responsible leadership, many scholars posited that such leadership style could help corporates copy with the global challenges and maintain their competitive advantages. Considering the important role that responsible leadership plays in balancing economic benefits and social benefits, this current research summarizes existing literature on responsible leadership with regard to definitions, measurements and theories, while providing some suggestions for the future research. To date, researchers defined responsible leadership mainly in three perspectives, including relational perspective, procedural perspective and behavioral perspective. For example, Pless and Maak (2005) defined responsible leadership as a value-based leadership style that emphasizes ethical principles driven relationship between leaders and stakeholders. Voegtlin (2011) understood responsible leadership as awareness and consideration of the consequences of a company’s actions for all stakeholders, as well as the exertion of influence by enabling the involvement of the affected stakeholders and by engaging in an active stakeholder dialogue. Besides, Stahl and de Luque (2014) classfied responsible leadership into two types of socially responsible behavior: “doing good” and “avoiding harm.” Doing good means that leaders engage in activities that are aimed at enhancing societal welfare (e.g., goes beyond minimum legal requirements to provide employment opportunities for disabled workers). Avoiding harm means that leaders refrain from activities that have harmful consequences for others (e.g., strictly enforces safety regulations). In terms of measurements, Voegtlin (2011) and Doh et al (2011) respectively explored the constructs of responsible leadership and developed a scale to measure it. Such scales have been given support of good reliability and validity. Additionally, this paper provides an overview of existing research on responsible leadership, and summarizes seven theoretical perspectives for explaining the antecedents and consequences of responsible leadership. Moral identity and personality can predict the emergence if responsible leadership. However, through the lens of situational strength theory, big five personality, cognition, moral philosophy and affective trait have a predictive effect on responsible leadership only when the strength of situational factors is low. The consequences of responsible leadership include attitudinal and behavioral outcomes in both individual level and organizational level. In terms of individual level outcomes, responsible leadership can shapes followers’ job performance and ethical behaviors through affective events, social-exchange relationship, social learning mechanism and social information processing. In terms of organizational level outcomes, responsible leadership can contribute to the organizational performance and sustainable business through the accumulation of social capital and corporate social responsibility practice. Future research can exert efforts to distinguish the multi-pathways linking responsible leadership to work outcomes. For example, does the social-information induced cognitive pathway explain more variance in the mediating effect of responsible leadership on work outcomes than affective-event driven emotional pathway? Besides, indigenous scholars also can explore the mergence mechanism of responsible leadership in Chinese context from the perspective of collectivism orientation.

Key words: responsible leadership, corporate social responsibility, stakeholder theory, leadership.