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BULL ET IN OF THE GEORGIAN NATIONAL ACADEM Y OF SCIENCE S, vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
Management
Investigation of moral leadership status and its
relationship to the organizational accountability in
public organizations in Uromieh town
Farhad Nejad Irani*, Leila Dadashi**
*Assistant Professor, Faculty Member, Department of Management and Human Science, Islamic Azad University , Bonab Branch
** Department of Management and Human Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Bonab Branch, Iran (responsible for correspondence)
ABSTRACT. This study aims to determine moral leadership status and its relationship to
the organizational accountability in public organizations in the city of Uromieh. Fry
theoretical framework (2003) has used to measure moral leadership, and to measure
organizational accountability, the theoretical framework developed by Ramzak (2005) has
been used. This is a descriptive survey and correlational study in regard to its nature and
method. The study population includes all employees of government organizations in the city
of Uromieh as 8327 people, Cochran sampling formula is used to determine the sample size
and to determine the sample size in the organization the stratified random sampling method
is used. According to calculations, the sample size of 367 was calculated. Questionnaire was
used to measure the variables. The validity and reliability of study has been confirmed. To
measure the moral leadership , Fray questionnaire (2003) is used as a standard questionnaire
and to measure organizational accountability ,the theoretical framework developed by
Ramzak (2005) has been used. Since, some items of these questionnaires do not meet the
conditions of Iranian organizations, so some changes imposed and a number of questions
added to it in order to express the true situation in Iran. In order to analyze and classify data,
the descriptive statistics were used. To check normality or abnormality of data, the
Kolmogorov-Smyrnov test used and by using Pearson and Spearman correlation tests, the
research hypotheses were examined to be confirmed or rejected. The Friedman test was used
to rank the seven dimensions of moral leadership in terms of accountability, and to check the
status of moral leadership, t-test was used. Descriptive analysis of all data has been done by
SPSS software. According to the data analysis and results, the entire research hypothesis has
been confirmed.© 2015 Bull. Georg. Natl.Acad. Sci.
Key words: moral leadership, organizational accountability, public organizations in the city of Uromieh
INTRODUCTION
Phenomenon of uncertainty in the current era caused the organizations have proposed very different questions. One
of the primary methods to encourage the current staff to deal with uncertainty is to wholeheartedly devote
themselves to the work and by this way they will find their “self" completely in work! It is alleged that the outcome
of this work is the creative and innovative employees in responding to the turbulent environments. This view is
indefensible, because the main purpose of spirituality in organizations and work places is personal growth, not to
deal with uncertainty in the environment. Today it seems the employees seek to something beyond material rewards
in their activity anywhere (Kinjerski & Skrypnek, 2001).Studies shown that encouragement to the spirituality in the
workplace can be lead to great advantages. The researchers state that encouragement to the spirituality in the
workplace can lead to some advantages and benefits such as increased creativity (Freshman, 1999) , increased
© 2015 Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci.
88
L.Dadashi
honesty, trust and accountability (Wenger Marsh & Conley, 1999), increasing the sense of self-development (Borak,
1999), and increased organizational commitment (Milliman et al, 2003) .According to Fray et al model, the theory
of moral leadership is based on an intrinsic motivational model which make unity the values of leader and followers
(eg, vision, faith, self- sacrifice love, create a common sense , being a loyal one to the organization ) to help the
institutional community and productivity as outcomes of it (Fray et al., 2005, 835).This statement indicates that the
spiritual leaders play an important role for the efficiency of the organization, and prevent the mental escape from
work and trying to find a better moral path to their followers. Whether public staff, administrators and government
officials intend to show that they are committed to the public interests, they must consider accountability as the top
of their work. A common standard of public-centered services is to the extent of sensitivity which government
shows against responsiveness to the public. Fredrickson consider some mechanisms such as public community,
complaining of government organizations and arbitration - which represents the accountability tools - all compatible
with the general theory of government management (Danaei Fard, 2009, 85).Meanwhile, in Iranian public
organizations, there has not applied significant efforts about moral leadership as well as its relationship with
increased institutional accountability. So, it is necessary to increase self-control, organizational commitment of
employees, insight and conceptualizing in the organization, through increased organizational accountability by
moral leadership. Perhaps no element is fundamental than accountability in the organization which in principle
required people to be accountable and responsible against their actions and decisions, because , the lack of
accountability caused any one will be able to do anything at any time which results in chaos and the collapse of the
organization. Accountability system can be designed so that the behavior of individuals could be controlled in order
to improve the purpose and effectiveness of the organization. In sum, the importance and necessity of spirituality in
the organization is so high so that it can give the humanity to organizations, activity to the community and
responsibility to environment and ultimately increase the organizational accountability (Nargesiyan, 2007, 2). It is
necessary to perform some applicable and practical researches about the status of moral leadership and
organizational accountability. To avoid such disadvantage, and development of situation, it should be increased the
accountability in staff and one of indices which will increase the corporate accountability is moral leadership effect.
In general, this study tried to answer the following main questions: which is the situation of moral leadership in
public organizations in the city of Uromieh? What relationship is there between the status quo of moral leadership
and organizational accountability in the city of Uromieh ? What is the priority ranking in respect of the relationship
between moral leadership and organizational accountability in public organizations in the city of Uromieh?
THEORY AND LITERATURE
moral leadership
Some management theorists tried to categorize the moral leadership to understand it more detail, Fray (2003) model
divided moral leadership to seven dimensions. He considers it as including: 1) organizational perspective 2) altruism
3) faith and hope to work 4) membership 5) organizational commitment 6) productivity and continuous
improvement.






Organizational perspective: organizational compelling future vision for an organization that plays as an actuator role. Ii
is in the future, not the present. Insight aims to discover and reveal the best among members.
Altruism: It is the second dimension of moral leadership. It is love to all and without exception. Love and altruism
makes people prefer to suffer themselves rather than others. Altruism is avoided the self- center (Fry, 2005, 835).
Faith and hope to work: the third dimension is faith that people wait and hope for a positive future and it guarantees
efforts through internal incentives. Members consider difficult goals and work hard and faith will help them to move
forward (Fry, 2005, 835).
Membership of the organization: Membership means that the organization understands its members and appreciates
them, so staffs become the loyal members of it (Fry, 2005, 835).
Organizational commitment: Actually, the moral leadership by creating the sense of organizational commitment in
staffs caused to feel identity, loyalty and dependence in them , so staff introduce himself by his organization and desire
to stay with organization. So it causes the staffs consider organization problems as their own and try to resolve them
.Finally, if managers make trust staffs , this will increase the involvement of them in the organization (Ziaei et al.,
2008, 75).
Productivity and continuous improvement (performance feedback) : Finally , the moral leadership provide performance
feedback of staffs by unofficial presentation of the daily performance of employees and also the official visits
periodically. Therefore, the feedback function makes the employees aware during their work on a regular basis and
finds their weaknesses of performance, strengthen their performance, consider their work quality and finally, go
forward to improve organization by the information from the leaders of the organization (Ziaei et al., 2008, 75).
Accountability
Accountability is complex word, which presently become a common word accordingly. During few decades or
before, this word was used in relatively limited concept. In most basic sense, it is responsiveness against a person,
Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
Investigation of moral leadership status and its relationship to the organizational…
89
because of expected performance interpretation. Accountability is often a challenge for managers and even more
than a challenge in reform era. It is possible to send and make the complex messages and communications for the
staff about the great expectations. Accountability is judge of court which is distributed as praising in one hand and
blaming on the other hand. It's a process that all members of the powers and duties should be responsible (Hiuze,
2001).Motavaseli defines accountability as right in just reaction against changes in interests and priorities over time,
the need for changes in goals and in general it discusses the moving target (Motavaseli, 1994, 85). Accountability is
a way to make the public trust (Alvani and Danaei, 2001).Accountability is a promoter force that makes pressure on
key actors in order to be responsible in relation to their performance and be ensured from good performance of
public services (Monavvarian, 2000, 160). Finally, the Mostafaei consider it as one of factor to publicize the
administrative system (Mostafaei, 2004, 8).Some scientists try to understand this concept in detail, so categorized it
as a model to four types:
1-organizational accountability: accountability to stakeholders and customers of organization
2-legal accountability: accountability to the legal authorities
3-profesional accountability: accountability to staff and managers
4-Political accountability (Faqihi, 2002).
BACKGROUND
1. Fry and others (2006) conducted a study as moral leadership and organizational performance. According to
findings of this study, since the vision, faith, altruism, membership, organizational commitment and performance
feedback are different, the performance is also verified. So if employees of organizational management need
performance level, they must concentrate their efforts on moral leadership values. In general, the results showed the
significant positive correlation between organizational performance and dimensions of moral leadership.
2- A. Petrick, F. Quinn (2001), the article appearing under the title, the challenge response to leadership to unify the
capacity as a strategic asset, defined the integration capacity as an intangible asset of an organization's strategy to
challenge the accountability of leaders in order moved the leadership of the practical ways for business leaders
designed to enhance competence and increase the integration capacity caused as an organizational strategic assets.
3-Zahedi And Chit Saz (2005), offered an article as the effect of implementing the management based patterns to
meet the environmental requirements of state universities in Iran in order to understand and explain the use of
patterns at the University and models to assess all aspects of this study to evaluate the efficacy of them in processing
the universal principles of management, institutional competition, customer based, following the principles of the
market, the central role of managers entrepreneurship and accountability and their success in achieving the
strategic requirements such as organizational learning , good governance and strategic leadership is examined.
According to the results, there is a direct relationship between universities flexibility in following the universal
principles of strategic environmental management and influence by the management based patterns to respond the
environment strategic requirements.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1.Determine
the
status
of
moral
leadership
in
public
organizations
in
Uromieh.
2.Determine the type of relationship between moral leadership and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
 .Determine the organizational perspective and organizational accountability in public organizations in
Uromieh
 Determine the relationship between altruism and organizational accountability in public organizations in
Uromieh
 Determine the relationship between organizational commitment and organizational accountability in
public organizations in Uromieh
 Determine the relationship between faith and hope to work and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
 Determine the relationship between membership in organizations and organizational accountability in
public organizations in Uromieh
 Determine the significant relationship and organizational accountability in public organizations in
Uromieh
 Determine the relationship between productivity and organization improvement and organizational
accountability in public organizations in Uromieh
3.Determine the priority in relationship between moral leadership and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
90
L.Dadashi
HYPOTHESIS
1.Status of moral leadership is above mean in public organizations in Urmia cit.
2.There is significant relationship between moral leadership and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
 There is significant relationship between organization perspective and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh.
 There is significant relationship between altruism and organizational accountability in public organizations in
Uromieh
 There is significant relationship between organizational commitment and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
 There is significant relationship between organization productivity and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh.
 There is significant relationship between hope and faith to work and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh
 There is significant relationship between organizational membership and organizational accountability in public
organizations in Uromieh.
 There is significant relationship between significancy and organizational accountability in public organizations in
Uromieh.
3. There is significant difference between different dimensions of moral leadership in regard to the priority.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK OF ANALYTICAL MODEL
The study is designed to evaluate the relationship between moral leadership and accountability in public
organizations in Urmia city after study the literature, interviews with experts in the field of human resource
management, the literature on the Internet, and obtaining the views of faculty members , then Fray theory (2003)
considered in seven dimensions as theoretical framework of moral leadership including1)organizational perspective
2) altruism 3) faith and hope to work 4) membership 5) organizational commitment 6) productivity and continuous
improvement.. And the Ramzek theory ( 2000) were used to study accountability. The accountability dimensions are
as: 1-organizational accountability 2-legal accountability 3-profesional accountability 4-Political accountability, in
order to study the relationship of each dimension of moral leadership and accountability of organization in public
organizations in Urmia city(Faghihi, 2002, 138)
ANALYTICAL MODEL
Figure1: analytical model
Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
91
Investigation of moral leadership status and its relationship to the organizational…
METHODOLOGY
This study is descriptive survey method and in purpose, is applied one. Survey is a method in social research is that
beyond a certain technique to gather information. Although usually it is used a questionnaire, but other techniques
such as Structured interview, observation and content analysis ... are used. Applied Research use researches based
on theory, standards, principles and techniques developed in basic research to solve performance and actual
problems.
STATISTICAL POPULATION AND SAMPLE
Statistical population of this research includes staff of public organizations in Uromieh city. Due to the obtained
information , the number of employees are8 327 people including staffs in state departments (Education,
Government, water and sewage, electricity, gas and telephone services, Roads and Urban Development, Agriculture,
etc.) in Uromieh city.Stratified random sampling method was used in this study in any organization, so that after
estimating the sample size based on the number of employees of government agencies, the number of samples for
each government agency was determined as 367 people by Cochran formula.
Data collecting tools
In this study, the data collection method was library including books, magazines, internal and external articles,
thesis and Internet also the field method using a questionnaire has been used to collect data to check hypothesis. And
to collect data and test hypothesis ,a set of measurement tools designed to measure the research variables including
two standard questionnaires that moral leadership questionnaires (Fray)consisting of 26 items and accountability
questionnaire consisting of 24 items (Ramzak).
Data analysis (Results)
Data analysis from research using descriptive and inferential statistics was done as follows:
 Descriptive data of variables
Table 1: Descriptive data of research variables
productivity
number
mean
Standard
deviation
mean
mode
SD
variance
skewness
SD of
skewness
rank
min
max
Moral leadership
significance
perspective
commitment
763
7/7737
9/99685
763
2/7249
9/ 93979
763
2/93647
9/974697
membership
763
7/68599
9/996327
763
7/73949
9/992649
faith
763
7/29952
9/999459
763
7/74738
9/997947
altruism
763
7/7399
9/88247
accountability
763
2/99988
9/954989
2/9999
2/99
8/65923
4/342
9/372
9/843
5/9999
5/99
8/72634
8/ 982
9/472
9/849
2/9999
4/999
8/332946
7/823
9/327
9/843
7/9999
4/999
8/668932
4/364
9/772
9/849
2/99999
7/999
8/648974
4/649
9/357
9/843
7/99999
4/999
8/679676
4/959
8/787
9/843
2/99999
7/999
8/579279
4/579
9/368
9/843
7/9999
4/99
4/89756
2/372
8/956
9/843
5/99999
5/999
8/988927
8/942
9/937
9/843
9/99
5/99
3/99
87/99
9/999
7/999
3/999
4/999
3/999
7/999
9/999
2/999
3/999
7/999
9/99
6/99
6/999
85/999
89/99
74/99
9/999
6/999
3/999
7/999
9/999
82/99
46/999
In moral leadership variable, the number of samples, mean, median, standard deviation, skewness, elongation,
minimum and maximum are calculated. According to the results obtained for the moral leadership variable, the
mean is equal to 4/9428.
In accountability variable, the number of samples, mean, median, standard deviation, skewness, elongation,
minimum and maximum is calculated. The results of the extracted findings ( Table 1) shows that the mean is equal
to 4/88011.
• Statistical test of hypotheses
In order to select appropriate statistical test to analyze the data, it is necessary to assess the distribution of data
based on normal distribution by using Kolmogorov-Smirnov test in this case. The results are shown in Table 2. It
must be noted that if the value of significance is greater than 0.05, the normality of the data will be accepted
otherwise the abnormality of them will be accepted.
Table 2: Kolmogorov-Smirnov test results to determine normality Variable distribution
Moral
leadership
sig
membership
commitment
landscape
faith
productivity
accountability
variables
763
9/827
9/884
normal
763
8/879
9/964
normal
763
8/846
9/892
normal
763
8/894
9/889
normal
763
8/878
9/969
normal
763
8/899
9/897
normal
763
4/978
9/993
abnormal
763
9/975
9/849
normal
Number of data
Kolmogorov Z
sig
normality
As it is shown in the table above, except the productivity variable, the normality hypothesis of the data is accepted.
For normal data distribution, the Pearson correlation test was used and for data abnormal distribution, Spearman
Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
92
L.Dadashi
correlation test was used. So due to the normality of all variables, the Pearson correlation test and Spearman
correlation for abnormality were used to test research hypotheses.
• Pearson Test
Table 3: Pearson's r test to determine the correlation of moral leadership and its dimensions with organizational
accountability
confirmed or
rejected
Pearson correlation
coefficient
sig
error
organizational
accountability
confirmed
confirmed
confirmed
9/283
9/899
9/477
9/999
9/999
9/999
9/95
9/95
9/95
Moral leadership
landscape
altruism
confirmed
confirmed
confirmed
confirmed
9/463
9/482
9/472
5/653
9/999
9/999
9/999
5/555
9/95
9/95
9/95
5/50
commitment
Faith and hope
membership
sig
Table4: Spearman r test to determine the correlation between productivity, continuous improvement and
accountability
confirmed
or rejected
Pearson correlation
coefficient
sig
error
accountability
confirmed
5/673
5/555
5/50
productivity,
continuous
improvement
As it is shown in the tables (5) and (6), there is a significant positive relationship between Moral leadership and
accountability. And all aspects of Moral leadership (landscape, altruism, commitment, Faith and hope, membership
organization and productivity and continuous improvement) are positive and significant relationship with
accountability. So the main hypothesis and auxiliary hypotheses are confirmed.
H1: There is significant difference between different dimensions of moral leadership and organizational
accountability in regard to priority in public organization in Uromieh city.
H0: There is significant difference between different dimensions of moral leadership and organizational
accountability in regard to priority in public organization in Uromieh city.
• Friedman test
Table 5: Friedman test
Size
Description
763
6
Number
Freedom degree
9/999
Sig
As it is shown in the table (7) , the results of Friedman test are statistically-significant as 0/000 and the resulting
number is less than 5% (the error level) , so hypothesis H0 is rejected and H1 confirmed.
Table 6: Friedman test to compare mean scores of variables of seven dimensions
Moral leadership
rank
Mean of ranks
variables
7
5
3
2
8
2/98
2/46
2/77
2/49
7/86
altruism
productivity
sig
commitment
landscape
6
4
2/79
7/66
faith
membership
As it is shown in the table 8, the mean values for each of the dimensions are expressed and priority of effects of each
dimension of moral leadership was determined. Results showed the landscape dimension has first priority as average
3/16, therefore, is mostly related to the accountability. Significant dimension as 4/33 is the last priority.
Bull. Georg. Natl. Acad. Sci., vols. 9, no. 2, 2015
Investigation of moral leadership status and its relationship to the organizational…
93
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
The results obtained from the first major test shows the average moral leadership is equal to 4/2 in public
organizations in Uromia city and can be concluded the moral leadership rate in the population studied is higher than
mean, so this rate is quite acceptable. Also there is significant relationship between moral leadership and
accountability in Urmia city. According to the results from hypotheses examined in this study, there is a relationship
between moral leadership, dimensions of moral leadership and accountability. This means that increasing moral
leadership in public organizations in Uromieh city will improve the organizational accountability.
In this study, the correlation method is used. In this regard, it is recommended the other researchers use the provided
tests and models for moral leadership and organizational accountability by other methods such as regression, path
analysis and comprehensive pattern in this regard:
1. Study the effect of characters specifications on staff accountability
2. Comparative study of moral leadership in public and private sector organizations
3. Study the relationship between consciousness and accountability
4. Study the relationship between moral leadership and Job Satisfaction
5. Present a model of organizational accountability in government organizations with an emphasis on organizational
culture.
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