The Impact of Justice Climate and Justice Orientation on Work Outcomes: A Cross-Level Multifoci Framework.

In this article, which takes a person-situation approach, the authors propose and test a cross-level multifoci model of workplace justice. They crossed 3 types of justice (procedural, informational, and interpersonal) with 2 foci (organization and supervisor) and aggregated to the group level to create 6 distinct justice climate variables. They then tested for the effects of these variables on either organization-directed or supervisor-directed commitment, satisfaction, and citizenship behavior. The authors also tested justice orientation as a moderator of these relationships. The results, based on 231 employees constituting 44 work groups representing multiple organizations and occupations, revealed that 4 forms of justice climate (organization-focused procedural and informational justice climate and supervisor-focused procedural and interpersonal justice climate) were significantly related to various work outcomes after controlling for corresponding individual-level justice perceptions. In addition, some moderation effects were found. Implications for organizations and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A trickle-down model of organizational justice: Relating employees' and customers' perceptions of and reactions to fairness.

This study developed and tested a trickle-down model of organizational justice that hypothesized that employees' perceptions of fairness should affect their attitudes toward the organization, subsequently influencing their behaviors toward customers. In turn, customers should interpret these behaviors as signals of fair treatment, causing them to react positively to both the employee and the organization. The model was tested on a sample of 187 instructors and their students. The results revealed that instructors who perceived high distributive and procedural justice reported higher organizational commitment. In turn, their students reported higher levels of instructor effort, prosocial behaviors, and fairness, as well as more positive reactions to the instructor. Overall, the results imply that fair treatment of employees has important organizational consequences because of customers' attitudes and future intentions toward key service employees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice, interactional justice, perceived organizational support, and supervisory trust.

Organizational justice researchers recognize the important role organization context plays in justice perceptions, yet few studies systematically examine contextual variables. This article examines how 1 aspect of context--organizational structure--affects the relationship between justice perceptions and 2 types of social exchange relationships, organizational and supervisory. The authors suggest that under different structural conditions, procedural and interactional justice will play differentially important roles in determining the quality of organizational social exchange (as evidenced by perceived organizational support [POS]) and supervisory social exchange (as evidenced by supervisory trust). In particular, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between procedural justice and POS would be stronger in mechanistic organizations and that the relationship between interactional justice and supervisory trust would be stronger in organic organizations. The authors' results support these hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Empowering employees: The moderating role of perceived organisational climate and justice.

Previous research suggests that empowering managerial practises have small and variable effects on employees' behaviours. The objective of this study is to assess whether organisational climate and justice perceptions moderate the relationship between supervisor empowering managerial practises (SEMPs) and employees' behavioural empowerment. Self-report data were gathered from a sample of 358 employees from three service-sector organisations in a cross-sectional study. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both perceptions of organisational climate and justice interact with SEMPs in the prediction of employees' behavioural empowerment. As expected, SEMPs were more positively related to behavioural empowerment when perceptions of organisational supportive climate and justice were higher. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Servant leadership, procedural justice climate, service climate, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior: A cross-level investigation.

This study tests the influence of servant leadership on 2 group climates, employee attitudes, and organizational citizenship behavior. Results from a sample of 815 employees and 123 immediate supervisors revealed that commitment to the supervisor, self-efficacy, procedural justice climate, and service climate partially mediated the relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. Cross-level interaction results revealed that procedural justice climate and positive service climate amplified the influence of commitment to the supervisor on organizational citizenship behavior. Implications of these results for theory and practice and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Justice, citizenship, and role definition effects.

A limitation of the organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) literature is that theory and empirical evidence suggest that some employees define OCBs as part of their job. A theoretical framework that addresses this problem is tested in this article. The framework focuses on 2 effects: a role enlargement effect (i.e., employees with more favorable attitudes define OCB as inrole behavior, which, in turn, results in greater citizenship) and a role discretion effect (i.e., the relationship between employees' attitudes and their citizenship will be stronger among employees who define OCB as extrarole behavior). In tests of this framework with 2 independent samples of supervisor–subordinate dyads, role definition were found to moderate several relationships between procedural justice and OCB, providing support for the role discretion effect. Implications for OCB theory and research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research.

The field of organizational justice continues to he marked by several important research questions, including the size of relationships among justice dimensions, the relative importance of different justice criteria, and the unique effects of justice dimensions on key outcomes. To address such questions, the authors conducted a meta-analytic review of 183 justice studies. The results suggest that although different justice dimensions are moderately to highly related, they contribute incremental variance explained in fairness perceptions. The results also illustrate the overall and unique relationships among distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice and several organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, evaluation of authority, organizational citizenship behavior, withdrawal, performance). These findings are reviewed in terms of their implications for future research on organizational justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fostering good citizenship through ethical leadership: Exploring the moderating role of gender and organizational politics.

Considering the implications of social exchange theory as a context for social role behavior, we tested relations between ethical leadership and both person- and task-focused organizational citizenship behavior and examined the roles played by employee gender and politics perceptions. Although social exchange theory predicts that ethical leadership is positively associated with citizenship, social role theory predicts that the nature of this relationship may vary on the basis of gender and politics perceptions. Results from data collected from 288 supervisor–subordinate dyads indicate that the pattern of male versus female employees' citizenship associated with ethical leadership depends significantly on their perceptions of politics. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedural justice climate and group power distance: An examination of cross-level interaction effects.

In this article, the authors extend research on the cross-level effects of procedural justice climate by theorizing and testing its interaction with group power distance. The results indicated that group power distance moderated the relationships between procedural justice climate and individual-level outcomes (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). More specifically, a larger group power distance was found to attenuate the positive cross-level effects of procedural justice climate. Implications for procedural justice climate research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increasing citizenship behavior within a labor union: A test of organizational justice theory.

A quasi-experiment was used to determine whether training union officers in the skills necessary for implementing principles of organizational justice would increase citizenship behavior on the part of members of a labor union in Canada. The results showed that 3 months after training, the perceptions of union fairness among members (n?=?83) whose leaders were in the training group were significantly higher than among members (n?=?69) whose leaders were in the control group. Factor analysis found that citizenship behavior had 2 dimensions: behavior supporting the union as an organization (OCBO) and behavior supporting union brothers and sisters (OCBI). Peer assessments revealed that citizenship behavior on both dimensions was significantly higher among union members whose leaders were trained than among members whose leaders were not trained. Perceptions of fairness were found to mediate the relationship between training and OCBO but not OCBI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents and outcomes of abusive supervision: Test of a trickle-down model.

The authors examined antecedents of abusive supervision and the relative importance of interactional and procedural justice as mediators of the relationship between abusive supervision and the work outcomes of affective organizational commitment and individual- and organization-directed citizenship behaviors. Data were obtained from subordinate-supervisor dyads from a telecommunication company located in southeastern China. Results of moderated regression analysis revealed that authoritarian leadership style moderated the relationship between supervisors' perceptions of interactional justice and abusive supervision such that the relationship was stronger for supervisors high rather than low in authoritarian leadership style. In addition, results of structural equation modeling analysis revealed that subordinates' perceptions of interactional but not procedural justice fully mediated the relationship between abusive supervision and the work outcomes. Implications for future investigations of abusive supervision are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Commitment and employee behavior: Comparison of affective commitment and continuance commitment with perceived organizational support.

The social exchange view of commitment (R. Eisenberger et al, 1986) suggests that employees' perceptions of the organization's commitment to them (perceived organizational support [POS]) creates feelings of obligation to the employer, which enhances employees' work behavior. The authors addressed the question of whether POS or the more traditional commitment concepts of affective commitment (AC) and continuance commitment (CC) were better predictors of employee behavior (organizational citizenship and impression management). Participants were 383 employees and their managers. Although results showed that both AC and POS were positively related to organizational citizenship and that CC was negatively related to organizational citizenship, POS was the best predictor. These findings support the social exchange view that POS creates feelings of obligation that contribute to citizenship behaviors. In addition, CC was unrelated, whereas AC and POS were positively correlated, with some impression management behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Looking ahead in times of uncertainty: The role of anticipatory justice in an organizational change context.

Our study drew on past theorizing on anticipatory justice (D. L. Shapiro & B. L. Kirkman, 2001) and fairness heuristic theory (K. Van den Bos, E. A. Lind, & H. A. M. Wilke, 2001) to build and test a model of employee reactions to a smoking ban. The results of a longitudinal study in a hospital showed that employee levels of preban anticipatory justice were predicted by their global sense of their supervisor’s fairness. The combination of anticipatory justice and global supervisory fairness then predicted the experienced justice of the ban 3 months after its implementation, with the effects of the 2 predictors dependent on perceptions of uncertainty and outcome favorability regarding the ban. Finally, experienced (interpersonal) justice predicted significant other ratings of employee support for the ban. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"All in a Day's Work": How Follower Individual Differences and Justice Perceptions Predict OCB Role Definitions and Behavior.

The authors draw on theories of social exchange and prosocial behavior to explain how employee perceptions of procedural justice and individual differences in reciprocation wariness, empathic concern, and perspective taking function jointly as determinants of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) role definitions and behavior. As hypothesized, empirical findings from a field study show both direct and interactive effects of procedural justice perceptions and individual differences on OCB role definition. In turn, OCB role definitions not only predict OCB directly but also moderate the effects of procedural justice perceptions on OCB. The authors explore the implications of these findings for practice as well as research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents and outcomes of organizational support for development: The critical role of career opportunities.

This study examines antecedents and behavioral outcomes of employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We first propose that employees' past participation in formal developmental activities and experience with developmental relationships positively relate to their perceptions of organizational support for development. We then propose that perceived career opportunity within the organization moderates the relationship between organizational support for development and employee performance and turnover. Using a sample of 264 exempt-level employees and their supervisors, we found that participation in training classes, leader–member exchange, and career mentoring were each positively related to employees' perceptions of organizational support for development. We also found support for the moderator hypotheses. Specifically, development support positively related to job performance, but only when perceived career opportunity within the organization was high. Further, development support was associated with reduced voluntary turnover when perceived career opportunity was high, but it was associated with increased turnover when perceived career opportunity was low. Our study demonstrates that social exchange and career motivation theory work together to explain when and how employees' perceptions of organizational support for development relate to turnover and job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of overall justice judgments in organizational justice research: A test of mediation.

Organizational justice research traditionally focuses on the unique predictability of different types of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) and the relative importance of these types of justice on outcome variables. Recently, researchers have suggested shifting from this focus on specific types of justice to a consideration of overall justice. The authors hypothesize that overall justice judgments mediate the relationship between specific justice facets and outcomes. They present 2 studies to test this hypothesis. Study 1 demonstrates that overall justice judgments mediate the relationship between specific justice judgments and employee attitudes. Study 2 demonstrates the mediating relationship holds for supervisor ratings of employee behavior. Implications for research on organizational justice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Role of Job Security in Understanding the Relationship Between Employees' Perceptions of Temporary Workers and Employees' Performance.

On the basis of psychological contract and social cognition theories, the authors explored the role of full-time employees' perceived job security in explaining their reactions to the use of temporary workers by using a sample of 149 full-time employees who worked with temporaries. As hypothesized, employees' perceived job security negatively related to their perceptions that temporaries pose a threat to their jobs, but it did not relate to their perceptions that temporaries are beneficial. Furthermore, employees' job security moderated the relationships between benefit and threat perceptions and supervisor ratings of job performance. For those with high job security, there was a positive relationship between benefit perceptions and performance. For those with low job security, there was a negative relationship between threat perceptions and performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature.

The authors reviewed more than 70 studies concerning employees' general belief that their work organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being (perceived organizational support; POS). A meta-analysis indicated that 3 major categories of beneficial treatment received by employees (i.e., fairness, supervisor support, and organizational rewards and favorable job conditions) were associated with POS. POS, in turn, was related to outcomes favorable to employees (e.g., job satisfaction, positive mood) and the organization (e.g., affective commitment, performance, and lessened withdrawal behavior). These relationships depended on processes assumed by organizational support theory: employees' belief that the organization's actions were discretionary, feeling of obligation to aid the organization, fulfillment of socioemotional needs, and performance-reward expectancies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A closer look at the relationship between justice perceptions and union participation.

In this study, a series of nested models was tested to assess the extent to which the relationship between process-related justice and union participation is mediated by perceived union support and union commitment. Members of a steelworkers' local (N=615) participated in the study. Fit indices most strongly supported a fully mediated model. Unlike previous research, process-related justice was operationalized as 2 distinct variables: procedural and interactional justice. Interactional justice was found to have a substantially stronger relationship with support perceptions than procedural justice. Results also indicated union support accounted for a greater amount of unique variance in union commitment than perceived union instrumentality. The results are discussed in relation to trust theory and the generalization of organization science across different types of organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal analysis of organizational fairness: An examination of reactions to tenure and promotion decisions.

Most organizational justice research takes a cross-sectional approach to examining the relationship between perceived fairness and individuals' attitudes. This study examines the effect of procedural and distributive justice over time. It is suggested that individuals acquire more information and experience with procedures and outcomes over time. These changes in information and experience affect the influence of procedural and distributive justice on organizational attitudes. Faculty perceptions of tenure and promotion decisions were assessed 3 times (preallocation, short-term postallocation, long-term postallocation) over a 2-year period. Results generally supported the hypotheses. Procedural justice was most influential prior to and soon after outcome decisions were made. Distributive justice was most influential 1 year later. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)