Differentiated leader–member exchanges: The buffering role of justice climate.

The leader–member exchange (LMX) literature has established that leaders differentiate among their followers. Yet little is known about the effects of LMX differentiation (within-group variation in LMX quality). In this study, we contend that the effects of LMX differentiation on the employee outcomes of work attitudes, coworker relations, and employee withdrawal behaviors will be contingent upon the level of procedural and distributive justice climate. Data from 276 employees working in 25 stores of a retail chain in Turkey supported our hypotheses such that LMX differentiation was related to more negative work attitudes and coworker relations, and higher levels of withdrawal behaviors only when justice climate was low. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affective commitment to the organization: The contribution of perceived organizational support.

Three studies examined the interrelationships among work experiences, perceived organizational support (POS), affective commitment (AC), and employee turnover. Using a diverse sample of 367 employees drawn from a variety of organizations, Study 1 found that POS mediated positive associations of organizational rewards, procedural justice, and supervisor support with AC. Study 2 examined changes of POS and AC in retail employees over a 2-year span (N?=?333) and a 3-year span (N?=?226). POS was positively related to temporal changes in AC, suggesting that POS leads to AC. Study 3 found a negative relationship between POS and subsequent voluntary employee turnover that was mediated by AC in retail employees (N?=?1,124) and in poultry- and feed-processing workers (N?=?262). These results suggest that favorable work conditions operate via POS to increase AC, which, in turn, decreases employee withdrawal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Support from the top: Supervisors' perceived organizational support as a moderator of leader-member exchange to satisfaction and performance relationships.

The authors hypothesized that supervisors' perceived organizational support (POS) would moderate the relationships between leader-member exchange (LMX), job satisfaction, and job performance. On the basis of social exchange theory, supervisors' exchanges with the organization and subordinates should be interconnected. The authors expected that supervisors with high POS would have more resources to exchange with subordinates. Thus, supervisor POS should enhance the relationships between LMX and job satisfaction and LMX and job performance for subordinates. Hierarchical linear modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses in a sample of 210 subordinates and 38 supervisors of a grocery store chain. The positive relationship between LMX and job satisfaction was stronger when supervisors had high POS. Moreover, LMX was related to performance only when supervisors had high POS. (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)     

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)     

Got political skill? The impact of justice on the importance of political skill for job performance.

The present study examined the moderating effects of procedural and distributive justice on the relationships between political skill and task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among 175 supervisor–subordinate dyads of a government organization. Using Mischel’s (1968) situationist perspective, high justice conditions were considered “strong situations,” whereas low justice conditions were construed as “weak situations.” We found that when both procedural and distributive justice were low, political skill was positively related to performance. Under conditions of both high procedural and high distributive justice, political skill was negatively related to performance. Finally, under conditions of low distributive justice, political skill was positively related to OCB, whereas under conditions of high distributive justice, political skill had little effect on OCB. These results highlight the importance of possessing political skill in weak but not strong situations. (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)     

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)     

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)     

Work gets unfair for the depressed: Cross-lagged relations between organizational justice perceptions and depressive symptoms.

The organizational justice literature has consistently documented substantial correlations between organizational justice and employee depression. Existing theoretical literature suggests this relationship occurs because perceptions of organizational (in)justice lead to subsequent psychological health problems. Building on recent research on the affective nature of justice perceptions, in the present research we broaden this perspective by arguing there are also theoretical arguments for a reverse effect whereby psychological health problems influence perceptions of organizational justice. To contrast both theoretical perspectives, we test longitudinal lagged effects between organizational justice perceptions (i.e., distributive justice, interactional justice, interpersonal justice, informational justice, and procedural justice) and employee depressive symptoms using structural equation modeling. Analyses of 3 samples from different military contexts (N? = 625, N? = 134, N? = 550) revealed evidence of depressive symptoms leading to subsequent organizational justice perceptions. In contrast, the opposite effects of organizational justice perceptions on depressive symptoms were not significant for any of the justice dimensions. The findings have broad implications for theoretical perspectives on psychological health and organizational justice perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

In-role perceptions buffer the negative impact of low LMX on helping and enhance the positive impact of high LMX on voice.

In 2 field studies, we demonstrated that the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is moderated by employee role perceptions--the extent to which employees view specific types of OCB as in-role behavior (IRB) versus extra-role behavior (ERB). In addition, we predicted and demonstrated that the form of these interactions differs on the basis of the type of OCB. For helping (aimed at the supervisor or the organization), results show a substitute effect in which viewing helping as IRB buffers the negative effect of low-quality LMX on helping. In contrast, for voice (aimed at the supervisor or the organization), results demonstrate an enhancer effect in which viewing voice as IRB amplifies the positive effect of high-quality LMX on voice. We discuss theoretical and practical implications with an emphasis on how conceptual differences in types of OCB influence the interactive effects of role perceptions on LMX-OCB relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The path to a healthy workplace: A critical review linking healthy workplace practices, employee well-being, and organizational improvements.

This review synthesizes much of the previous research since 1990 linking healthy workplace practices in organizations to employee well-being and organizational improvements. Based on the review, both a direct and an indirect link between healthy workplace practices and organizational improvements are proposed. Five general categories of healthy workplace practices were identified in the literature: work-life balance, employee growth and development, health and safety, recognition, and employee involvement. Previous research also suggests that the link between these practices and employee and organizational outcomes is contingent on the effectiveness of communication within the organization and the alignment of workplace practices with the organizational context. Finally, a discussion of some limitations of previous research and recommendations for future work in the area of healthy workplace practices are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Safety-related behavior as a social exchange: The role of perceived organizational support and leader–member exchange.

Researchers have been giving increased attention to the role larger organizational variables play in safety and accidents. Although generally neglected by this research, the nature of the exchange relationships between individuals, leaders. and the organization appears to have safety-related implications. The present research linked leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) to safety communication, safety commitment, and accidents. Data were collected from 49 supervisor–group-leader dyads in a manufacturing facility. The results indicated that POS was significantly related to safety communication and that LMX was significantly related to safety communication, safety commitment, and accidents. Support was also found for a structural model linking POS and LMX to safety communication, safety commitment, and accidents. Implications of these findings for safety and social exchange research are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceived supervisor support: Contributions to perceived organizational support and employee retention.

Three studies investigated the relationships among employees' perception of supervisor support (PSS), perceived organizational support (POS), and employee turnover. Study 1 found, with 314 employees drawn from a variety of organizations, that PSS was positively related to temporal change in POS, suggesting that PSS leads to POS. Study 2 established, with 300 retail sales employees, that the PSS-POS relationship increased with perceived supervisor status in the organization. Study 3 found, with 493 retail sales employees, evidence consistent with the view that POS completely mediated a negative relationship between PSS and employee turnover. These studies suggest that supervisors, to the extent that they are identified with the organization, contribute to POS and, ultimately, to job retention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Leader-member exchange and citizenship behaviors: A meta-analysis.

This article provides a meta-analytic review of the relationship between the quality of leader-member exchanges (LMX) and citizenship behaviors performed by employees. Results based on 50 independent samples (N = 9,324) indicate a moderately strong, positive relationship between LMX and citizenship behaviors (ρ=.37). The results also support the moderating role of the target of the citizenship behaviors on the magnitude of the LMX-citizenship behavior relationship. As expected, LMX predicted individual-targeted behaviors more strongly than it predicted organizational targeted behaviors (ρ = .38 vs. ρ = .31), and the difference was statistically significant. Whether the LMX and the citizenship behavior ratings were provided by the same source or not also influenced the magnitude of the correlation between the 2 constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to Thau and Mitchell (2010).

Reports an error in "Self-gain or self-regulation impairment? Tests of competing explanations of the supervisor abuse and employee deviance relationship through perceptions of distributive justice" by Stefan Thau and Marie S. Mitchell (Journal of Applied Psychology, , , np). The note to Table 10 on p. 1024 inadvertently referred to PYM as the path from ego depletion to deviant employee behaviors. The note instead should have referred to PYM as the path from intrusive thoughts to deviant employee behaviors. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2010-16976-001.) Two competing explanations for deviant employee responses to supervisor abuse are tested. A self-gain view is compared with a self-regulation impairment view. The self-gain view suggests that distributive justice (DJ) will weaken the abusive supervision–employee deviance relationship, as perceptions of fair rewards offset costs of abuse. Conversely, the self-regulation impairment view suggests that DJ will strengthen the relationship, as experiencing abuse drains self-resources needed to maintain appropriate behavior, and this effect intensifies when employees receive inconsistent information about their organizational membership (fair outcomes). Three field studies using different samples, measures, and designs support the self-regulation impairment view. Two studies found that the Abusive Supervision × DJ interaction was mediated by self-regulation impairment variables (ego depletion and intrusive thoughts). Implications for theory and research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Me or we? The role of personality and justice as other-centered antecedents to innovative citizenship behaviors within organizations.

The present research takes an "other-centered" approach to examining personal and contextual antecedents of taking charge behavior in organizations. Largely consistent with the authors' hypotheses, regression analyses involving data collected from 2 diverse samples containing both coworkers and supervisors demonstrated that the other-centered trait, duty, was positively related to taking charge, whereas the self-centered trait, achievement striving, was negatively related to taking charge. In addition, the authors found that procedural justice at the organizational level was positively related to taking charge when evaluated by a coworker, while both procedural and distributive justice were positively related to taking charge when considered by a supervisor. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Four-factor justice and daily job satisfaction: A multilevel investigation.

This study examined the differential effects of 4 types of organizational justice on daily job satisfaction at between- and within-individual levels. Specifically, the authors predicted that interpersonal justice and informational justice would exhibit meaningful daily variations and would have direct impacts on individuals’ job satisfaction on a daily basis. They further theorized that distributive justice and procedural justice at a between-person level would moderate the within-person relationships. The authors used hierarchical linear modeling to test their hypotheses with a sample of 231 full-time employees in Hong Kong over the course of 25 working days. The results showed that both daily interpersonal and informational justice were positively related to daily job satisfaction. As hypothesized, between-individual distributive justice moderated the relationship between daily interpersonal justice and daily job satisfaction, and between-individual procedural justice moderated the relationship between daily informational justice and daily job satisfaction. (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)