How does distributive justice affect work attitudes? The moderating effects of autonomy

Organizational justice has been a frequently used lens for understanding employee attitudes, particularly towards the fair distribution of rewards. This study of 184 New Zealand employees found distributive justice relating to pay, benefits, and rewards to be significantly linked to job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Further, job autonomy was found to significantly interact with these relationships. While employees with high job autonomy reported higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions when distributive justice was high, employees with little job autonomy registered significantly larger changes in work attitudes. The findings highlight the importance of felt independence and autonomy over work in the role that justice perceptions play in organizations.

[1]  Marjorie Chan.  ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE THEORIES AND LANDMARK CASES , 2000 .

[2]  Catherine C. H. Chiu,et al.  Distributive and procedural justice as predictors of employee outcomes in Hong Kong , 2000 .

[3]  S. Grover,et al.  Predicting the perceived fairness of parental leave policies. , 1991 .

[4]  Thomas F. Reed,et al.  When it is especially important to explain why: Factors affecting the relationship between managers' explanations of a layoff and survivors' reactions to the layoff , 1990 .

[5]  B. Tepper,et al.  Consequences of Abusive Supervision , 2000 .

[6]  R. Folger,et al.  Effects of Procedural and Distributive Justice on Reactions to Pay Raise Decisions , 1989 .

[7]  J. S. Adams,et al.  Inequity In Social Exchange , 1965 .

[8]  Michael H. Kutner.  Applied Linear Statistical Models , 1974 .

[9]  Michael A. Campion,et al.  CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION AND EMPIRICAL TEST OF JOB DESIGN AND COMPENSATION RELATIONSHIPS , 1990 .

[10]  Jerald Greenberg,et al.  Determinants of Perceived Fairness of Performance Evaluations , 1986 .

[11]  J. Greenberg.  Employee Theft as a Reaction to Underpayment Inequity: The Hidden Cost of Pay Cuts , 1990 .

[12]  P. Hom,et al.  The validity of Mobley's (1977) model of employee turnover. , 1984, Organizational behavior and human performance.

[13]  Nestor K. Ovalle,et al.  A review and meta-analysis of research on the relationship between behavioral intentions and employee turnover. , 1984 .

[14]  S. West,et al.  Multiple Regression: Testing and Interpreting Interactions. , 1994 .

[15]  R. Liden,et al.  Perceived Organizational Support And Leader-Member Exchange: A Social Exchange Perspective , 1997 .

[16]  Nathan Bennett,et al.  The Role of Justice Judgments in Explaining the Relationship between Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment , 1996 .

[17]  Paul M. Roman,et al.  Downsizing Survival: The Experience of Work and Organizational Commitment , 2003 .

[18]  Jeffrey Pfeffer,et al.  The effect of wage dispersion on satisfaction, productivity, and working collaboratively: Evidence from college and university faculty. , 1993 .

[19]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  Donald E. Conlon,et al.  Justice at the millennium: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[21]  E. Lambert,et al.  The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers , 2005 .

[22]  J. Traupmann,et al.  Equity: Theory and Research , 1978 .

[23]  F. Drasgow,et al.  The Perceptions of Fair Interpersonal Treatment Scale: development and validation of a measure of interpersonal treatment in the workplace. , 1998, The Journal of applied psychology.

[24]  Paul E. Spector,et al.  The Role of Justice in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis , 2001 .

[25]  C. Sabbagh,et al.  The Structure of Social Justice Judgments: A Facet Approach , 1994 .

[26]  H. P. Sims,et al.  Justice and organizational punishment: Attitudinal outcomes of disciplinary events , 1993 .

[27]  Peter Y. Chen,et al.  Using Social Exchange Theory to Distinguish Procedural from Interactional Justice , 2002 .

[28]  Joel Brockner,et al.  Survivors' Reactions to Layoffs: We Get By with a Little Help for Our Friends. , 1987 .

[29]  A. Gouldner.  THE NORM OF RECIPROCITY: A PRELIMINARY STATEMENT * , 1960 .

[30]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Losing sleep over organizational injustice: attenuating insomniac reactions to underpayment inequity with supervisory training in interactional justice. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[31]  P. Hom,et al.  A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents and Correlates of Employee Turnover: Update, Moderator Tests, and Research Implications for the Next Millennium , 2000 .

[32]  L. Dyer,et al.  Due Process for Non-Union Employees: The Influence of System Characteristics on Fairness Perceptions , 1996 .

[33]  M. Lindell,et al.  Accounting for common method variance in cross-sectional research designs. , 2001, The Journal of applied psychology.

[34]  P. Sweeney,et al.  Distributive and procedural justice as predictors of satisfaction with personal and organizational outcomes. , 1992 .

[35]  P. Flood,et al.  Gender and Employee Attitudes: The Role of Organizational Justice Perceptions , 2004 .

[36]  John R. Ogilvie,et al.  The Role of Human Resource Management Practices in Predicting Organizational Commitment , 1986 .

[37]  J. Sager,et al.  A longitudinal assessment of change in sales force turnover , 1991 .

[38]  Jerald Greenberg,et al.  Why do workers bite the hands that feed them? Employee theft as a social exchange process. , 1996 .

[39]  Jerald Greenberg,et al.  Equity and Workplace Status: A Field Experiment , 1988 .

[40]  J. Greenberg,et al.  A Taxonomy of Organizational Justice Theories , 1987 .

[41]  Barton L. Weathington,et al.  The Relationships Between Justice Perceptions, Trust, and Employee Attitudes in a Downsized Organization , 2006, The Journal of psychology.

[42]  K. Klein,et al.  Work time, work interference with family, and psychological distress. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[43]  Thomas P. Ryan,et al.  Modern Regression Methods , 1996 .

[44]  M. Sashkin,et al.  Does fairness make a difference , 1990 .

[45]  Nathan Bennett,et al.  Employee Reactions to Electronic Control Systems , 1994 .

[46]  Michael A. McDaniel,et al.  A meta-analysis of the antecedents and consequences of pay level satisfaction. , 2006, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  R. Bies,et al.  The predicament of injustice: The management of moral outrage. , 1987 .

[48]  Peter B. Smith,et al.  Values and Organizational Justice , 2004 .

[49]  Karen S. Cook,et al.  Distributive Justice: A Social-Psychological Perspective. , 1986 .

[50]  William H. Hendrix,et al.  Effects of procedural and distributive justice on factors predictive of turnover. , 1998 .

[51]  Robert Folger,et al.  Organizational Justice and Human Resource Management , 1998 .

[52]  T. Tyler,et al.  The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice , 1988 .

[53]  Soon Ang,et al.  Organizational citizenship behavior of contingent workers in Singapore , 1998 .

[54]  Maureen L. Ambrose,et al.  A longitudinal analysis of organizational fairness: an examination of reactions to tenure and promotion decisions. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[55]  T. Tyler,et al.  The influence of outcomes and procedures on satisfaction with formal leaders. , 1981 .

[56]  J. Clay-Warner,et al.  Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction: A Test of Three Competing Models , 2005 .

[57]  Kyle Lewis,et al.  Integrating Justice and Social Exchange: The Differing Effects of Fair Procedures and Treatment on Work Relationships , 2000 .

[58]  D. Zohar.  The justice perspective of job stress , 1995 .

[59]  Marian N. Ruderman,et al.  The role of procedural and distributive justice in organizational behavior , 1987 .

[60]  P. M. Podsakoff,et al.  Self-Reports in Organizational Research: Problems and Prospects , 1986 .

[61]  Jerald Greenberg,et al.  Who stole the money, and when? Individual and situational determinants of employee theft , 2002 .

[62]  Karen S. Cook,et al.  Distributive Justice, Equity, and Equality , 1983 .

[63]  Randall P. Settoon,et al.  Social Exchange in Organizations: Perceived Organizational Support, Leader-Member Exchange, and Employee Reciprocity , 1996 .

[64]  Steven L. Thomas,et al.  Research and practice in performance appraisal: evaluating employee performance in America's largest companies , 1994 .

[65]  Timothy A. Judge,et al.  The Role of Human Resource Systems in Job Applicant Decision Processes , 1994 .

[66]  M. Evans.  A Monte Carlo study of the effects of correlated method variance in moderated multiple regression analysis , 1985 .

[67]  J. S. Adams,et al.  Equity Theory Revisited: Comments and Annotated Bibliography , 1976 .

[68]  Sharon Foley,et al.  Linking employees' justice perceptions to organizational commitment and intention to leave: The mediating role of perceived organizational support , 2006 .

[69]  C. Mueller,et al.  Distributive Justice Evaluations in Two Cultural Contexts: A Comparison of U.S. and South Korean Teachers , 1999 .

[70]  J. Greenberg,et al.  Organizational Justice: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow , 1990 .

[71]  J. Brockner,et al.  Predictors of survivors' job involvement following layoffs: A field study , 1988 .

[72]  Jacob Cohen,et al.  Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences , 1979 .

[73]  L. Gómez-Mejia,et al.  GAINSHARING AND MUTUAL MONITORING: A COMBINED AGENCY-ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE INTERPRETATION , 1995 .

[74]  David I. Levine,et al.  Product quality and pay equity between lower-level employees and top management: An investigation of distributive justice theory. , 1992 .

[75]  Michel Tremblay,et al.  The Role of Organizational Justice in Pay and Employee Benefit Satisfaction, and its Effects on Work Attitudes , 2000 .

[76]  David G. Allen,et al.  Integrating justice constructs into the turnover process : a test of a referent cognitions model , 1997 .

[77]  S. Gilliland,et al.  Effects of procedural and distributive justice on reactions to a selection system. , 1994 .

[78]  R. Bies.  Interactional justice : communication criteria of fairness , 1986 .

[79]  R. Folger,et al.  Relative effects of procedural and distributive justice on employee attitudes. , 1987 .

[80]  R. H. Moorman,et al.  JUSTICE AS A MEDIATOR OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METHODS OF MONITORING AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOR , 1993 .

[81]  Todd J. Arnold,et al.  An appraisal perspective of justice, structure, and job control as antecedents of psychological distress , 2007 .

[82]  Russell Cropanzano,et al.  Perceived fairness of employee drug testing as a predictor of employee attitudes and job performance. , 1991, Journal of Applied Psychology.

[83]  Maureen L. Ambrose,et al.  Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice, interactional justice, perceived organizational support, and supervisory trust. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[84]  P. Blau.  Exchange and Power in Social Life , 1964 .

[85]  J. Lounsbury,et al.  A vacation from work: Changes in work and nonwork outcomes. , 1986 .