Antecedents and Consequences of Organizational Justice: An Investigation in China

Abstract

<p> Organizational justice has received considerable research attention over the past three decades. Most of this attention, however, has focused on examining the relationship between organizational justice and outcome variables such as work attitudes and behaviours. The question of organizational antecedents of organizational justice has not been fully explored. Also, most previous studies have been conducted in western countries. The amount of available research from nonwestern countries is limited. The present study investigates both antecedents and outcomes of organizational justice using a sample of 242 supervisor-subordinate dyads from Chinese organizations. A path model is developed and tested depicting perceived HR practices (empowerment, psychological contract breach, and communication) as antecedents to organizational justice perceptions (distributive, procedural, and interactional), and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and turnover intention as outcomes. The results provide empirical evidence of the impact of: (a) empowerment on distributive justice perceptions; (b) psychological contract breach on distributive and procedural justice; and (c) communication on procedural justice and interactional justice. The results also demonstrate that perceptions of distributive, procedural and interactional justice positively predict OCB and that perceptions of distributive and interactional justice contribute to turnover intention. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.</p>