Distributive justice and affective commitment in nonprofit organizations: Which referent matters?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to study pay referents that may have an effect on employee organizational affective commitment. It explores existing connections between distributive justice – stemming from individual, external, and internal referents – and organizational affective commitment. This enables an exploration of the effects of distributive justice (Sweeney and McFarlin, 2005).

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a quantitative analysis of 198 French nonprofit employees in health and social services.

Findings

Results show that only individual distributive justice relates to organizational affective commitment and that this relationship is mediated by person-organization fit.

Originality/value

This study is the first to analyze pay referents in nonprofit organization. It also explains the distributive justice – organizational affective commitment in terms of person-organization fit.

Citation

Ohana, M. and Meyer, M. (2016), "Distributive justice and affective commitment in nonprofit organizations: Which referent matters?", Employee Relations, Vol. 38 No. 6, pp. 841-858. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-10-2015-0197