Making the case for procedural justice: employees thrive and work hard

Abstract

Purpose

Procedural justice consists of employees' fairness judgments about decision-making processes used to allocate organizational rewards and has been linked to positive work outcomes. The study drew from social exchange and reciprocity theories to examine a model proposing psychological empowerment and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) as two psychological processes explaining the relationship of procedural justice with employees' work effort and thriving.

Design/methodology/approach

Three-waves of data with one-month time lags were obtained from 346 full-time US employees. Structural equation modeling tested the hypotheses.

Findings

Results supported the model. Procedural justice at Time 1 was positively related to psychological empowerment and OBSE at Time 2, which both led to employees' work effort and thriving at Time 3.

Originality/value

The study provided a theoretical explanation for procedural justice resulting in better work effort and thriving: Psychological empowerment and OBSE may provide a bridge for the effects of procedural justice on employees’ work effort and thriving.

Citation

Kim, M. and Beehr, T.A. (2020), "Making the case for procedural justice: employees thrive and work hard", Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 35 No. 2, pp. 100-114. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-03-2019-0154