The mediating role of overall fairness perception: a structural equation modelling assessment

Abstract

Purpose

Most of the past studies related to organisational justice focussed on different types of justice, such as procedural justice, distributive justice and interactional justice either separately or collectively. Still, further investigation on the overall concept of fairness is required to extend theoretical generalisability. Moreover, researchers argued that overall fairness rather than a specific type represents more concrete situation about employees’ perception of fairness within an organisation. Considering this, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating effect of overall fairness perception (OFP) in relation to workplace outcome as well as its predictive ability on employees’ attitude and behaviour in term of psychological ownership and citizenship behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed among the employees of financial institutions in Malaysia, which yielded 150 completed usable responses. Smart PLS (version 3) software and SPSS were utilised in order to analyse the data.

Findings

The results revealed that overall fairness plays a crucial role as a mediator as well as a predictor. Limitations and future research directions are also discussed.

Practical implications

This study provides useful insights for the mangers of financial institutions. It also suggests strategies about how to manage justice and workplace outcomes at workplace.

Originality/value

This paper is among the pioneers to address the mediating role of OFP in relations to workplace attitude and behaviour in non-western context.

Citation

Mohammad, J., Quoquab, F., Idris, F., Al Jabari, M. and Wishah, R. (2019), "The mediating role of overall fairness perception: a structural equation modelling assessment", Employee Relations, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 614-636. https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-10-2017-0243