Investigating the influence of organizational justice on organizational commitment, work motivation and job satisfaction : an example of retail employees

Abstract

The aim of this thesis was threefold. First, the thesis examined the effects of distributive justice on affective commitment, extrinsic motivation, and the extrinsic dimensions of job satisfaction, namely pay satisfaction and promotion satisfaction. Second, the influence of procedural justice on affective commitment, intrinsic motivation, and one of the intrinsic dimensions of job satisfaction, namely satisfaction with supervision was investigated. Third, the moderating role of outcome favorability in the relationship between procedural justice and intrinsic motivation was assessed. In this regard, hierarchical regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses and to investigate the data collected from 184 employees who worked in a retail organization. Results provided support for all the research-s hypotheses. The study found that distributive justice had a significant positive effect on retail employees- affective commitment. Moreover, it had a positive impact on employees- extrinsic motivation. Also, it was shown that distributive justice had a significant positive effect on both pay satisfaction and satisfaction with promotion opportunities. The study also found that procedural justice had a strong positive effect on retail employees- affective commitment. In addition, procedural justice was shown to be an important predictor of employees- personal interest in their works. Lastly, this variable had a strong positive effect on retail employees- satisfaction with their supervisors. Finally, the interaction effect of procedural justice and outcome favorability on employees- intrinsic motivation was investigated using both hierarchical regression analysis and simple slopes analysis. The findings suggested that outcome favorability moderates the effect of procedural justice on retail employees- intrinsic motivation. More specifically, it was shown that when outcomes were not favorable to the employees, employees- perceptions of procedural fairness had a significant positive effect on employees- intrinsic motivation. In contrary, when outcomes were favorable to the employees, employees- perceptions of procedural fairness were irrelevant to the employees- personal interest in their jobs.