No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
The Effects of Fairness on Female Managers’ Perception of Career Prospects and Job Satisfaction: A Study across Sectors
International Journal of Public Administration
Abstract
The perception of organizational fairness is particularly important to women employees, who constantly confront challenges while climbing the hierarchy. This study examines the impacts of the fairness of three organizational levels – Superior, CEO, and HR practices – on women’s career prospects and job satisfaction. We constructed a panel dataset using three waves of the Korean Women Manager Panel with 1,115 women managers across the three sectors in South Korea. We find that women managers’ job satisfaction is positively associated with the fairness of superiors and HR practices in all three sectors, while the fairness of CEO has no impact on job satisfaction in all three sectors. We also find that the fairness of CEO has a positive impact on career prospects in the for-profit sector but no such impact in the public and nonprofit sectors. The findings suggest that CEO fairness may involve procedural justice rather than interactional justice.
... when justice is distributed fairly in accordance with well-established norms of allocation that have been instituted by the organization, it creates an avenue where the policies of the organization are applied equally to all irrespective of gender (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2022). in the event that outcomes are distributed fairly in an organization, it would imply that organizations would have policies that are not discriminatory to women or policies that would directly or indirectly place them at a disadvantage with their male counterparts (Russen et al., 2021). ...
... interactive justice refers to the fairness and just treatment that employees receive when they interact with people in authority. interactive justice can be improved when managers provide the necessary information and rationale for arriving at a particular decision (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2022). interactional justice can be divided into two main elements: interpersonal and informational justice. ...
... Managers can use it to achieve the desired result by ensuring the fair distribution of information to all employees in the organization in a timely manner. this is to say that lots of managers, especially those at the lower level, mostly have little or sometimes no influence on both distributional and procedures justice, but when it comes to the manner in which employees are communicated with or given information, all managers both at the lower and high level have full control over it (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2022). Managers can therefore use interactive justice to weaken the negative effects that unfair distribution and procedures could have on the behaviour and commitment of employees in an organization (liu et al., 2020). ...
The article proposes a conceptual framework to explain how organizational justice can mitigate the negative effects of glass ceiling on women’s career advancement and consequently create an equal ground for women to advance their careers just like their male counterparts. The article uses the Social Role theory and the Rawlsian theory of justice to propose a conceptual model with hypotheses that are backed by logical and theoretical arguments. This conceptual paper proposes that personal, societal, and organizational barriers would have a negative effect on women’s career advancement but organizational justice could positively moderate such a relationship by eliminating the negative effects of glass ceiling and thereby creating equal competitive grounds for both women and men to advance in their career. The paper offers practical suggestions on the need for managers to give the needed attention and importance to the three main dimensions of organizational justice as this has the possibility of ensuring that glass ceiling is reduced to the barest minimum in order to create a conducive environment will be created for both men and women to progress in their career. Thus the paper argues that organizational justice can moderate the negative relationship between glass ceiling and women’s career advancement.
... In particular, female employees in the public sector still struggle with a variety of challenges as they advance up workplace hierarchies (Bowling et al. 2006;Sabharwal 2015). As a result, women are underrepresented in public sector senior management positions and overrepresented in this sector's lower level positions (Caceres-Rodriguez 2013; Suh and Hijal-Moghrabi 2021). In this sense, an inclusive working environment that embraces diversity and encourages reciprocal processes fostered by inclusive leadership can engender a sense of belonging, leaving female employees feeling empowered (Kugelmass and Ainscow 2004;Leo and Barton 2006). ...
Objective
Organizational inclusion is essential for female employees who consistently encounter challenges while advancing workplace hierarchies, but its roles have partially been explored. The objective of this study is to empirically examine the effects of internal networks on perceived inclusion and test the degree to which these networks impact self‐competency via perceived inclusion.
Methods
Leveraging a wave of 2018 data from the Korean Women Manager Panel, we test several hypotheses and compare the for‐profit and public sectors using structural equation modeling.
Results
The findings show that perceived inclusion is essential in directly influencing female employees’ self‐competency and offsetting the negative impacts of interpersonal and group networks on self‐competency in the for‐profit sector. However, the effects are either marginal or absent in the public sector. Our analysis finds that only vertical interpersonal relationships with superiors and mentors indirectly impact self‐competency.
Conclusion
This study suggests that the role of perceived inclusion may vary depending on the sector, and vertical relationships are more critical for female public employees to enhance their competencies.
... The impact of race, gender identity and their interaction on career satisfaction was the focus of a study by Pattani et al. (2022). Subsequent researchers have focused on the impact of equity on female managers' perceptions of career prospects and job satisfaction across sectors (Suh, Hijal-Moghrabi, 2022) and women's developmental networks and career satisfaction (Chang et al., 2021). Yusuf In view of such a diverse approach to the topic of job satisfaction, however, there are few Polish studies relating to the context of women's careers, set in the realities of the domestic labour market. ...
... The former refers to the direct fairness of the manager with whom the employee frequently interacts and whose decisions directly affect the employee, while the latter refers to the fairness of the employer's workplace as a whole, which affects the culture of the organisation (Ćropanzano & Prehar, 2001). Results on samples of managers (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2021) and police officers (Nalla et al., 2021) suggest that organisational fairness contributes to higher job satisfaction. ...
Romantic relationships in adolescence and early adulthood are normative. They determine the course of adolescents’ psychosocial development and are involved in the formation of sexual identity and self-esteem. Self-esteem, as an evaluative component of the self, may influence the quality of intimate relationships. On the other hand, romantic events might influence perceptions of one’s worth. However, research on constructs in this area is still underrepresented in Croatian professional and academic settings. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate whether the quality of romantic relationships and the perceived importance of intimate relationships predict the relational aspects of the self - relational esteem, relational preoccupation and relational depression. Results suggest that in adolescence and young adulthood, perceived importance of relationships is the only significant predictor of relational esteem, whereas conflict and participant age were found to be significant predictors of relational depression. These results were interpreted within the framework of the sociometer theory. The present data suggest that conflict in romantic relationships and perceived importance of intimate relationships predict relational aspects of self in adolescents and young adults.
... Previous studies support these findings. Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi demonstrated that fair HR practices and fairness from superiors strongly impacted women's job satisfaction [106]. Choi & Rainey also found that diversity management and organizational fairness positively influenced job satisfaction, particularly for women, who reported higher satisfaction when fairness was perceived [107]. ...
Software practitioners often face unfairness in their work, such as unequal recognition of contributions, gender bias, and unclear criteria for performance reviews. While the link between fairness and job satisfaction has been established in other fields, its relevance to software professionals remains underexplored. This study aims to examine how fairness perceptions relate to job satisfaction among software practitioners, focusing on both general trends and demographic-specific differences. We conducted an online survey of 108 software practitioners, followed by ordinal logistic regression to analyze the relationship between fairness perceptions and job satisfaction in software engineering contexts, with moderation analysis examining how this relationship varies across demographic groups. Our findings indicate that all four fairness dimensions, distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational, significantly affect both overall job satisfaction and satisfaction with job security. Among these, interpersonal fairness has the biggest impact, being more than twice as influential on overall job satisfaction. The relationship between fairness perceptions and job satisfaction is notably stronger for female, ethnically underrepresented, less experienced practitioners, and those with work limitations. Fairness in authorship emerged as an important factor for job satisfaction collectively, while fairness in policy implementation, high-demand situations, and working hours particularly impacted specific demographic groups. This study highlights the unique role of fairness in software engineering, offering strategies for organizations to promote fair practices and targeted approaches specific for certain demographic groups.
... The former refers to the direct fairness of the manager with whom the employee frequently interacts and whose decisions directly affect the employee, while the latter refers to the fairness of the employer's workplace as a whole, which affects the culture of the organisation (Cropanzano & Prehar, 2001). Results on samples of managers (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2021) and police officers (Nalla et al., 2021) suggest that organisational fairness contributes to higher job satisfaction. ...
The maritime profession is characterised by high demands and stressors, which, according to previous studies, may lead to low levels of job satisfaction, and consequently reflect on health and safety. The goal of this research is to investigate the role of emotional intelligence and justice in the organisational context
in explaining job satisfaction, as well as the role of stress on board in mediating the relationship between the examined predictors and job satisfaction. This research included seafarers from the Republic of Croatia (N=177), and the online questionnaire consisted of the Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, the Stress on
Board Scale, the Justice in the Organisational Context and the Job Satisfaction Scale. Higher levels of emotional intelligence directly contribute to higher levels of job satisfaction, whereas higher levels of organisational justice directly contribute to higher levels of job satisfaction, but also indirectly through lower levels
of stress on the job. This study’s findings not only add to our understanding of seafarers’ job satisfaction, but also have important practical implications for shipping companies.
... This paper fits into this context. The focus is investigating the levels of satisfaction achieved by Italian women managers with respect to three different wide topics: family welfare, working life, and personal life (Cole 2016;Suh and Hijal-Moghrabi 2021). So far, it is one of the few studies conducted on the level of satisfaction and the only one on Italian female managers. ...
In this paper, we investigate the levels of satisfaction achieved by Italian women managers concerning family welfare, working life, and personal life. We analyze the possible effects of specific drivers influencing women's satisfaction and their perception of the impact of financial inclusion on their professional lives. To achieve these goals, we have developed an online questionnaire divided into four sections. The collected data have been studied by using Cluster Analysis and Mixed Effect Models to gain some insights into the key factors that should be considered in terms of policy implications. This paper aims at filling the gap in the existent scientific literature on this topic. This is one of the few studies conducted on the level of women’s satisfaction and the only one analyzing the Italian female managers’ population.
... For example, survey research from South Korean female managers (n=1,115) finds that employee perceptions of fairness in their supervisors and HR practices are positively correlated with job satisfaction in both the private and public sector respondents (Suh & Hijal-Moghrabi, 2021). ...
Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are a permanent, though not well understood, feature of modern US policing. As a technological solution to the perception that officers use force too often, BWCs have not fared well. This dissertation sidesteps questions of effectiveness, however, and instead investigates how the cameras are perceived by officers, and how variations in BWC policies affect perceptions of monitoring fairness. To do so, I use a national probability sample of officers (n = 529) drawn from a stratified sample of agencies across the United States.
Theoretically, I draw primarily from two literatures. First, from the organizational
psychology literature, which is where the vast majority of research on the individual-level effects of electronic workplace surveillance has been done. Second, I draw on the organizational justice literature, specifically elements related to how criminal justice employees form judgements of fairness regarding their workplace treatment. The results show how policy variation in BWC activation and footage review affect officer perceptions of fairness both on their own and interactively.
The importance of retaining and motivating employees from a human resources management perspective has intensified the focus on organizational commitment and work-life balance. Despite extensive research on factors influencing organizational commitment, empirical evidence remains inconclusive, particularly regarding perceived work-life spillover and flexibility. In the Asian context, female workers often bear a greater share of caregiving responsibilities, yet studies specifically targeting female workers remain limited. This study addresses these gaps by examining the impact of work-to-life spillover on organizational commitment and the moderating effect of workplace flexibility (flextime) among Korean women managers. In addition, sectoral differences were analyzed using data from the 2016 and 2018 Korean Women Manager Panel (KWMP) compiled by the Korean Women’s Development Institute (KWDI). The findings revealed that both negative and positive spillover significantly influence organizational commitment. Moreover, the actual use of flextime was found to mitigate the negative effects of spillover on organizational commitment. From a human resource management (HRM) perspective, these results underscore the importance of not only providing workplace flexibility systems but also ensuring their effective use. In addition, the findings emphasize the need for institutional support tailored to sector-specific contexts to address work-life spillover challenges effectively.
This study aims to understand and examine the relationship between socio-demographic factors and the attitudes toward women managers in the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This research paper is an exploratory research and we have taken into consideration a basic framework to understand the relationship that exists among different factors responsible for different perceptions and attitudes toward women managers. The literature review has focused on the various overarching perspectives of women managers and the attitudes formed by different societal actors. The paper draws mainly from the Social Learning Theory of Albert Bandura (1977). A sample of 213 employees was drawn to understand the relationship. The respondents were administered the well-established (Women as Managers Survey) WAMS questionnaire to get responses on various dimensions. Multivariate Regression Analysis using SPSS 26.0 version was applied to analyze the data. The findings of the study are parallel to previous works such that age, work experience, and educational level found support to the hypothesized relationship whereas gender and marital status did not. Limitations and future direction along with practical implications and recommendations are also given to draw suitable inferences.
An effective system of organizational justice forms the foundation for an organizational culture which promotes inclusion and diversity, and therefore an important topic for human resources development (HRD) practice. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of organizational justice from the existing literature. Based on previous research, this review hypothesized the employees’ perceptions of organizational justice and investigated the four different dimensions (distributive, procedural, interactional and informational justice) of organizational justice as evident in existing literature. This review attempts to analyze the current state of organizational justice research with emphasis on the field of human resources development. The review also attempt to suggest some implications for practice and future directions for HRD scholars and researchers.
Few public management studies have examined the prevalence of workplace incivi-lity and ways to reduce uncivil behaviour towards women and minority groups. The present research examines the influence of employee gender, personal control, and ethical leadership on workplace incivility experiences in public workplaces using data collected from government and non-profit employees in Pakistan. We find that women are more likely than men to experience workplace incivility, but this relationship attenuates when the direct supervisor exhibits ethical leadership. We also find that ethical leadership and personal control are associated negatively to workplace incivility experienced by both male and female public employees.
Organizational and societal mechanisms that ensure whistle-blowing in the public sector are required. Although many studies have explored a set of whistle-blowing determinants, few have explored the relationship and role of individual and attitudinal factors in influencing whistle-blowing in the public sector. To close this gap, this study considers the theoretical lenses of social exchange and self-determination theories, proposing that trustful leadership and organizational justice are the most likely factors to predict whistle-blowing intention when it is mediated by public service motivation (PSM) and extrinsic motivation. Using the Merit Principles Survey 2010 by the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, the study tests a partial mediation model employing structural equation modeling. The results suggest that PSM and extrinsic motivation partially mediate the relationship of trust in leadership and organizational justice and whistle-blowing intention. Finally, the study’s limitations and theoretical, empirical, and practical implications, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.
This study explores the dimensionality of organizational justice and provides evidence of construct validityfor a new justice measure. Items for this measure were generated by strictly following the seminal works in the justice literature. The measure was then validated in 2 separate studies. Study 1 occurred in a university setting, and Study 2 occurred in a field setting using employees in an automobile parts manufacturing company. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 4-factor structure to the measure, with distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice as distinct dimensions. This solution fit the data significantly better than a 2- or 3-factor solution using larger interactional or procedural dimensions. Structural equation modeling also demonstrated predictive validity for the justice dimensions on important outcomes, including leader evaluation, rule compliance, commitment, and helping behavior.
The field of organizational justice continues to be marked by several important research questions, including the size of relationships among justice dimensions, the relative importance of different justice criteria, and the unique effects of justice dimensions on key outcomes. To address such questions, the authors conducted a meta-analytic review of 183 justice studies. The results suggest that although different justice dimensions are moderately to highly related, they contribute incremental variance explained in fairness perceptions. The results also illustrate the overall and unique relationships among distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice and several organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, evaluation of authority, organizational citizenship behavior, withdrawal, performance). These findings are reviewed in terms of their implications for future research on organizational justice.
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of ethical leadership behaviour on employees' both intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction and also to find out a possible mediator effect of loyalty to supervisor in this relationship. A total of 223 academic and administrative staff who worked in Gümüşhane University in Turkey constituted the sample of the study. Mediation analysis was used to test the research model. Findings of our analysis have confirmed that ethical leadership is effective on loyalty to supervisor and also loyalty to supervisor increases employees' job satisfaction. It was understood that from the intrinsic dimension side of job satisfaction, indirect effect had been defined over " Extra Effort for Supervisor, Identification with Supervisor and Internalization of Supervisor's Values " dimensions of loyalty to supervisor. On the extrinsic dimension side of job satisfaction, " Dedication and Attachment to Supervisor (Ded*Attach), Identification with Supervisor and Internalization Supervisor's Values " dimensions of loyalty to supervisor variable had mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction. Briefly, as a result of mediator analysis we confirmed that a certain part of the relationship between ethical leadership and job satisfaction came out over loyalty to supervisor.
Roughly half of American workers report feeling underpaid. Equity and distributive justice theory and research suggests that perceived underpayment is associated with more job dissatisfaction. However, no population-based research has examined the situational factors that may protect individuals from the harmful effects of perceived underpayment. Using data from a national sample of American workers, this study examines the extent to which forms of security modify the association between perceived underpayment and job dissatisfaction. Results indicate that while perceived underpayment is associated with more job dissatisfaction, each of the following attenuates that association: job security, financial security, and employment in the public sector. This provides a novel theoretical elaboration and extension.
‘Looking fair’ is the desired goal of individuals and organizations. Fairness perceptions of organizational actions, by employees, translate into various favourable work outcomes. For instance, perceptions of fairness, defined as organizational justice, significantly influences attitudinal variables as job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, the existing literature does not offer complete picture of this influence. In other words, the ‘underlying mechanism’ governing the influence of organizational justice on job satisfaction and organizational commitment is not fully understood.
On the basis of extant literature review and arguments grounded in the social exchange theory, and ‘broaden and build’ theory of positive emotions, this study identifies psychological capital (PsyCap) as an explanatory mechanism for the influence of organizational justice on job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
The primary objective of this study was to test a theoretical and structural model that hypothesized mediation of PsyCap in the influence of organizational justice on job satisfaction and organizational commitment.
A survey-based methodology, with standardized scales was used. A pilot study was conducted to test the scale properties. A sample of 440 employees from the Indian service sector industry was drawn. A two-step process of analysis, with AMOS 16, was employed to test the structural model. The scales were assessed and found fit for reliability and validity criteria. Besides examining the significance of indirect effects using the bias-corrected confidence intervals with two-thousand bootstrap samples, the study also applied alternative⁄nested structural equation models to test the mediation hypotheses.
Results are found to be consistent with the stated hypotheses thus confirming the mediation of PsyCap in the influence of organizational justice on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The findings of this study advance available knowledge on job satisfaction and organizational commitment; and provide impetus to research in this domain by identifying PsyCap as an intervening variable. The study thus extends the application of PsyCap as an organizational variable capable of translating the effect of justice on satisfaction and commitment. It also supports and extends the view of previous researchers that PsyCap is a significant positive organizational behaviour (POB) variable, as it is capable of performance improvement and is open to development.
From a managerial perspective, given the ‘open to control’ nature of PsyCap, it renders a significant tool in the hands of managers to control the satisfaction and commitment of their employees. Moreover, controlling PsyCap is much easier as compared to directly controlling justice perceptions.
In an increasingly globalized world, organizations that operate in more than one country are a substantial part of the world economy. It is therefore beneficial to understand the attitudes of employees in different countries and their impact on the organization. One important area is organizational justice and its relationships with organizational trust and organizational commitment. This empirical study collected survey data from university employees across China, South Korea and Australia. We proposed that organizational trust (OT) would mediate the relationships between affective organizational commitment (AOC) and both distributive justice (DJ) and procedural justice (PJ) in all three countries. In Australia, we found that PJ and AOC were significantly related, and OT fully mediated the PJ-AOC relationship. In China and South Korea, both DJ and PJ were significantly related to AOC, and OT fully mediated the PJ-AOC relationship. OT partially mediated the DJ-AOC relationship in China but fully mediated this relationship in South Korea. Implications for theory and for management practitioners are discussed, and areas for future investigation are identified.
Although the study of organizational justice has increased markedly in the past few years, little work has focused on the relationship between justice perceptions and extrarole behaviors. This study examined the relationship between perceptions of fairness and organizational citizenship behaviors in a sample drawn from two firms in the midwestern United States. A theoretical basis for a relationship between fairness and citizenship was drawn from equity theory and other theories of social exchange. Structural equation analysis with LISREL 7 found support for four hypotheses, including support for a relationship between perceptions of procedural justice and four of five citizenship dimensions. Conversely, perceptions of distributive justice failed to influence any dimension of citizenship. Implications for the relationship between procedural justice and citizenship are discussed.
The present study examines why some women are more successful in their careers than others. Althoughconsiderable research has been conducted on determining factors in women’s career success in the private sector,those factors in the public sector remain under-researched. Two main goals of this study are (1) to investigate thefactors affecting the career success of women in the public sector and (2) to assess the relative importance ofpersonal factors and situational factors for women’s career success. This study empirically tests a comprehensivemodel of career success that includes both objective and subjective elements using a survey of female publicofficials in the Korean central government. The results reveal that personal factors are associated more withwomen’s objective career success than situational factors, and situational factors are related more to thesubjective career success than personal factors.
Studying gendered norms, practices, and processes represents the future of research on gender in public management, not tracking numbers over time. Gendered norms are rules governing behaviour that are institutionalized in organizational practices and processes, and are produced and reproduced through repeated interpersonal interactions. Theories of gendered norms have been developed in sociology, but it must be public administrationists who refine them for public-sector organizations, because the government context is unique, and equity is the third pillar upon which public administration rests. We conclude with a discussion of research projects taking a gendered-organizations approach and propose topics for further inquiry.
In this article, the authors theoretically propose that the perceived fairness of merit pay substantially influences leader-member exchange (LMX) and which in turn influences job engagement. Data from 581 Chinese compulsory school teachers show that the perceived procedural fairness of merit pay policy significantly and positively affects LMX and job engagement. That LMX partially mediates the relationship between procedural fairness perception and job engagement. The results indicate that procedural fairness plays more important role to motivate the public service employees in the merit pay implementation than the distributive fairness. The emphasis of procedural fairness may reflect the respect and dignity of the individual, which therefore promote teachers’ acceptance of leadership management styles and further stimulate greater job engagement among employees.
Recent ethical scandals involving managers in government organizations have highlighted the need for more research on ethical leadership in public sector organizations. To assess the consequences of ethical leadership, 161 managers in a large state government agency and 415 of their direct reports were surveyed, and personnel records were obtained to measure absenteeism. Results indicate that after controlling for the effects of employee characteristics, perceptions of procedural fairness, and supportive leader behavior, ethical leadership reduced absenteeism and had a positive influence on organizational commitment and willingness to report ethical problems. Implications of the findings and suggestions for future research are presented.
Using social exchange theory as a conceptual framework, we investigated the relationship between interactional justice and the outcomes organizational loyalty (affective commitment, turnover intentions), perceived job performance (self-rated performance, personal accomplishment), and mental impairment (cognitive irritation, emotional exhaustion) in an online survey of 218 employees working in the field of computer technology. Specifically, we predicted that interactional justice would heighten the quality of social exchange relationships and therefore expected perceived social support (POS) and bullying to mediate the proposed relationships. We tested our hypotheses applying a latent structural equation model. Our findings revealed that POS mediated the relationship between interactional justice and organizational loyalty, while bullying mediated the relationship between interactional justice and mental impairment. Practical implications are discussed concerning how to foster interactional justice and POS and how to weaken bullying behavior.
The correlates of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice were examined using 190 studies samples, totaling 64,757 participants. We found the distinction between the three justice types to be merited. While organizational practices and outcomes were related to the three justice types, demographic characteris-tics of the perceiver were, in large part, unrelated to perceived justice. Job performance and counterproductive work behaviors, considered to be outcomes of perceived justice, were mainly related to procedural justice, whereas organizational citizenship behavior was similarly predicted by distributive and procedural justice. Most satisfaction measures were similarly related to all justice types. Although organizational commitment and trust were mainly related to procedural justice, they were also substan-tially related to the other types of justice. Findings from labora-tory and field studies are not always in agreement. Future research agendas are discussed. ᭧ 2001 Academic Press The study of work-place justice has been proliferating in recent years. Whereas early studies on justice were conducted in the early 1960s (Adams, 1963, 1965), the majority of studies on justice in organizations were published We thank Dr. Dan Ilgen and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Yochi Cohen-Charash, Institute
Leadership theories and the academic literature can sometimes seem difficult for practitioners to understand because of complex conceptualizations, obscure terms, and its enormousness. Yet taken as a whole, the literature makes a great deal of sense and has much to offer. Indeed, the truths are often quite simple, elegant, and straightforward. The purpose of this article is to review the major findings of the organizational leadership literature and to identify the important overarching insights, specifically those of particular importance to today's leaders in administrative positions in the public sector, where an evolving context constantly reconfigures age‐old challenges.
A topic that remains underexplored in public management research is how the appearance of a formal rule or policy as guiding personnel decisions may affect employee perceptions of organizational decision outcomes. In this article, we consider how the locus of decision making (e.g., the apparent source of a decision) affects perceptions of a decision’s fairness. We examine this question with three survey experiments using case vignettes, each describing a distinct personnel decision-making scenario. In each case vignette, we manipulate the locus of decision making (a single supervisor, a team of supervisors, or an organizational policy). We find heterogeneous effects across the three case vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and future directions for public management research.
Over the past several decades, researchers across public and private organizations accumulated evidence that perceptions of organizational justice influence work attitudes and performance. Building on previous research, the present study examines the determinants of perceived organizational justice, including the effect of years of public service. By focusing on years of public service, the study explores how perceived organizational justice changes depending on time spent working in public organizations. Based on the regression analysis of the survey data of 522 state government employees, the study concludes that state government employees who report more years of public service are less likely to perceive their workplace as fair. The findings of the study are discussed in terms of their practical implications for improving a quality of workplace experiences among government employees, as one of the essential factors for maintaining high-performing public organizations.
Although recruitment and retention of qualified employees are some of the biggest challenges in the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations must maintain human capital inflow due to its significant impacts on organizational success. Through person-organization value fit, this paper explores the factors that influence labor shifts from the public or for-profit sector into the nonprofit sector in the South Korean context. Specifically, the effects on the likelihood of employees switching to the nonprofit sector from the perspective of eight job satisfaction measures and three education–job match measures are investigated. Two groups of employees (those whose career started in the for-profit sector and those starting in the public sector) are compared. Results indicate that there is substantial variation between the two groups. In particular, intrinsic job satisfaction has completely different effects on those working in the for-profit sector than on those working in the public sector regarding their likelihood of having experienced an intersectoral shift into nonprofits. The more public employees are satisfied with intrinsic job rewards, especially job reputation, the more likely they are to move to nonprofits. These results suggest that when employees in the public sector are satisfied with intrinsic rewards they tend to pursue greater intrinsic satisfaction in the nonprofit sector. This paper also reports that education–job match is only significant for those whose first job was in the for-profit sector.
Innovation and internal communication are essential for any successful organization. Although communication within organizations has long been studied in the for-profit sector, we still know little about the impact of communication types on innovation in the public and nonprofit sectors. To examine this question, we leverage and construct a longitudinal dataset using 5 years of the Korean Workplace Panel Survey (KWPS) from 2005 to 2013. Employing media richness theory, this study finds that internal communication positively influences innovation in the for-profit sector, which is a finding consistent with prior studies. Similarly, in the nonprofit sector, we find that meeting with the executive director and the number of communication channels utilized in an organization has a positive impact on innovation. However, we do not find that these communications have any impact in the public sector.
In the continuing quest to understand public employees’ reactions to fair (or unfair) treatment in the workplace, perceived organizational justice has been conceptualized primarily as an individual-level phenomenon. Although individuals create collective perceptions of the fair treatment of their work unit as a whole, little attention has been paid to consequences of justice climate at the organizational level. Using panel data from the U.S. federal government, this study seeks to fill this gap by examining the effect of four dimensions of organizational justice climate—distributive, procedural, informational, and interpersonal—on collective turnover rates and organizational performance. The findings show the negative association of distributive and interpersonal justice climates with turnover rates and the positive association of distributive, procedural, and interpersonal justice climates with organizational performance. Moreover, further analysis confirms that each dimension of justice climate has relative influence on both outcomes. Implications and contributions of these results for public administration theory and practice are discussed.
Despite considerable research on workplace bullying, trying to identify causal relationships and measurements of specific constructs, there is a need to draw from the experiences and feelings of the targets of workplace bullying. The current study explores the victims' experiences from an interpretive perspective in the context of Information Technology organizations in India. The qualitative data were collected through in-depth interviews with the victims of workplace bullying. The analysis using grounded theory approach resulted in a conceptual model, which explains the antecedents, bullying behaviours, consequences, and self-coping methods of the victims.
Job demands, leadership and management styles of the supervisor, and interpersonal conflict emerged as the major antecedents of workplace bullying. The victims' inability to adapt to changes was found as a personality factor that stimulated workplace bullying in the presence of other antecedents. The study reveals that although the victims experienced negative bullying behaviours in their daily life, most of them were unaware of the phenomenon. Some of the new bullying behaviours identified from the current study are taking ownership of others'work without giving due credit, grabbing others' challenging assignments, and repeated borrowing of money without returning.
The victims experienced various negative emotions as the initial reaction to bullying behaviours. As the bullying behaviours prolonged, the participants experienced various personal and work-related consequences. The self-coping mechanisms identified in the study were sharing emotional experiences with friends and family, having an easy-going attitude, voicing the issues, and perceived organizational support (POS). POS was considered to be important for having an influence on employee turnover intention and organizational commitment. Based on the POS, three categories of victims were identified — Leavers, Survivors, and Loyals.
The paper contributes to the body of knowledge as it brings out the experiences and feelings of the targets of workplace bullying. The detailed knowledge of the phenomenon helps the organization to either intervene or prevent the relevant processes. The study suggests that the victims need to be empowered with awareness programmes and organizational support to reduce the effects of workplace bullying.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of organizational justice on work engagement and the mediating effect of employees’ self-leadership on this relationship within the Korean organizational context.
Design/methodology/approach
– Cross-sectional, self-report data on organizational justice, work engagement, and self-leadership were obtained from 237 employees in Korea. Structural equation modeling was mainly used for data analyses.
Findings
– The results revealed the direct significant effect of organizational justice on both self-leadership and work engagement. Also, self-leadership was found to have a significant effect on work engagement as well as a partial mediating effect on the relationship between organizational justice and employees’ work engagement.
Research limitations/implications
– The social relations and personal behavioral components were conjointly analyzed to measure organizational justice. Harman’s single factor test and unmeasured latent variable tests were performed to minimize the chance of the common method variance (CMV) issue, additional suggestion was provided to prevent CMV issue for future research.
Practical implications
– These results could be used for designing an organizational system and structure based on the interactive relations between social structure and behaviors to improve organizational performance.
Originality/value
– The research, which has conceptualized the interactions between social relations and individual behaviors to measure the organizational justice level, is rare.
The work context reconstructs the feminine and the masculine, rendering public service a mirror of gender asymmetry. Nowhere is this clearer than in local government, where many face-to-face services are delivered. In cities and counties, the largest job categories are education and police work. Almost 90% of elementary school teachers are women and less than 12% of police officers are women. The sequelae to job segregation—overlooking the emotive component of jobs, pay inequity, and glass walls—will not change until organizational logic catches up with a more nuanced appreciation of gender.
Civil service reforms over the last four decades have sought to provide new flexibilities to managers, particularly in relation
to performance management. Reforms undertaken by many US states are consistent with this trend. State employees report these
managerial flexibilities are decreasing perceptions of fairness. At the federal level, personnel reforms in the US Department
of Defense also sought to increase managerial discretion. Defense identified employee perceptions of fairness as key to the
successful implementation of the system. This study examines changes in fairness perceptions in response to civil service
reforms at Defense in three distinct ways. First, procedural justice perceptions are examined before, during, and after repeal
of the personnel reforms. Second, we consider whether the procedural justice perceptions of employees and managers are different
over the time periods. Procedural justice research includes few studies controlling for managerial status, despite early arguments
that position in the organization is likely to change fairness assessments. Third, the use of control groups allows us to
consider if changes in procedural justice perceptions are due to the personnel reforms or reflect governmentwide trends. US
Office of Personnel Management surveys covering a 10-year period are analyzed using a difference-in-differences-in-differences
model. Results indicate that manager and employee perceptions of procedural justice are different over the time period, these
perceptions change in different ways in response to the reforms, and the observed changes are unique from governmentwide trends.
The process of exchange is almost continual in human interactions, and appears to have characteristics peculiar to itself, and to generate affect, motivation, and behavior that cannot be predicted unless exchange processes are understood. This chapter describes two major concepts relating to the perception of justice and injustice; the concept of relative deprivation and the complementary concept of relative gratification. All dissatisfaction and low morale are related to a person's suffering injustice in social exchanges. However, a significant portion of cases can be usefully explained by invoking injustice as an explanatory concept. In the theory of inequity, both the antecedents and consequences of perceived injustice have been stated in terms that permit quite specific predictions to be made about the behavior of persons entering social exchanges. Relative deprivation and distributive justice, as theoretical concepts, specify some of the conditions that arouse perceptions of injustice and complementarily, the conditions that lead men to feel that their relations with others are just. The need for much additional research notwithstanding, the theoretical analyses that have been made of injustice in social exchanges should result not only in a better general understanding of the phenomenon, but should lead to a degree of social control not previously possible. The experience of injustice need not be an accepted fact of life.
Although a ''glass ceiling'' is said to keep women from the top management levels of organizations, no research has investigated actual decisions about promotions to such positions. This study examined promotion decisions for U.S. federal government Senior Executive Service positions in a cabinet-level department. Contrary to hypotheses, the job-irrelevant variable of gender worked to women's advantage, both directly and indirectly, through job relevant variables. However, an applicant's employment in the hiring department had the greatest effect on promotion decisions.
We examine one potential reason for the persistence of the glass ceiling: bosses' perceptions of female subordinates' family-work conflict. Person categorization and social role theories are used to examine whether bosses (both male and female) perceive women as having greater family-work conflict and therefore view them as mismatched to their organizations and jobs. The results support our model: bosses' perceptions of family-work conflict mediated the relationships between subordinate sex and perceptions of person-organization fit, person-job fit, and performance. Both types of fit were related to promotability (nomination for promotion and managerassessed promotability). We discuss implications for practice and future research.
Distributive justice was found to be a more important predictor of two personal outcomes, pay satisfaction and job satisfaction, than procedural justice, whereas the reverse was true for two organizational outcomes-organizational commitment and subordinate's evaluation of supervisor. However, procedural and distributive justice also interacted in predicting organizational outcomes. We discuss limitations of this study and directions for future research.
This paper reviews the growth of the nonprofit sector in Korea and discusses its challenges and opportunities. During the past two decades nonprofit organizations in Korea have developed faster than those in other countries and became core players to substantially influence Korean society. Korean nonprofit organizations have traditionally emphasized an advocacy role in promoting human rights and democracy and checking and safeguarding against the abusive powers of government and big business. Compared with Western countries' nonprofits, Korean nonprofit organizations have a short history and distinctive historical and cultural experiences and contexts. This paper argues that, to better understand challenges and opportunities faced by the nonprofit organizations in a country, we need to review the historical and cultural contexts from which the nonprofit organizations in the country emerge, rather than apply definitions and conceptions about Western nonprofits unreflectively to other societies, such as Korea.
Organizational justice (OJ) has been one of the topics studied most frequently in last decade’s years but mostly in the context of Western countries. This study tests the construct validity of OJ in the context of Chinese societies first, testifying four-dimensional OJ model is the best one, which includes distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and leadership justice. Second, the regression analysis of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) on OJ has been done; it was found that distributive justice (DJ) and interpersonal justice (IJ) have a positive effect on Organizational Citizenship Behavior Beneficial to Supervisor (OCBS), whereas procedural justice (PJ) and IJ have a positive effect on Organizational Citizenship Behavior Beneficial to Organization (OCBO). Last, the mediating role of social exchange between OJ and OCB was tested and verified—Perceived organizational support (POS) mediates PJ, leadership justice (LJ), and OCBO, whereas leader–member exchange (LMX) mediates DJ and IJ. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Executives should not take a reputation for ethical leadership for granted. Based on interviews with senior executives and corporate ethics officers, this article reveals that a reputation for executive ethical leadership rests on two essential pillars: the executive's visibility as a moral person (based upon perceived traits, behaviors, and decision-making processes) and visibility as a moral manager (based upon role modeling, use of the reward system, and communication). Developing a reputation for ethical leadership pays dividends in reduced legal problems and increased employee commitment, satisfaction, and employee ethical conduct. The alternatives are the unethical leader, the hypocritical leader (who talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk), and the ethically neutral leader (who may be an ethical person, but employees don't know it because the leader has not made ethics and values an explicit part of the leadership agenda). The article also offers guidelines for cultivating a reputation for ethical leadership.
Using a large sample of college and university faculty, we studied the effects of wage inequality on satisfaction, productivity, and collaboration. Results show that the greater the degree of wage dispersion within academic departments, the lower is individual faculty members' satisfaction and research productivity and the less likely it is that faculty members will collaborate on research. The negative effects of wage dispersion on satisfaction are reduced for people who are more committed (have longer tenure), in fields with more developed scientific paradigms, and when salaries are based more on experience and scholarly productivity, but they are greater for those who earn comparatively less money. Wage dispersion has a smaller negative effect on satisfaction in private colleges and universities in which salaries are less likely to be known. The results suggest that one's position in the salary structure, the availability of information about wage inequality, and legitimate bases of reward allocation all affect the extent to which wage dispersion produces adverse effects.
Recent public management literature has emphasized the influence of human resource management (HRM) policies, including traditional benefits, family-friendly benefits, procedural justice, and managerial trustworthiness, on work attitudes. However, little research in public administration has explored more detailed impacts of each HRM policy. This article provides an integrated understanding of the impacts of HRM policies using social exchange theory. In addition, the moderating impacts of procedural justice and managerial trustworthiness on the relationship between employee benefits and work attitudes are examined. Using the Federal Human Capital Survey 2008 data set, the authors find that two types of employee benefits, procedural justice, and managerial trustworthiness are positively related to job satisfaction, whereas family-friendly benefits, managerial trustworthiness, and procedural justice are negatively associated with turnover intention. The implications of these findings are thoroughly discussed.