پاداش مشروط رهبری تراکنشی، نگرش به کار و رفتار شهروندی سازمانی: نقش ادراک اقلیم عدالت رویه و قدرت

Using a sample of 212 bank employees, we developed a model in which procedural justice climate perceptions and strength mediated the relationships between contingent reward leader behavior and follower satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and rated organizational citizenship behavior, controlling for perceived supervisor support. Results from the HLM analysis showed that procedural justice climate perceptions and strength completely mediated the relationships between contingent reward leader behavior and followers' satisfaction with supervisor and levels of organizational commitment, and partially mediated the relationship between contingent reward leader behavior and supervisor rated organizational citizenship behavior. Implications for research and practice of our findings are discussed.

Contingent reward transactional leader behavior has been a focus of considerable organizational research over the last two decades (see Avolio, Bass, Walumbwa, & Zhu, 2004 for a review). Over these years, the majority of empirical and meta-analytic studies have demonstrated that contingent reward leader behavior has a positive effect on followers' attitudes and behaviors (Atwater et al., 1997, Bass et al., 2003, Howell and Hall-Merenda, 1999, Lowe et al., 1996, Podsakoff et al., 2000 and Walumbwa et al., 2004), although negative associations have also been reported (Howell and Avolio, 1993 and Yammarino and Bass, 1990). Two recent meta-analytic reviews reached consistent and positive conclusions regarding the significant unique effect of leader contingent reward behavior on a variety of important employee attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors (Judge and Piccolo, 2004 and Podsakoff et al., 2006). Although previous studies have established a direct link between contingent reward leader behavior and several relevant work attitudes and behaviors, “surprisingly little attention has been given to articulating the reasons why leader reward behavior influences employee criterion variables” ( Podsakoff et al., 2006, p. 115). Secondly, although there have been calls for research that uses a multilevel framework when investigating leadership ( Graen and Uhl-Bien, 1995 and Judge et al., 2004), relatively few studies have examined the effect of contingent reward leader behavior as a group-level variable on important work attitudes and behaviors. As multilevel researchers have repeatedly noted, a construct studied at the individual level of analysis is rarely equivalent to the same construct conceptualized at higher levels of analysis ( Bliese, 2000, Morgeson and Hoffman, 1999 and Yammarino et al., 2005). Therefore, the effect of contingent reward leader behavior at the individual level cannot be assumed to translate directly to the unit level of analysis; research must be conducted to test these relationships. This study is an attempt to address this gap in the literature by developing and testing a framework in which group-level procedural justice climate perceptions (i.e., shared perceptions of procedural justice among individuals within a unit) and strength (within-unit variability in employees' perceptions of justice climate or the dispersion of employees' justice climate rating) mediate the relationship between group-level contingent reward leader behavior and individual followers' satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and rated organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using justice judgment model (Leventhal, 1980) as a theoretical framework. Procedural justice climate—a group-level cognition about how a work group or unit as a whole is treated, has received increasing attention in recent years (Colquitt et al., 2005, Ehrhart, 2004, Liao and Rupp, 2005, Mossholder et al., 1998, Naumann and Bennett, 2000 and Rupp and Cropanzano, 2002). As explained by Rupp, Bashshur, & Liao (2007), interest in general justice climate has been spurred by a number of events, including an increase in the use of team-based work systems within organizations, increase in research in multilevel issues as a method for understanding complex organizational phenomena, and the contemporary theoretical models of workplace justice that shows justice concerns are not always self-interested, but that people also care about the treatment of others, and that third-party justice effects are far more common than was once thought. Although research has found positive relationships between justice climate and several relevant organizational work outcomes, there is still need to understand potential antecedents, such as leader behaviors ( Cropanzano et al., 2001 and Ehrhart, 2004). Schneider, Gunnarson, & Niles-Jolly (1994) argued that climate perceptions are based on leaders' behavior and the actions they reward, because leaders are the “climate engineers” ( Naumann & Bennett, 2000, p. 883). In particular, researchers have often suggested that justice climate and strength can arise from mere exposure to the same policies or leaders ( Naumann and Bennett, 2000, Schneider and Reichers, 1983 and Schneider et al., 2003). However, as De Cremer, van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, Mullenders, & Stinglhamber (2005) noted, “hardly any empirical research has looked at which well defined leadership behaviors may act in tandem with procedural fairness” (p. 3) or serve to create strong justice climate perceptions. Colquitt, Noe, & Jackson (2002) called for research that examines whether “certain management practices or reward systems may serve to create strong and favorable justice climates” (p. 104). The second goal of this study, therefore, is to address this gap in the literature by integrating leadership and organizational justice literatures, examining whether contingent reward leader behavior, as a group-level variable, serve as a potential antecedent to group-level procedural justice climate perceptions and strength. Specifically, we argue that because both contingent reward leader behavior and justice are theoretically rooted in expectancy and social exchange theories ( Blau, 1964 and Gouldner, 1960), justice climate perceptions and strength may act as powerful mediators of the influence of contingent reward leader behavior on individual follower work-related attitudes and behaviors such as satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and rated OCB. In sum, this study offers a unique integration of two of the visible literatures in organizational behavior: leadership and organizational justice (Pillai et al., 1999 and Scandura, 1999) by theorizing and testing a model in which group-level procedural justice climate perceptions and strength mediate the effect of group-level contingent reward leader behavior on follower satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and rated OCB. In the same vein, we also tested whether group-level contingent reward leader behavior serves as an antecedent to procedural justice climate perceptions and strength. Below, we present extant research and theory that underpins the relationships among the variables investigated and offer specific hypotheses. The model of the relationships proposed in the present study is summarized in Fig. 1.

The present study sought to contribute to the literature by testing group-level CRT leader behavior as an antecedent of group-level procedural justice climate perceptions and strength, which further influence follower attitudes and behaviors. Our results show that CRT leader behavior contributes to procedural justice climate perceptions and strength. We also found that procedural justice climate perceptions and strength mediate the relationships between CRT leader behavior with satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and rated OCB. Note, however, that our results did not reveal full mediation for procedural justice climate perceptions and strength in the relationship between CRT leader behavior and rated OCB. We suspect that the OCB measure may have influenced our results. Future research may consider using all OCB measures to replicate our research. Regardless, our results suggest that when unit members collectively feel the procedures used by their unit supervisors are consistent and fair, which could be fostered by leader reward behavior, they are more likely to be satisfied with their supervisor, remain committed to the organization, and display organizational citizenship behaviors. Therefore, unit supervisor's fairness promotion does seem to play a pivotal role in translating the effects of CRT leaders to follower positive attitudes and behaviors. These results are consistent with the argument that the manner in which a leader administers rewards is a critical determinant of the effectiveness of contingent leader behavior (Podsakoff et al., 2006). The present study makes several important contributions to research on emerging area of CRT leader behavior and procedural justice climate. As noted earlier, despite calls for research integrating leadership and organizational justice literatures (Pillai et al., 1999 and Scandura, 1999), relatively little theoretical or empirical work has been done to integrate these two important literatures. As an important recent exception, Ehrhart (2004) found that procedural justice climate partially mediated the relationship between servant leadership and unit-level OCB. Thus, both Ehrhart (2004) and our study contribute to the literature by testing group-level CRT leader behavior and servant leadership as antecedents of procedural justice climate, which have rarely been the focus in the leadership literature. Second, our results are consistent with results of Pillai et al. (1999) at the individual-level of analysis. Though they did not test CRT leader behavior as an antecedent of procedural justice, their zero-order correlation indicated that CRT leader behavior was positively related to procedural justice (r = .50). We believe our study extends and contributes above and beyond this study. For example, Pillai et al. (1999) did not test the mediating effects of procedural justice in the relationships between CRT leader behavior and outcome variables; whereas we specifically hypothesized and tested the mediating process of group-level procedural justice climate. This distinction, though slight, is important, and calls for additional research that examines the relationships between justice climate, CRT leader behavior, and work-related attitudes and behaviors at multiple levels of analysis. Third, in light of the few studies that have been published on the antecedents and consequences of procedural justice climate strength, our study adds a valuable contribution to the literature, as it provides empirical evidence on a potential antecedent and consequences of procedural justice climate strength (Colquitt et al., 2002 and Cropanzano et al., 2001). Lindell & Brandt (2000) noted, “a number of researchers have recognized the theoretical significance of climate consensus, but little data have been collected on its relationships with either antecedent or outcome variables, let alone whether it mediates the relationship between organizational antecedents and outcomes” (p. 332). Our study joins a growing number of studies by showing that leadership behaviors marked by consistency and contingent reward behaviors are likely to lead to a strong procedural justice climate perceptions and strength. These results also have practical implications for leadership and human resource management, as a better understanding of the relationships between CRT leader behavior, procedural justice climate perceptions and strength, and follower work-related attitudes and behaviors allows the design of more effective training programs. Our results suggest that organizations need to pay more attention to programs and policies that encourage fairness in order to enhance satisfaction with supervisor, commitment with the organization, and employee citizenship behaviors (Costigan, Insinga, Kranas, Kureshov, & Ilter, 2004). For example, one way to foster procedural justice climate is by ensuring that rewards are given out accurately and consistently. Employee surveys or focus groups can provide an accurate picture of whether the processes used to provide reward systems and the way those rewards are viewed by the recipients. In addition, our results emphasize that the supervisor who implements the reward programs and policies must set clear ground rules so that employees are clear on what is expected of them and the reward they will receive for satisfactory effort. Secondly, by showing procedural justice climate perceptions and strength as potential mediators, our results suggest that managers need to consider the mechanism by which CRT leader behavior is related to followers' work attitudes and citizenship behaviors. Specifically, our results suggest that managers need to focus on the fair treatment of a unit as a whole to enhance unit member justice perceptions and strength, which is likely to influence followers' satisfaction with supervisor, levels of organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Interventions designed to clarify the meaning and interpretation of unit treatment may help manage fairness within units (Roberson, 2006). Finally, our results suggest that management selection should not only assess inspiring and charismatic leader behaviors (e.g., transformational leadership behaviors) but also reward leader behaviors such as contingent reward transactional behaviors when selecting individuals for supervisory positions. This may help increase procedural justice climate perceptions and strength, which subsequently influence followers' satisfaction with supervisor, commitment to the organization, and employee citizenship behaviors. 4.1. Limitations and suggestions for future research The present study has some limitations. First, because the study was conducted within a single industry—the banking industry—one could question the generalizability of the results. Future research should extend these findings to non-financial firms to enhance generalizability. Second, because part of our data came from the same individuals and involved perceptual data (i.e., followers provided ratings of their perceptions of supervisors' CRT leader behavior, procedural justice climate, and rated their own work-related attitudes), there is potential for common source bias, which means we cannot determine causality among the variables, but can only make inferences. We attempted to address this potential problem in several ways. First, by averaging followers' evaluations of their leaders' behavior and justice climate perceptions, and collecting data at different points in time, we somehow reduced the common source bias. Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff (2003) argued that temporal separation reduces common source variance by allowing previously recalled information to leave short-term memory, in essence diminishing respondent's ability and motivation to use his or her prior responses to answer subsequent questions. Second, we also conducted additional analyses to assess the distinctiveness of CRT leader behavior and procedural justice climate. The first test was a CFA of our measurement model, and the second was the results of the Cohen & Cohen (1983) test of differences between two Pearson correlations (r) from the same sample. Taken together, it seems unlikely that common method bias could account completely for our pattern of results. Regardless, future research should include more behavioral data as well as more objective work performance outcomes obtained from different sources. Researchers may also consider longitudinal experimental designs where both qualitative and quantitative data are collected over repeated observations to provide stronger evidence for causal relationships. Prior studies have controlled for transformational leadership while examining CRT leader behavior (Hofmann and Jones, 2005, Howell and Hall-Merenda, 1999, Judge and Piccolo, 2004 and Pillai et al., 1999). We did not control for transformational leadership in the present study, which could be a clear limitation. However, we controlled for the effects of perceived supervisor support (Eisenberger et al., 2002), which is a characteristic of transformational leadership (Bass, 1998). We call for replication of our results in research in which transformational leadership explanations are also controlled. Along the same lines, we encourage future researchers to conduct a more elaborate and integrative studies that include authentic, leader–member exchange, transactional, transformational and servant leadership theories concurrently, and the different aspects of organizational justice, including distributive, informational, and interpersonal justice (Colquitt, 2001 and Rupp and Cropanzano, 2002). Such studies are necessary in order to provide a more complete conclusion regarding the relationships among organizational justice, leadership, and work-related attitudes and behaviors. Despite these limitations, the present study has a number of strengths, including a diverse sample from six different banking organizations, multi-level analyses, data collected at different points in time, and ratings from both supervisors and their direct reports. The multi-level design are particularly important because they increase the confidence in our results by providing greater insight into the relationships between procedural justice climate perceptions and strength, CRT leader behavior, and follower satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and OCB. Moreover, the findings that CRT leader behavior predicted followers' satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment, and supervisor rated OCB, even after controlling for perceived supervisor support effect suggests CRT leader behavior is independently related to followers' work-related attitudes such as satisfaction with supervisor, organizational commitment and rated OCB. Integrating our study in the current literature of organizational justice, we suggest the following future research directions. First, future research should further distinguish the sources of procedural justice climate perceptions and strength and examine their predictability of various outcomes. The multifoci approach in recent organizational justice studies have made a successful attempt to distinguish leader-focused from organization-focused justice perceptions and climate, and concluded that supervisor-focused justice climate better predicted supervisor-focused outcomes, while organization-focused justice climate better predicted organization-focused outcomes (Liao and Rupp, 2005 and Rupp and Cropanzano, 2002). Although we paralleled our justice climate measure with organization-focused justice climate, we did not particularly specify the focus. Future research should build on this body of multifoci justice research to further test organization-focused, supervisor-focused, and even coworker-focused justice climate as possible mediating mechanisms between CRT leader behavior and employee outcomes. In addition, because justice climate emerges by team member interactions (Colquitt et al., 2002, Naumann and Bennett, 2000 and Roberson and Colquitt, 2005), team characteristics could moderate the CRT leader behavior influence on procedural justice climate perceptions and strength. For example, recent studies have confirmed the main effect of such team characteristics as team size and team collectivism on the level of procedural justice climate and strength (Colquitt et al., 2002). Also, in light of the leadership substitute literature (Howell, Dorfman, & Kerr, 1986), which proposes that team characteristics could serve as enhancers or neutralizers of leadership influence, we suggest that future research integrate leadership influences and team characteristics to test their possible interaction effect on individual work attitudes and work performance mediated by justice climate and justice climate strength. In conclusion, given recent interests in organizational justice, the question of how leaders can directly promote justice climate perceptions and strength in organizations is an important avenue for future research. Our findings provides an important step toward a better understanding of this process by suggesting that CRT leader behavior can be instrumental in creating strong justice climate perceptions, which in turn, promotes employee positive attitudes and behaviors. In doing so, we have also attempted to fill the dearth of research in the CRT leader behavior process and the antecedents and consequences of justice climate perceptions and strength.