عدالت رویه ای، عدالت تعاملی، و وظیفه عملکرد : نقش میانجی از انگیزش درونی

This manuscript reports the results of two studies, one in the laboratory and one in the field, both of which examined intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the relationship between justice and task performance. Using fairness theory, we argued that procedural justice and interpersonal justice would have significant, independent effects on intrinsic motivation. In general, the results showed that procedural justice predicted both self-reported and free-choice based measures of intrinsic motivation. Procedural justice also predicted task performance, a relationship that was partially mediated by intrinsic motivation. In contrast, interpersonal justice was not significantly related to either intrinsic motivation or task performance. We discuss the implications of these results for the continued integration of the justice and motivation literatures.

Research in organizational justice, a literature focused on the experience of fairness in organizations and other task-focused environments (Greenberg, 1987), has increased significantly over the past decade (see Colquitt, Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005, for a narrative review). One reason for that increase is that perceptions of fair treatment have been linked to a number of beneficial employee behaviors (Conlon, Meyer, & Nowakowski, 2005). For example, meta-analytic reviews have yielded a moderately strong positive relationship between procedural justice, the perceived fairness of decision-making processes (Leventhal, 1980 and Thibaut and Walker, 1975), and task performance (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001 and Colquitt et al., 2001). That relationship suggests that taking steps to make decision-making more fair may actually improve individuals’ fulfillment of task duties. Despite the practical importance of the procedural justice–task performance relationship, justice scholars have devoted surprisingly little attention to the theoretical mechanisms that could explain such results (Colquitt, Greenberg, & Scott, 2005). Indeed, scholars have spent much more time providing a conceptual rationale for the relationships between justice and other beneficial behaviors, such as organizational citizenship behaviors, rule compliance, cooperation, and deference to authority (Lind, 2001, Moorman and Byrne, 2005, Tyler and Blader, 2000 and Tyler and Lind, 1992). Part of that disparity in theoretical attention might be explained by the fact that earlier reviews of the justice literature were somewhat pessimistic about the ability of justice to influence task performance (Lind & Tyler, 1988). Nevertheless, without understanding the mediators that underlie the justice–task performance relationship, it is impossible to understand why fair treatment can have positive task-related consequences. One potential mediator of the justice–task performance relationship is motivation. Latham and Pinder (2005) defined motivation as a set of energetic forces that initiates task-related behavior and determines its form, direction, intensity, and duration. One might expect that the motivational consequences of justice would be well-understood given that justice concepts are often discussed in narrative reviews of the motivation literature (Kanfer, 1991 and Latham and Pinder, 2005). However, that association with the motivation literature is largely due to distributive justice, the perceived fairness of decision outcomes (Adams, 1965, Homans, 1961 and Leventhal, 1976), as equity theory is viewed as one of the more venerable motivation theories. With few exceptions (e.g., Bell et al., 2006 and Colquitt and Sakthi, 2002), scholars have failed to examine the motivational consequences of other justice dimensions. Indeed, in a recent review, Colquitt and Greenberg (2003) asked “Why is it that job satisfaction and organizational commitment are popular dependent variables in justice research, but motivation is virtually ignored?” (p. 99). Similarly, Cropanzano and Rupp (2003) asked “Wherefore organizational justice amidst theories of work motivation?” (p. 91). The purpose of the present research was to examine a motivation-based explanation for the relationship between justice and task performance. We focused on procedural justice given that it has the strongest zero-order and independent relationships with task performance in meta-analytic reviews (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001 and Colquitt et al., 2001). However, we also included interpersonal justice, which reflects the perceived fairness of the interpersonal treatment received during an authority’s enactment of procedures (Bies & Moag, 1986). In contrast to procedural justice, the task performance benefits of interpersonal justice remain unclear. Meta-analytic estimates revealed near-zero correlations with task performance but were based on very few studies (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001 and Colquitt et al., 2001). Studies that have been published subsequent to those meta-analyses have sometimes yielded non-significant relationships between interpersonal justice and task performance (Colquitt et al., 2006, Kickul et al., 2002 and Weaver and Conlon, 2003) and other times yielded significant relationships (Cropanzano et al., 2002, Ramaswami and Singh, 2003 and Rupp and Cropanzano, 2002). Including interpersonal justice in our study therefore helps to extend our understanding of the potential performance effects of fair interpersonal treatment. More specifically, the present research examined whether high levels of procedural and interpersonal justice could foster a sense of intrinsic motivation that would be positively associated with task performance. Intrinsic motivation exists when performing a task serves as its own reward, due to a sense of enjoyment and pleasure (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). Intrinsic motivation therefore involves the experience of positive affect while tasks are being completed ( Izard, 1977, Pretty and Seligman, 1984, Reeve et al., 1986 and Vallerand, 1997). We focused our investigation on intrinsic motivation for two reasons. First, intrinsic motivation offers a complement to the more extrinsic focus of equity theory and distributive justice, thereby broadening our understanding of justice and motivation. Second, past research has shown that procedural and interpersonal justice have significant effects on affect and emotions ( Cropanzano et al., 2000, Krehbiel and Cropanzano, 2000 and Weiss et al., 1999), which gives those justice dimensions a potential relevance to intrinsic motivation. Below, we offer conceptual support for intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the justice–task performance relationship and describe two studies—one in the lab and one in the field—that test that prediction.

What stands out most from the results of our two studies is the significant relationship between procedural justice and intrinsic motivation. That relationship was supported using a manipulation bounded in Leventhal’s (1980) accuracy and consistency rules and using a self-report measure that captured the full spectrum of procedural justice criteria (Colquitt, 2001). The relationship also was supported when referencing motivation to both specific tasks (i.e., anagrams) and multifaceted tasks (i.e., overall job duties). Finally, the relationship was supported using both self-reported and free-choice measures of intrinsic motivation, though the self-reported result was only significant in the laboratory when controlling for the baseline assessment. Despite that qualification, when taken together, these results suggest that fair decision-making procedures stands as one potential means of improving intrinsic motivation among employees. This study serves as one of the first studies to examine motivation as a consequence of justice (see also Bell et al., 2006 and Colquitt and Sakthi, 2002). Such linkages are surprisingly rare given the assumed connection between the justice literature and the larger literature on work motivation (Colquitt and Greenberg, 2003, Cropanzano and Rupp, 2003, Kanfer, 1991 and Latham and Pinder, 2005). Our results illustrate the theoretical benefits that arise from continuing to clarify the justice-motivation connection. Specifically, both studies revealed that intrinsic motivation was a partial mediator of the procedural justice–task performance relationship. This relationship has received surprisingly little theoretical attention, especially relative to the attention paid to other beneficial behavioral outcomes in the justice literature, such as OCB, cooperation, rule compliance, and deference to authority (Lind, 2001, Moorman and Byrne, 2005, Tyler and Blader, 2000 and Tyler and Lind, 1992). Our results therefore provide a first step in understanding exactly why procedural justice is associated with task performance—because it may foster a type of motivation that has its own unique performance benefits. Contrary to our expectations, however, interpersonal justice was not related to intrinsic motivation in the two studies, either in a zero-order sense or when considered in conjunction with procedural justice. There is no obvious methodological explanation for these null findings, as the manipulation checks supported the validity of the interpersonal manipulation in Study 1 and the reliability and factor structure information supported the validity of the interpersonal measure in Study 2. The non-significant relationship between interpersonal justice and task performance is perhaps less surprising given that meta-analytic estimates for that relationship are quite low, though those estimates are only based on a handful of studies (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001 and Colquitt et al., 2001). Subsequent studies have sometimes yielded significant relationships between interpersonal justice and task performance (Aryee et al., 2002, Cropanzano et al., 2002 and Rupp and Cropanzano, 2002) and sometimes yielded non-significant relationships (Colquitt et al., 2006, Kickul et al., 2002 and Weaver and Conlon, 2003). Taken together, that stream of research suggests a smaller effect on task performance than procedural justice has exhibited.3 There are two related and plausible explanations for the non-significant findings for interpersonal justice. Consistent with Schwarz and Clore, 1983 and Schwarz and Clore, 1996, we had reasoned that individuals’ affective reactions to just or unjust treatment would serve as information when evaluating task-related stimuli, with positive reactions resulting in more positive appraisals of tasks and negative reactions resulting in more negative appraisals of tasks. It may be that the affect associated with interpersonal justice is more “psychologically distant” from the task than the affect associated with procedural justice. After all, procedural justice concerns, in part, how task behaviors are evaluated, judged, and translated into outcomes and rewards (e.g., with accuracy, with consistency, without bias). It therefore has a stronger task-based connection than interpersonal justice. Moreover, the discretionary nature of interpersonal justice may increase the likelihood that employees will attribute the behavior to the authority rather than to other contextual factors. Personal attributions may then increase the likelihood that reciprocation will be directed towards the authority (Chiaburu & Harrison, in press), rather than towards the task. Although our hypotheses for interpersonal justice were not supported, it is possible that these hypotheses would be supported for other constructs that share some similarities with interpersonal justice. Recall that interpersonal justice consists of two rules: respect (e.g., being polite rather than rude) and propriety (e.g., refraining from improper remarks or prejudicial statements) (Bies and Moag, 1986 and Greenberg, 1993). A construct that is similar to interpersonal injustice is that of abusive supervision, defined as “subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, excluding physical contact” (Tepper, 2000, p. 178). While interpersonal justice is also conceptualized as a perception, there are differences between these two constructs. First, interpersonal injustice may or may not have elements of hostility, whereas, by definition, abusive supervision must be hostile in nature. In addition, Tepper (2000) conceptualization suggests that abusive supervision is of an enduring nature, whereas interpersonal injustice can occur sporadically because it is bounded in the enactment of some decision-making procedure. It may be that the increased severity and endurance inherent in abusive supervision would impact intrinsic motivation and performance to a greater degree than interpersonal injustice. Another relevant construct is that of social undermining, which is typically defined as “behavior intended to hinder, over time, the ability to establish and maintain positive interpersonal relationships, work-related success, and favorable reputation” (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002, p. 332). Unlike interpersonal injustice, social undermining requires an intention to harm. The addition of intention to harm might also increase the likelihood of intrinsic motivation and performance effects. Yet another potential antecedent is that of workplace incivility (Andersson & Pearson, 1999), defined as “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect. Uncivil behaviors are characteristically rude and discourteous, displaying a lack of regard for others”. It may be that broader nature of workplace incivility is more likely to negatively affect intrinsic motivation and performance. Although these constructs may be more fruitful to research on intrinsic motivation than interpersonal justice, it is important to note that the referent-based constraints discussed previously are also relevant to abusive supervision, social undermining, and incivility. Therefore, these constructs may not display strong relationships with intrinsic motivation and task performance. As with interpersonal justice, abusive supervision, social undermining, and incivility may be more likely to elicit reactions toward the authority rather than broader reactions or reactions focused on specific tasks. Therefore, it is important that future research continue to examine outcomes directed at the authority, such as supervisor directed citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors. These outcomes were not included in our study because they have already been the focus of much theorizing in the justice literature and are less relevant to intrinsic motivation.