Not all justices are equal: the unique effects of organizational justice on the behaviour and attitude of government workers in Ghana
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Author | Eric Delle,Anthony Sumnaya Kumasey,Farhad Hossain |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852319829538 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Not all justices are equal:
the unique effects of
organizational justice
on the behaviour and
attitude of government
workers in Ghana
Anthony Sumnaya Kumasey
University of Professional Studies, Ghana
Eric Delle
Macquarie University, Australia
Farhad Hossain
University of Manchester, UK
Abstract
Drawing on social exchange and positive emotions theories, we examined the differ-
ential effects of organizational justice on work engagement and organizational commit-
ment among 347 Ghanaian public-sector workers. We hypothesized that three different
components of organizational justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) would
have different effects on work engagement and organizational commitment. We used
regression test to investigate these effects. Despite subtle differences, the results show
that distributive and procedural justice relate positively to vigour, dedication and
absorption. However, interactional justice was unrelated to any of the work engage-
ment components. We further observed that while distributive, procedural and
interactional justice related positively to affective commitment, no other type of orga-
nizational justice related to continuance and normative commitment. Overall, not all
justices create the same effect on workplace behaviour. Implications and limitations
are discussed.
Corresponding author:
Anthony Sumnaya Kumasey, Faculty of Management, University of Professional Studies, Accra, Ghana.
Email: anthony.kumasey@upsamail.edu.gh
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2021, Vol. 87(1) 78–96
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852319829538
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Points for practitioners
•Distributive justice and procedural justice (but not interactional justice) stimulate
the levels of vigour, dedication and absorption among Ghanaian public-sector work-
ers and produce an engaged workforce. Thus, management should channel invest-
ment into the creation and implementation of administrative practices that promote
the perception of fairness in the distribution of resources within organizations.
•Organizational justice enhances affective commitment – the emotional connection
to and identification with their organization – among public-sector workers
in Ghana.
Keywords
Ghana, organizational commitment, organizational justice, public-sector employees,
work engagement
Introduction
Academics and practitioners agree that a human-oriented workplace is one that
believes in the fair treatment of people. Fairness in the workplace creates not only
a meaningful employee–organization relationship, but also an atmosphere with
increased engagement, satisfaction and performance. Understandably, employers
therefore invest time and effort in creating a fair work environment in order to
benefit from it. Justice research is rooted within the social exchange paradigm
(Blau, 1964; Gouldner, 1960) because while injustice is associated with negative
workplace attitudes, fair treatment results in positive attitudes. Research shows
that justice relates positively to employee satisfaction (Ghosh et al., 2014;
McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992; Tessema et al., 2014), engagement (Ghosh et al.,
2014; Strom et al., 2014) and commitment (Folger and Konovsky, 1989; Kumasey
et al., 2014; Suliman and Kathairi, 2013).
Consensus abounds among researchers that organizational justice is a multi-
dimensional paradigm, comprising distributive (who gets what organizational
resources), procedural (how corporate resources are shared/assigned) and interac-
tional (interpersonal treatment received while sharing organizational resources)
(Cropanzano et al., 2002) components, and there is a sizeable literature on the
nexus between these components of organizational justice and consequences. For
instance, while organizational justice relates to work engagement, evidence
abounds that distributive, procedural and interactional justice components relate
positively to work engagement (Biswas et al., 2013; Ghosh et al., 2014; Strom et al.,
2014). Additionally, research shows that distributive and procedural justice relate
to commitment (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Tang and Sarsfield-Baldwin,
1996). Nevertheless, to our knowledge, studies have yet to be conducted examining
the influence of organizational justice on different aspects of work engagement and
Kumasey et al. 79
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