Organizational justice and employee acceptance of management decisions: the mediating role of perceived organizational adaptation to hindering external conditions
| Date | 30 July 2024 |
| Pages | 1045-1063 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-11-2023-0586 |
| Published date | 30 July 2024 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Stanisław Burdziej,Rafał Haffer,Anna Moszyńska,Arkadiusz Karwacki |
Organizational justice
and employee acceptance
of management decisions:
the mediating role of perceived
organizational adaptation to
hindering external conditions
Stanisław Burdziej
Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University,
Toru
n, Poland
RafałHaffer
Faculty of Economic Sciences and Management, Nicolaus Copernicus University,
Toru
n, Poland
Anna Moszy
nska
Faculty of Law and Administration, Nicolaus Copernicus University,
Toru
n, Poland, and
Arkadiusz Karwacki
Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Nicolaus Copernicus University,
Toru
n, Poland
Abstract
Purpose –Previous research has demonstrated that the experience of fair treatment (organizational justice)
motivates workers to accept their leaders’decisions, even when these decisions are viewed as unfavorable. We
aim at extending these findings by testing for mediating effects of the perceived impact of the COVID-19
pandemic on the organization as a particular example of a hindering external condition. We expected that
employees’perception of management response to the pandemic would partly mediate the effect of
organizational fairness on employee compliance.
Design/methodology/approach –In Study 1 wesurveyed a nationally representative (N 51,001) sample of
employees. In Study 2 we used a representative sample (N 5250) of those workers who were laid off during the
pandemic.
Findings –We show that an organization’s perceived ability to adapt to the pandemic partly mediated the
relationship between organizational justice and acceptance of management decisions. Employees who were
treated fairly were more ready to accept management decisions and viewed their organization as better
prepared for hindering external conditions such as COVID-19. Their perceptions of organization’s ability to
adapt partly mediated the effect of organizational justice on decision acceptance.
Originality/value –Our study is among the first to identify a link between organizational fairness and
organizational adaptation. We show that employees perceive fair organizations as better prepared for external
shocks.
Keywords Organizational justice, Workplace behavior, Decision acceptance, Workplace adaptation
Paper type Research paper
Employee
Relations: The
International
Journal
1045
Data availability: All data can be found on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/rbh58/?view_
only5f756d38bf62841ae8c77ab8dc639d5b6.
Funding: Preparation of this article was supported by theExcellence Initiative Research University of
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. Project title: “Emerging Field: Old and new
institutions –challenges and changes in an interdisciplinary perspective”.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 19 November 2023
Revised 26 April 2024
24 May 2024
Accepted 28 May 2024
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 46 No. 5, 2024
pp. 1045-1063
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-11-2023-0586
Introduction
Employee compliance has always been the goal of good employment and management
practices. The experience of the COVID-19 pandemic once again highlighted the importance
of voluntary decision acceptance (Colquitt and Zipay, 2015). The pandemic followed by
lockdowns has forced employers to make difficult choices, which have included decisions to
increase workloads or reduce working hours and salaries, move employees to remote work,
put them on furlough, or even lay them off. Previous research has already demonstrated that
fair practices in the workplace, often described using the concept of organizational justice [OJ]
(Colquitt, 2001) significantly contribute to employee satisfaction and readiness to accept
decisions even when they are perceived as unfavorable (Clay-Warner et al., 2005;Tyler and
Lind, 1988). The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns have introduced new dynamics into
workplace relations, creating a unique opportunity to study employee perceptions of fairness
in a crisis situation.
Unlike the economic difficulties that relate to or even result from company policy, the
pandemic was essentially a hindering external condition, which only a few people and
organizations anticipated and could prepare for. Hence, we wanted to understand how
significant was OJ in the workplace in predicting workers’acceptance of their employers’
decisions regarding adaptation to the new circumstances? How has OJ affected the
experiences of those employees who were fired during the pandemic? Were they more ready
to accept the decision, given that their layoff was connected to a higher power rather than a
negative assessment of their performance? In Study 1, we focus on those employees who
remained employed despite the pandemic. We expected that they would more readily
approve leadership decisions connected to company reactions to COVID-19, such as wage
reductions or safety measures, when treated fairly. We hypothesized that OJ would be a
strong and positive predictor of the acceptance of management decisions (AMD) related to the
pandemic response. We also expected that this effect would be partly mediated by the
perceived company adaptation to pandemic shock. In Study 2, we focus on those workers who
were laid off during the pandemic. We expected that those laid off would more readily accept
this undesired decision when aware of the detrimental impact of the challenge on their
company.
This paper is organized into three sections. First, we review recent literature on OJ,
organizational adap tation, and the ongoin g impact of the COVID-19 pa ndemic on
employment to develop four hypotheses for testing. Second, we discuss the
operationalization of the measures and research methods. We then report findings from
the two studies: one using nationally representative samples of workers who kept their
positions despite the crises, and the second using a representative sample of those who
became unemployed. Third, we interpret our findings and outline their wider implications,
focusing on the significance of fair treatment for employee cooperation and decision
acceptance. We also discuss the limitations of our studies and ideas worthy of further study.
Organizational justice
Over the last 5 decades, the notion of justice, especially justice in organizational settings, has
become an increasingly visible construct in the social sciences. Most researchers agree that
justice has three key dimensions: distributive, procedural, and interactional (Cropanzano
et al., 2001;Konovsky, 2000). Some scholars have argued that interactional justice is further
subdivided into informational and interpersonal justice (Colquitt, 2001). Distributive justice
captures adherence to rules governing the distribution of outcomes and is fostered when
outcomes are consistent with implicit norms for allocation, such as equity or equality
(Colquitt, 2001;Koopman et al., 2015). Procedural justice refers to decision-making procedures
and the way in which decisions are communicated. It is often described as the fairness of the
ER
46,5
1046
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