Organizational justice, commitment and performance in developing countries. The case of the UAE
| Pages | 98-115 |
| Published date | 09 November 2012 |
| Date | 09 November 2012 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451311279438 |
| Author | Abubakr Suliman,Majid Al Kathairi |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Organizational justice,
commitment and performance
in developing countries
The case of the UAE
Abubakr Suliman and Majid Al Kathairi
The British University in Dubai, Dubai, UAE
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential links between organizational
justice, organizational commitment (employees’ loyalty) and job performance in a developing country.
It also focuses on the experiences and perceptions of fairness/justice in the workplace, and how such
perceptions predict organizational commitment and job performance.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted in an organizational setting composed
of three government organizations. The sample comprises 500 full-time employees. The data were
collected through a self-administered questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS.
Findings – The findings show that organizational justice (procedural, interactional) is positively and
significantly correlated with affective and continuance commitment as well as with job perfor mance.
In addition, the result of the statistical forms support the moderating effect of affective and
continuance commitment of high job performance.
Research limitations/implications – The sample represented only governmental sector and only
one emirate of the UAE’sseven emirates. The implications of the findings for researchers together with
some future guidelines are discussed in the paper.
Practical implications – The paper provides practitioners with some advice about understanding
and managing justice, commitment and work performance.
Originality/value – The paper is the first study in the UAE and the Middle East that examines
the links between justice, commitment and performance in state-owned organisations.
Keywords Organizational justice, Commitment, Job performance, Fairness, Developing countries,
Employees behaviour, Performance management, United Arab Emirates
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Not by the bread alone. Employees nowadays look for o rganizations that offerfair/just
workplaces where everyone feels accepted, respected and valued. Fairness should be
adopted not only because accuracy is not achievable but because justice is an
important societal value and fe elings of justice have important consequences fo r
society and the workplace. Fairness in all human resources practices deserve attention
from an employees’ point of view and especially in the context of developing
countries context where there are few studies exploring this “soft” side of work
organizations.
Since the term “organizational justice” was coined by Wendell French in 1964, the
literature has explored the different sorts of transactions that occu r among people at
work. Fairness research is especially pertinent to who gets what (distributive justice),
how goods are assigned (procedural justice) and the interpersonal treatment received
along the way (interactional justice). However, to say that a transaction is “just” implies
that it is consistent with certain standards of appropriate or ethical conduct
(Cropanzano et al., 2002).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
Employee Relations
Vol. 35 No. 1, 2013
pp. 98-115
rEmeraldGroup PublishingLimited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425451311279438
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On the other hand, over the years practitioners and researchers believed that a loyal
committed worker is likely to be a productive employee. Therefore, it is possible that
firms which have more committed and loyal employees are more productive, thus more
profitable than firms with employees known for less commitment and loyalty.
However, the exploration of such relationships is regarded more important today than
four decades ago, on the grounds that as Dubois, P. Associates put it, the level of
organizational commitment is the driving force behind an organization’s performance.
This supports Lawrence’s study that provoked the necessity and rationale
for research in this area by asserting that perceptions of organizational justice
(i.e. fairness perceptions in the workplace) within sup ervisor-subordinate, and recently
organization-employee relationship, influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviors.
Therefore, it is more critical than ever to understand how coworkers’ relationships with
other team members affect their behaviors and attitudes within the team and on the
job. This question becomes of particular relevance with the rise of fairness theo ry and
the deontological model of justice. Folger and Cropanazano (1998) propose that justice
is important to all individuals and may be closely linked to their values, moral maturity
and sensitivity to fairness.
Each of the three aspects of commitment – affective, normative and continuance –
is thought to contribute to a psychological state which characterizes an employee’s
relationship with the organization, and has implications for their continuing
membership, and may be affected by different antecedents, job performance and
citizenship (Meyer and Allen, 1991). The basic view is that a firm ac hieves productivity
through employee satisfaction. A person’s decision about whether to give his or her
service to an organization wholeheartedly or not depends in large part on the way that
the employee feels about the job, pay, promotion, managers and coworkers.
Therefore, the key purpose of this study is to understand the fair ness perceptions in
the workplace and how such perceptions could possibly engender organizational
commitment and job performance. The study attempts to investigate the potential
links – in terms of significance, nature and strength – between o rganizational justice,
commitment and job performance in the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The UAE is one of the most rapidly developing countries of the Middle East, North
Africa and Gulf regions. It was established in 1971 when six of the emirates (Abu
Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah and Umm al-Qaiwain) merged to form a
federation. Ras al-Khaimah joined the federation a year later in 1972. Ab u Dhabi is the
federal capital and the largest emirate. The UAE is endeavoring to position itself as
a service-oriented economy; comprising of constr uction, real estate, wholesale trade,
retail trade, hotels, restaurants, transportation and communica tion. The service sector
accounted for nearly 51 percent of the country’s GDP in 2007.
Literature review
Johnston debated that to create a climate of organizational justice, you need
emotionally committed workers who are less stressed out and willing to go the extra
mile. Yet, for some strange reason, organizational justice is one of the least understood
and underutilized tools to create a better and more effective workplace. In the past
two decades, a lot of research interests have been generated on organizational
justice issues, namely distributive, procedural and interactional justice and their
potential role in determining employees’ commitment and behavioral intentions to
leave the organization.
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Organizational
justice
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