The mediating role of organizational commitment between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior. Power distance as moderator
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-09-2018-0327 |
| Pages | 445-468 |
| Date | 13 November 2019 |
| Published date | 13 November 2019 |
| Author | Khawaja Jehanzeb,Jagannath Mohanty |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Global hrm |
The mediating role of
organizational commitment
between organizational
justice and organizational
citizenship behavior
Power distance as moderator
Khawaja Jehanzeb
Department of Management Sciences,
GIFT University, Gujranwala, Pakistan, and
Jagannath Mohanty
Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, India
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between organizational justice and
organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) while considering the mediating effect of organizational
commitment and the moderating role of power distance on this association.
Design/methodology/approach –Using a stratified sampling technique the data were collected from the
employees working in bank branches located in five metropolitan cities (i.e. Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore,
Quettaand Karachi) of Pakistan. A total of 409 responseswere received and 379 questionnaireswere considered
for analysis. To testthe hypotheses structural equationmodeling technique was applied using AMOS 21.0.
Findings –The results reported an insignificant relationship between organizational justice and OCB, but
the relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment was found to be significant.
It has also emerged from the analysis that organizational commitment fully mediates the relationship between
organizational justice and OCB. Moreover, power distance was found to moderate the relationship between
organizational justice and organizational commitment.
Research limitations/implications –Findings of this study can be useful for banking organizations and
policy makers responsible for employee productivity and overall employee well-being, particularly managers
working on long-term organizational vision and expect employees to respond pro-socially toward fellow
workers and organizational objectives. The study also provides the scope and space for potential scholars and
researchers for carrying out further research.
Practical implications –Findings of this study can be useful for banking organizations and policy makers
who have long-term vision and expect OCB from its employees to be sustainable in a dynamic market.
The study also provides the scope and space for potential scholars and researchers for carrying out
further research.
Originality/value –While extensive literature is available on organizational justice and its impact on OCB,
very little work seems to have been done to examine the moderating impact of power distance between
organizational justice and organizational commitment, particularly in thecontext of a developing country like
Pakistan. Therefore, this work may be considered as original and of significant value in understanding the
relationships between the various constructs in the scenario of Pakistan.
Keywords Quantitative, Commitment, Power, Organizational justice,
Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB)
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Unlike in the past, the human resources are viewed as the most critical factor in
organizational success (Benjamin, 2012; Rubel et al., 2018). In recent years scholars have
argued the strategic role of human resources in a world dominated by services and
Personnel Review
Vol. 49 No. 2, 2020
pp. 445-468
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-09-2018-0327
Received 6 September 2018
Revised 20 March 2019
23 April 2019
9 June 2019
Accepted 9 July 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
445
The mediating
role of
organizational
commitment
intellectual capital. The new narrative is quite contrary to some research findings that
organizations often replace human resources when convenient with other factors of
production (Snell et al., 2001). In a majority of cases human resources is viewed as a cost to
be minimized particularly in difficult times (Gill, 2018). But emerging trends offer some
encouraging signs that much of this is changing fast, from a cost center it has become a
profit center and organizations in some sectors such as technology, banking, services and
knowledge based work systems consider HR as their only primary resource and others as
secondary (Quinn, 1992, p. 241).
In this new narrative of the organizations, since people have acquired strategic
significance, therefore their perceptions about workplace plays a significant role in keeping
the organizations competitive (Fiorito et al., 2007). Both from a resource-based view and
psychological contract perspective, perception of employees will determine how long
the employee will stay with the organization and how much will one exert for the
organization. While psychological contract advocates a move from “control to commitment”
essentially intrinsic (Keenoy, 1990), the resource-based view envisages that knowledge,
skills and abilities are instrumental in providing strategic value to the firm, hence making
firms inimitable (Boselie et al., 2005). Today organizations are viewing their human
resources critical for their survival, and therefore value their perceptions and honor their
opinions (Rubel et al., 2018). Therefore, it gets imperative to discuss the factors that can
potentially influence perceptions of employees. Two such factors are organizational justice
and power distance.
The concept of justice and fair process in organizations has been accorded high
significance by practitioners and scholars. The perception of fair processes in organizations
has also been much appreciated by the employees. Process fairness and perception of
fair and impartial organizational processes are a major concern for the HR managers
(López-Cabarcos et al., 2015; Kurian, 2018). Therefore, a majority of HR managers use
impartiality as a tool to motivate and retain employees (Pourgaz et al., 2015; Jiang, 2015). It is
widely held that ensuring fair processes within the framework of justice mechanisms in
organizations can potentially increase employee commitment, productivity, efficiency,
quality of task and pro-social behaviors (Sheppard et al., 1992; Ismail et al., 2018).
These high work performances are based on fair organizational practices that
comprise of their critical components, i.e. distributive, procedural, and interactional justice
(Greenberg and Colquitt, 2005; Kwak, 2016). In the context of the present study, the notion
of organizational justice has been defined as fair work practices at every level within the
organization that is acceptable to all its members. These practices might be perceived by
the individuals based on equality and organizational fairness. Therefore, in this study
organizational justice has been studied as a fundamental requirement to infer its impact
on organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB).
Organizational commitment has been widely discussed in most of organizational studies
(Allen and Meyer, 1996; Meyer and Smith, 2000; Newman et al., 2011; Jiang, 2015). The vast
literature on organizational commitment have indicated that organizational commitment
can return beneficial results to individuals and organizations, such as high work efficiency,
work performance, productivity, commitment and OCB (Meyer et al., 1998; Fiorito et al.,
2007; Ohana and Meyer, 2016). Therefore, it becomes incumbent upon organizations to view
organizational commitment as a major employee concern as it leads to positive outcomes.
Organizational culture plays a very crucial role in the organizational climate, employee
attitudes and employee relations. Therefore, understanding the context of organizational
culture becomes important for organizations seeking change (Rafiei and Pourreza, 2013;
Din et al., 2014). In this study the pioneering work of Hofstede (1980) has been
adopted. He brought out four dimensions of organizational culture, namely,
individualism-collectivism, masculinity-femininity, uncertainty avoidance and power distance.
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