Although a flurry of meta-analyses summarized the justice literature at the turn of the millennium, interest in the topic has surged in the decade since. In particular, the past decade has witnessed the rise of social exchange theory as the dominant lens for examining reactions to justice, and the emergence of affect as a complementary lens for understanding such reactions. The purpose of this meta-analytic review was to test direct, mediating, and moderating hypotheses that were inspired by those 2 perspectives, to gauge their adequacy as theoretical guides for justice research. Drawing on a review of 493 independent samples, our findings revealed a number of insights that were not included in prior meta-analyses. With respect to social exchange theory, our results revealed that the significant relationships between justice and both task performance and citizenship behavior were mediated by indicators of social exchange quality (trust, organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, and leader-member exchange), though such mediation was not apparent for counterproductive behavior. The strength of those relationships did not vary according to whether the focus of the justice matched the target of the performance behavior, contrary to popular assumptions in the literature, or according to whether justice was referenced to a specific event or a more general entity. With respect to affect, our results showed that justice-performance relationships were mediated by positive and negative affect, with the relevant affect dimension varying across justice and performance variables. Our discussion of these findings focuses on the merit in integrating the social exchange and affect lenses in future research.

Derived from two theoretical concepts -situation strength and trait activation -we develop and test an interactionist model governing the degree to which five-factor model personality traits are related to job performance. One concept -situation strength -was hypothesized to predict the validities of all Big-Five traits, while the effects of the othertrait activation -were hypothesized to be specific to each trait. Based on this integrative model, personality-performance correlations were located in the literature, and occupationally homogeneous jobs were coded according to their theoretically-relevant contextual properties. Results revealed that all five traits were more predictive of performance for jobs in which the process by which the work was done represented weak situations (e.g., work was unstructured, employee had discretion to make decisions). Many of the traits also predicted performance in job contexts that activated specific traits (e.g., extraversion better predicted performance in jobs requiring social skills, agreeableness was less positively related to performance in competitive contexts, openness was more strongly related to performance in jobs with strong innovation/creativity requirements). Overall, the findings supported our interactionist model in which the situation exerts both general and specific effects on the degree to which personality predicts job performance. PERFORMANCEDerived from two theoretical concepts -situation strength and trait activation -we develop and test an interactionist model governing the degree to which five-factor model personality traits are related to job performance. One concept -situation strength -was hypothesized to predict the validities of all Big-Five traits, while the effects of the other -trait activation -were hypothesized to be specific to each trait. Based on this integrative model, personality-performance correlations were located in the literature, and occupationally homogeneous jobs were coded according to their theoretically-relevant contextual properties.Results revealed that all five traits were more predictive of performance for jobs in which the process by which the work was done represented weak situations (e.g., work was unstructured, employee had discretion to make decisions). Many of the traits also predicted performance in job contexts that activated specific traits (e.g., extraversion better predicted performance in jobs requiring social skills, agreeableness was less positively related to performance in competitive contexts, openness was more strongly related to performance in jobs with strong innovation/creativity requirements). Overall, the findings supported our interactionist model in which the situation exerts both general and specific effects on the degree to which personality predicts job performance.

Past research has revealed significant relationships between organizational justice dimensions and job performance, and trust is thought to be one mediator of those relationships. However, trust has been positioned in justice theorizing in 2 different ways, either as an indicator of the depth of an exchange relationship or as a variable that reflects levels of work-related uncertainty. Moreover, trust scholars distinguish between multiple forms of trust, including affect- and cognition-based trust, and it remains unclear which form is most relevant to justice effects. To explore these issues, we built and tested a more comprehensive model of trust mediation in which procedural, interpersonal, and distributive justice predicted affect- and cognition-based trust, with those trust forms predicting both exchange- and uncertainty-based mechanisms. The results of a field study in a hospital system revealed that the trust variables did indeed mediate the relationships between the organizational justice dimensions and job performance, with affect-based trust driving exchange-based mediation and cognition-based trust driving uncertainty-based mediation.

No abstract

No abstract