Organisational Justice and Citizenship Behaviors: A Study in the Portuguese Cultural Context

Abstract

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggests that justice and organisational citizenship behaviors (OCB), as well as the relationship between them, are not culture free. However, most studies have been carried out in parts of Asia and Northern Europe, and especially in the USA, shedding little understanding on the dynamics of justice and OCB in less-studied contexts. We show how four dimensions of organisational justice predict four dimensions of OCB in an under-studied context-Portugal, a feminine, collectivistic, high power distance and low performance-oriented culture-a profile that is antipodal to that of US culture. A sample of 269 employees reported their justice perceptions, their OCBs being described by supervisors. The findings suggest that: (a) employees are more sensitive to the interactional dimensions of justice than to the procedural and distributive ones; (b) among the interactional dimensions, the interpersonal one is more predictive of some OCB dimensions than the informational one.a pps_405 404..430Des données théoriques et empiriques suggèrent que la justice et les comportements de citoyenneté organisationnelle (OCB), tout comme la relation entre eux, ne sont pas sans base culturelle. Toutefois, la plupart des études ont été menées dans certaines parties de l'Asie, de l'Europe du Nord, et plus particulièrement aux USA, ce qui restreint la compréhension des dynamiques de la justice et des OCB qui peuvent être appréhendés dans d'autres contextes. Nous montrons comment 4 dimensions de la justice organisationnelle prédisent 4 dimensions des OCB dans un contexte peu étudié-le Portugal, une culture féminine, orientée vers la collectivité, avec une forte distance au pouvoir et de faibles performances-, un profil aux antipodes de la culture américaine. Chacun des 269 employés de l'échantillon indique ses perceptions de la justice, ses OCB ont été décrits par ses supérieurs. Les résultats montrent que (a) les employés sont plus sensibles aux dimensions interactionnelles de la justice qu'à celles procédurales et distributives (b) parmi les dimensions interactionnelles, l'interpersonnelle est plus prédictive de certaines dimensions des OCB plutôt que l'informationnelle.

The perceived treatment of employees from designated groups in the workplace

“…High-quality treatment by a manager signals that a staff member has status and is held in high esteem in the workplace (Thau et al, 2013). Fair treatment is of particular significance according to the findings of various studies, which have confirmed that workplace treatment has far-reaching consequences for both employees and the organisation when it comes to the following: civility (Pearson, Andersson & Porath, 2005); job satisfaction (Hasan, 2010); organisational citizenship behaviours (Rego & Cunha, 2010); quality of work life (Moghimi, Kazemi & Samiie, 2012); turnover (Muzumdar, 2011); work behaviours (Le Roy, Bastounis & Minibas-Poussard, 2012); interpersonal and organisational deviance (Berry, Ones & Sackett, 2007); and workplace aggression (Hershcovis, Turner, Barling, Inness, LeBlanc, Arnold et al, 2007).…”

Perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness and Happiness as Predictors of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

“…Firm's size (as measured by the number of employees) was also included for control. The job was not solicited because, taking into account earlier research (Rego and Cunha, 2009c), the researchers conjecture that, in the cultural context of Portuguese organizations, characterized by high in-group collectivism and high power distance (Hofstede, 1991;Jesuino, 2002), asking ''too much'' personal information may generate a high number of nonresponses, reflecting fear of being identified.…”

A cross-sectional study of the relationships between organizational justices and OCB

“…Second, it is necessary to identify a variety of mediators between organizational justice and OCB to explain why organizational justice facilitates OCB (Rego and Cunha, 2010). Until now, a few mediators have been explored such as perceived organizational support (Moorman et al, 1998), trust (Konovsky and Pugh, 1994;Masterson et al, 2000), and leader-member exchange (Karriker and Williams, 2009).…”

“…As a related issue of OI, even though some studies have considered the role of OI, previous studies have separately examined either the relationship between organizational justice and OI (De Cremer et al, 2006;Olkkonen and Lipponen, 2006;Rego and Cunha, 2010;Walumbwa et al, 2009) or between OI and OCB (Riketta, 2005;Van Dick et al, 2006). That is, there have been few attempts that explore the influence 531 Roles of OI and psychological contracts of organizational justice on OI as well as OCB by considering them simultaneously.…”