Co-workers' justice judgments, own justice judgments and employee commitment: A multi-foci approach

Stinglhamber, Florence [UCL] De Cremer, David

Using a sample of 212 employees, we conducted a study to examine whether employees use their co-workers' fairness perceptions to generate their own justice judgments and to develop their subsequent affective commitment. The conceptual framework used to investigate these linkages is social exchange theory combined with a multiple foci approach. Results of the structural equation modeling analyses revealed that co-workers' procedural justice judgments strengthened employee's own procedural justice judgments, which in turn influenced their affective commitment to the organisation. Similarly. co-workers' interactional justice judgments increased employee's own interactional justice judgments, which in turn impacted on their affective commitment to both the Supervisor and the organisation. As a whole, findings suggest that co-workers' justice judgments strengthened employee's affective attachments toward the justice sources by reinforcing employee's own justice perceptions.