Contributions for understanding the agent-system and the two-interactional factor models of organizational justice

Abstract

Procedural justice refers to the perceived fairness of the processes used to make allocation decisions. Interactional justice as made up of two facets (Greenberg, 1993; Greenberg & McCarty, 1990): (1) interpersonal justice refers to the extent to which the superior treats people with dignity and respect; (2) informational justice focuses on the explanations provided to employees that convey information about why procedures were used in a certain way or outcomes were allocated in a certain fashion. The agent-system model of organizational justice (Bies & Moag, 1986; Fassina, Jones, & Uggerslev, 2008; Masterson, Lewis, Goldman & Taylor, 2000) suggests that individuals draw on procedural justice for deciding how to react to the overall organization (commitment), but on interactional justice for deciding how to react to superiors. Through a convenience sample of 140 employees, this study shows how procedural justice and both dimensions of interactional justice predict organizational and supervisor affective commitment. The findings support the agent-system model, suggesting that employees tend to reciprocate toward those entities that benefit/punish them in terms of justice: (a) individuals develop stronger affective commitment toward the organization when they feel that the organization is fair; (b) they develop higher affective commitment toward the supervisor when they perceive strong informational justice from the supervisor.