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The International Journal of Human Resource Management
ISSN: 0958-5192 (Print) 1466-4399 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rijh20
The effects of internal and external sources of justice on employee turnover intention and organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and workgroup members
Christopher M. Harris, James J. Lavelle & Gary C. McMahan
To cite this article: Christopher M. Harris, James J. Lavelle & Gary C. McMahan (2018): The effects of internal and external sources of justice on employee turnover intention and organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and workgroup members, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, DOI: 10.1080/09585192.2018.1441163
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1441163
Published online: 19 Feb 2018.
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The effects of internal and external sources of justice on employee turnover intention and organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and workgroup members
Christopher M. Harrisa, James J. Lavelleb and Gary C. McMahanb
aschool of management, Texas Woman’s university, Denton, TX, usa; bDepartment of management, college of Business administration, university of Texas arlington, arlington, TX, usa
ABSTRACT
Organizational justice research tends to focus on the effects of fair treatment from organizations or supervisors on employee attitudes and behaviors. Thus, there is a dearth of research on the effects of fair treatment attributable to other parties that employees interact with at work such as coworkers and clients.
Controlling for organization-focused and supervisor-focused justice, results from our field study of employees working in a healthcare organization demonstrate that perceptions of client-focused fairness uniquely predicts supervisor ratings of employees organizational citizenship behavior toward clients and that perceptions of workgroup-focused justice uniquely predicts organizational citizenship behavior toward workgroups. Further, we find that client-focused justice perceptions uniquely predict employee turnover intention.
The importance of fairness1 to employees has been demonstrated in human resource management research relating to human resource management policies and practices (e.g. Frenkel, Restubog, & Bednall, 2012; Heffernan & Dundon, 2016;
Tremblay, Cloutier, Simard, Chênevert, & Vandenberghe, 2010). Organizational justice research has indicated that employee attitudes and behaviors are strongly affected by perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace. For example, percep- tions of fair treatment have been positively associated with dimensions of organ- izational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and negatively associated with indicators of withdrawal such as absenteeism and turnover intention (e.g. Cohen-Charash
& Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). Early justice research was primarily concerned with different types of justice, including dis- tributive justice which is concerned with the fairness of outcomes, procedural
© 2018 Informa uK limited, trading as Taylor & francis group
KEYWORDS organizational justice;
organizational citizenship behavior; turnover
CONTACT christopher m. harris charris17@twu.edu
justice which is the fairness of policies and procedures, and interpersonal justice that deals with showing dignity and respect in interpersonal relationships (e.g.
Colquitt et al., 2001).
More recently, justice research has begun to focus on the source of justice (Lavelle, Rupp, & Brockner, 2007). The ability to predict reactions to justice is enhanced by integrating the type of justice with the source of justice (Rupp &
Cropanzano, 2002). In this study, we follow the multifoci perspective of justice which suggests that employees differentiate between parties that may treat them in a fair or unfair manner during the workday (Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002) along with the social exchange based, target similarity approach that suggests employees will direct their attitudes and behaviors towards the source of (in) justice (Lavelle et al., 2007). The focus of justice research has primarily been on the organiza- tion and supervisor as sources of justice (e.g. Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp, Shao, Jones, & Liao, 2014). However, Rupp, Shapiro, Folger, Skarlicki, and Shao (2017) argue that workgroups and clients are highly relevant, yet understudied sources of justice in the workplace. Thus, we respond to this need and differentiate our study from prior multifoci justice research, by focusing on the workgroup and clients as sources of justice and examine their unique relationships with citizenship behaviors directed towards the workgroup, citizenship behaviors directed towards clients, and turnover intentions.
Within multifoci and target similarity justice research there have been con- flicting findings. For example, in a meta-analysis of organizational and supervisor justice, Colquitt et al. (2013) found little support for target similarity effects, while a meta-analysis of organizational and supervisor justice by Rupp et al. (2014) found strong support for target similarity effects. These conflicting findings indi- cate that further research on target similarity effects is needed to see if indeed target similarity effects hold. This is particularly the case for workgroup justice and client justice. In fact, Rupp et al. (2014) note that in their search for studies to be included in their meta-analysis on the effects of justice sources, they only found nine independent correlational studies that specified either the workgroup or customers as a source of (in) justice. Consequently, we seek to contribute to the justice literature by focusing on the lesser examined workgroup-focused jus- tice (e.g. Lavelle, Brockner, et al., 2009) and customer or client- focused justice2 (e.g. Rupp & Spencer, 2006; Skarlicki, van Jaarsveld, & Walker, 2008) and their relationships with organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover intention (above and beyond the effects of organization-focused and supervisor-focused perceptions of justice).
In this study we focus on workgroup procedural justice which is defined by Li, Cropanzano, and Bagger (2013) as the extent to which workgroup members use fair procedures to make decisions. This definition indicates the importance of human resource practices and policies that help ensure employees follow fair pro- cedures when making decisions. As mentioned above, few studies have examined outcomes of workgroup justice. With a student sample, Li et al. (2013) assessed
peer justice and found that it was not directly related to team satisfaction or team performance. In another study using a sample of students, Cropanzano, Li, and Benson (2011) assessed peer justice and it was not directly related to task perfor- mance or team OCB, however peer justice indirectly influenced task performance and team OCB through team processes. Additionally, Lavelle, Brockner, et al.
(2009) also studied a sample of student teams and found that workgroup justice significantly predicted OCB directed towards the workgroup. In a work setting, Lavelle, McMahan, and Harris (2009) with a sample of nurses found workgroup justice significantly predicted workgroup support. Other research on peer justice outside of the organizational context include studies conducted within an ulti- matum or dictator game context (e.g. Edele, Dziobek, & Keller, 2013; Gächter, Nosenzo, & Sefton, 2012). These studies indicate the little attention that has been given to justice from workgroup members, particularly in the employment con- text as most previous studies on workgroup justice have used student samples.
Additionally, to our knowledge there has not been a study that has examined the direct effect of workgroup justice on employees’ turnover intentions. Our study replicates and extends prior research on workgroup justice by examining percep- tions of workgroup justice from employees in senior care facilities and its influence on employees’ workgroup directed OCB and turnover intentions. Additionally, we control for effects of the more common organizational justice and supervisor justice when examining the effects of workgroup justice on employees’ workgroup directed OCB and turnover intentions.
Similar to workgroup justice, there have been relatively few studies that have examined justice from customers/clients. Interpersonal justice from customers comes when ‘an employee is treated with dignity and respect, and personal attacks are refrained from’ (Rupp & Spencer, 206, p. 971). Interpersonal justice from clients has been the most studied form of justice in client justice research as it is the most relevant form of justice when examining the employee – client rela- tionship (e.g. Rupp & Spencer, 2006; Rupp & Spencer, 2009; Skarlicki et al., 2008;
Skarlicki, van Jaarsveld, Shao, Song, & Wang, 2016; Shao & Skarlicki, 2014). Early work on client justice was conducted by Rupp et al. and focused on emotional labor. For example in two lab studies Rupp and Spencer (2006, 2009) found that unfair treatment from customers increased the level of emotional labor exhibited.
Additionally, Rupp, McCance, Spencer, and Sonntag (2008) examined a mediated moderation model among customer justice, perspective taking, employee anger, and surface acting. Another line of customer justice research by Skarlicki et al.
has focused on employee sabotage and OCB as outcomes of customer justice.
For example, Skarlicki et al. (2008) examined the three-way interaction between customer justice, moral identity symbolization and internalization and its influ- ence on employee sabotage. Additionally, Skarlicki et al. (2016) examined the interaction between customer justice and supervisor justice and its influence on customer-directed sabotage. In both of these studies, customer justice was signif- icantly related to sabotage. Lastly, a recent study by Shao and Skarlicki (2014) was
the first, or among the first, to examine the effects of customer mistreatment on customer-directed OCB. We build upon Shao and Skarlicki (2014) by controlling for the effects of organizational justice and supervisor justice when testing the effects of customer justice on customer directed OCB. Additionally, unlike Shao and Skarlicki, we eliminate common method bias by obtaining supervisor ratings of OCB. Our study makes an additional contribution by examining in the influence of customer justice on employee turnover intentions, as we are among the first to examine the influence of customer justice on employee turnover intentions.
In summary we follow the social exchange based, multifoci target similarity approach to develop hypotheses and test relationships among workgroup jus- tice, client justice, workgroup directed OCB, client directed OCB, and employee turnover intentions. Social exchange theory is built on the principle of reciprocity and felt obligation suggesting that when employees receive fair treatment from a particular source, they are likely to respond with positive attitudes and behav- iors toward that party (Lavelle et al., 2007; Rupp et al., 2014). Following social exchange theory and the multifoci approach, this study builds upon and extends prior research in at least the following ways. First, the focus of justice research has been on the organization and supervisor, while little attention has been paid to workgroup members and clients and sources of justice. To provide a further test of the multifoci and target similarity approach, we examine the lesser studied workgroups and clients as sources of justice. Second, meta analyses (Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp et al., 2014) on the target similarity approach with organiza- tional justice and supervisor justice have yielded conflicting results. Therefore, it is important to have further tests of the target similarity approach, particularly with workgroup justice, customer justice, workgroup directed OCB, and client directed OCB. Third, we are among the first, if not the first to examine the effects of workgroup justice and client justice on employee turnover intentions. Fourth, when testing the effects of workgroup justice and client justice on workgroup directed OCB, client directed OCB, and employee turnover intentions, we control for the more commonly studied organizational and supervisor justice. Controlling for these effects allows us to more stringently test for the unique effect of work- group justice on workgroup direct OCB, the unique effect of client justice on client directed OCB, and the effects of workgroup justice and client justice on employee turnover intentions.
Multifoci justice and organizational citizenship behavior
Employees interact with many different parties during the workday and these foci may each serve as a source of fair or unfair treatment. Thus, the multifoci perspective provides a more complete view of potential sources of workplace justice and argues that employees can assess the fairness of any source as long as the source can be viewed as accountable for the (un) fair treatment (Cropanzano, Byrne, Bobocel, & Rupp, 2001). From a social exchange perspective, the multifoci
and target similarity perspectives argue that employees will be motivated to direct their attitudes and behaviors toward the party held accountable for the (un) just treatment. For example, when treated fairly by a particular party, employees are likely to perceive they are part of a high quality social exchange relationship with that party, and thus, are likely to feel a sense of obligation to engage in extra-role behaviors intended to benefit that particular party (Lavelle et al., 2007).
In the current study we focus on the relationship between multifoci justice perceptions and OCB directed towards workgroup members and clients. Following Organ’s (1997) definition of OCB, workgroup directed OCB is defined as going the extra-mile to help out fellow workgroup members with their duties (Organ, 1990). As organizations are becoming flatter, research examining antecedents of employee behavior toward coworkers is increasingly important (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008). Additionally, we conducted our study in a health care context. Therefore, consistent with the construct of extra-role customer service behavior (cf. Bettencourt & Brown, 1997), we define organ- izational citizenship behavior toward clients as behaviors that go above and beyond in-role expectations to ensure client satisfaction. In the healthcare con- text, client or patient satisfaction is particularly important as recent research demonstrates that patient satisfaction can lead to improved health outcomes (Glickman et al., 2010).
Workgroup-focused justice and OCB
As noted earlier, supervisors and organizations have been the primary focus of empirical research on the effects of justice in the workplace. However, as organiza- tions are becoming less hierarchical, employees are working more often in group or team environments (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008). Consequently, workgroup members are becoming an increasingly relevant source of fairness in all kinds of organizations. For example, workgroup members often make their own decisions regarding the allocation of tasks, responsibilities, and scheduling for group mem- bers. Extending the group-value model and relational models of procedural justice (Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler & Blader, 2000), Cropanzano et al. (2011) argue that procedural justice from coworkers conveys whether one is a valued and respected member of that group. Consequently, when the procedures used by the workgroup are perceived to be fair, such treatment will contribute to the development of a high quality social exchange relationship with the workgroup.
Although the prominence of workgroups in organizations is on the rise, sur- prisingly few studies have examined the effect of workgroup-focused justice on employee attitudes and behaviors. In the only prior study we are aware of to exam- ine the relationship between workgroup fairness and OCB, Lavelle, McMahan, et al. (2009) using a sample of undergraduate students working in course project teams, found a positive relationship between a group member’s perceptions of fair treatment from the workgroup and the extent to which the group member
engaged in OCB directed toward the group. Based on social exchange theory and a target similarity perspective, we expect that when employees receive fair treatment from their workgroup members they will feel part of a high quality social exchange relationship with the group and thus will be motivated to engage in OCB directed towards their workgroup members. Based on the above line of reasoning, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 1: Perceptions of workgroup-focused procedural justice will be positively related to workgroup-directed organizational citizenship behavior over and above the effects of organization-focused procedural justice and supervisor-focused procedural justice.
Client-focused justice and OCB
Researchers have become increasingly interested in how external sources of justice (i.e. customers or clients) affect employees. For example, Rupp and Spencer (2006) conducted a lab study examining how fair interpersonal treat- ment (e.g. polite, courteous, respectful treatment) from customers impacted participants compliance with display rules toward customers. Display rules pertaining to service quality refer to organizationally sanctioned ways to treat the customer and these take the form of exhibiting courtesy and friendli- ness toward customers. Rupp and Spencer (2006) found that when customers treated participants in an interpersonally just manner, participants reported it was easier to comply with display rules compared to those who were treated unfairly by their customers.
A recent field study by Skarlicki et al. (2008) examined the relationship between call center employee perceptions of customer mistreatment (such as customers being rude and yelling at the call center employees over the phone) and employee sabotage toward customers. Additionally, Skarlicki and Skarlicki argued that employees would be motivated to hold customers accountable for unfair treatment. As hypothesized, they found employee perceptions of customer injustice predicted sabotage toward customers (such as purposively hanging up on them). In contrast to sabotage as the outcome variable, we extend the logic of accountability to the prediction of client-directed OCB. That is, when clients treat employees in a fair manner, social exchange mechanisms suggest that employees will be motivated to reciprocate by engaging in client-directed OCB. Additionally, when employees are treated fairly by clients it may build their personal resources, which allows them to exhibit OCB towards clients (Shao
& Skarlicki, 2014). Therefore, social exchange theory and the target similarity approach suggests a positive relationship between client-focused interpersonal justice and client-directed OCB.
Hypothesis 2: Perceptions of client-focused interpersonal justice will be positively related to client-directed organizational citizenship behavior over and above the effects of organi- zation-focused procedural justice and supervisor-focused procedural justice.
Multifoci justice and turnover intention
Withdrawal behaviors, such as voluntary turnover can be costly to organizations.
From a human resource management perspective, employee turnover can neg- atively impact an organization’s reputation, relationships with clients, and rela- tionships among employees (Koys, 2001; Wallace & Gaylor, 2012). Employee turnover also leads to increased costs associated with the hiring and training of new employees (Koys, 2001).
Research points to the important role of fairness in potentially reducing employee turnover. Procedural justice is particularly important as it can signal to employees that they are valued members of the organization and/or work group (Posthuma, Maertz, & Dworkin, 2007). When employees experience high levels of procedural justice, they are more likely to develop positive emotions and have higher intentions to stay with an organization (Posthuma et al., 2007). On the other hand, if employees experience procedural injustice, they are more likely to develop negative emotions and have higher turnover intentions (Cropanzano et al., 2001). For example, meta-analytic findings demonstrate that organization-fo- cused procedural justice predicts employee turnover intention (Cohen-Charash
& Spector, 2001) and related withdrawal behaviors (Colquitt et al., 2001). Further, Cohen-Charash & Spector’s meta-analytic results found that procedural justice and distributive justice were more strongly correlated with turnover intention (r = − .40) than was interpersonal justice (r = − .24). Thus, prior research sug- gests that when employees are in a high quality social exchange relationship with the organization and its agents (supervisors) they are less likely to think about quitting. Further, turnover intention has been shown to predict actual turnover (Steel, Shane, & Griffeth, 1990).
Consistent with a multifoci perspective and social exchange theory, research in human services has argued that many different relationships are relevant to service providers in organizational life. Researchers suggest that service providers experience the greatest level of intimacy with service recipients (clients), then col- leagues, and then the employing organization (Van Horn, Schaufeli, & Taris, 2001).
The more intimate relationships involve a greater level of interaction frequency and intensity reflecting higher levels of psychological contact and psychological proximity. From a social exchange perspective and a multifoci approach, this indicates that employees do make distinctions between different foci and that the closer relationship an employee has with a particular foci, the important the social exchange relationship. For example, as indicated above employees in a service context tend to have close relationships with their clients and workgroup members. Therefore, if employees are treated unfairly by their clients and/or work- group members it may represent a severe social exchange violation which may increase employees’ turnover intentions. In support of this perspective Deery, Walsh, and Guest (2011) found that nurses who were mistreated by patients or patients’ families were more likely to intend to leave their job within one year.
Additionally, research outside of a health care setting has found employees are more likely to have turnover intentions when they experience mistreatment from customers (e.g. Li & Zhou, 2013; Wilson & Holmvall, 2013).
Prior studies however, have not examined whether client-focused justice or workgroup-focused justice predicts turnover intention above and beyond inter- nal sources of justice (the organization and the supervisor). Therefore, we follow previous social exchanged based theorizing on the relationship between justice and employee turnover intentions to argue that perceptions of client-focused fair- ness and workgroup-focused fairness will each be negatively related to turnover intention above and beyond the effects of organization and supervisor focused fairness (Figure 1). Thus, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 3: Perceptions of workgroup-focused procedural justice will be negatively related to employees’ turnover intentions over and above the effects of organization-fo- cused procedural justice and supervisor-focused procedural justice.
Hypothesis 4: Perceptions of client-focused interpersonal justice will be negatively related to employees’ turnover intentions over and above the effects of organization-focused pro- cedural justice and supervisor-focused procedural fairness.
Methods Sample
Setting and procedures
Employees and supervisors at two skilled nursing, senior care facilities owned by the same organization in a large metropolitan city in the southwestern United
Overview of Hypotheses
Workgroup-Focused Justice
Client-Focused Justice
Workgroup-Directed Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
Client-Directed Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Turnover
Intentions H1 (+)
H3 (-)
H4 (-)
H2 (+)
Figure 1. overview of hypotheses.
States were surveyed for this research in 2008. The senior care facilities provide care to seniors with serious illnesses or disabilities. The care provided by these facilities includes: long-term nursing and medical supervision, Alzheimer’s care, and hospice care.
Surveys were distributed to 152 employees and their direct supervisors at the facilities. The employees and supervisors worked in a variety of departments including nursing, rehabilitation, housekeeping, dietary, and administrative.
As the patients in these facilities are living at these facilities due to the level of care needed, employees in each department interact with patients on a daily basis. For example, nurses see patients each day in the delivery of health care.
Dietary employees see patients everyday as they deliver meals to patients’ rooms or they serve patients their meals in the dining area. Additionally, housekeeping employees see patients everyday as they clean patients’ rooms daily. In a senior care facility context, the administrative personnel still have contact with patients and their family members. For example, even though some employees’ duties were more administrative in nature, the employees were still highly involved in coordinating the care of patients with the patients and their family members.
Employees completed a survey that assessed their fairness perceptions as well as a number of other items not relevant to the current study. Supervisors received a survey to assess the citizenship behaviors and in-role performance of each of their subordinates. This follows recent research that has also used supervi- sor ratings of OCB (e.g. Kisamore, Liguori, Muldoon, & Jawahar, 2014; Lavelle, McMahan, et al., 2009; Liu & Wang, 2013; van Knippenberg, van Prooijen, &
Sleebos, 2015). Additionally, in a meta-analysis of rating source of organizational citizenship behaviors, Carpenter, Berry, and Houston (2014) found high conver- gence between self-rated and supervisor-rated OCBs. This finding indicates that’s supervisors rate their subordinates OCBs similar to subordinates self-ratings of OCBs. Employees completed their surveys during set break periods in the facilities’ break rooms and hand-delivered their completed surveys directly to a member of the research team administering the surveys. Supervisors completed their surveys in their offices and then returned them to a member of the research team on site.
To encourage participation in the research, employees and supervisors who completed surveys were entered into a drawing for gift cards. We received a total of 116 completed surveys from employees for a response rate of 76%. After listwise deletion we had a usable sample size of 104 (68%). The 19 supervisors returned all of their subordinate rating forms for a 100% response rate. On average supervisors rated seven employees with a range of one to twenty-three.
Respondents
The respondents were primarily female (86%), had an average organizational ten- ure of 9.35 months, and had an average age of 39 years. Additionally, the respond- ents were 48% African-American, 37% White, and 7% Hispanic. As mentioned
previously the respondents worked in a variety of departments: nursing (63.2%), rehabilitation (2.6%), housekeeping (10.5%), dietary (8.6%), and administrative (15.1%).
Measures
Workgroup-focused procedural justice
As noted by Cropanzano et al. (2011) and Lavelle, McMahan, et al. (2009), work- groups often develop and apply their own decision-making procedures that impact members of the workgroup. In the context of our study, workgroups may make decisions regarding the allocation of tasks and responsibilities. Thus, the work- group is a relevant source of procedural fairness. We measured employee per- ceptions of workgroup-focused procedural fairness using three items based on Greenberg (1993) and Lind and Tyler (1988). These items were also used in Lavelle, McMahan, et al. (2009). An example item is: ‘When making decisions that impact me, the procedures used by my workgroup are just.’ The response anchors for this scale and for all scales used in the current study were (1) = Strongly disagree and (7) = Strongly agree. Coefficient alpha for this scale was .93.
Client-focused interpersonal justice
Our study was conducted in a senior healthcare organization focused on providing care to seniors with serious illnesses or disabilities. Recent developments in the delivery of healthcare have led to patient and family centered care. This approach involves the planning, delivery, and evaluation of healthcare among providers, patients, and families (Institute for Patient and Family Centered Care, http://
www.ipfcc.org). Patient and family centered care is particularly important when the patient is elderly and in poor condition, as the family will take a more active role in the patient’s care.
Based on the patient and family centered approach to healthcare, both the patient and the patients’ families can be viewed as clients. While the patient is the direct recipient of health care, the patient’s family is also a related client as they will visit the patient at the facility, interact with health care service providers, and potentially be involved in health care decisions for the patient. The notion that patients and their families are both related clients is particularly relevant in our research setting given the poor health of the patients in the senior care facility.
In this context, the family can be viewed as representative of the patient (often with family members having the legal authority to make decisions on behalf of the patient). As such, the sponsoring organization’s management indicated that the patients were not as relevant as a source of interpersonal fairness as patients’
family members. Management conveyed that how a patient’s family members interacted with employees was a highly relevant and inclusive form of client-re- lated interpersonal justice from the perspective of employees.
Employees in service organizations, such as the senior care facilities in the current study, often interact with clients on a daily basis. Thus, our assessment of interpersonal justice is consistent with the type of justice attributed to customers in recent research (e.g. Rupp & Spencer, 2006; Rupp et al., 2008; Skarlicki et al., 2008). We assessed the interpersonal fairness of clients toward the employee by specifying the patient’s family as the source of fairness. We used three of the four items used by Rupp and Spencer (2006). We did not include the item: ‘Did the customers refrain from improper remarks or comments?’ in our survey. As we did with all items used in the survey, we discussed these with the organization’s management before distributing the surveys to employees and worked to accom- modate their requests to minimize the number of survey items when feasible. Due to the requests of management we could not include all of the items we desired to include on the survey. The three remaining items were slightly modified for this study to specify patients’ families as the source of justice. Example items include:
‘Patients’ families treat me with respect’ and ‘Patients’ families treat me in a polite manner.’ Coefficient alpha was .97.
Turnover intention
We assessed employees’ turnover intention with two items. The two items are: (1) How likely is it that you will leave the facility in the next six months to find a new job? and (2) How likely is it that you will make a serious attempt to find a new job with another employer in the next six months? The scale ranged from 1 (very unlikely) to 7 (very likely). The alpha for turnover intentions is .97.
Client-directed OCB
Supervisors were provided with separate rating forms for each of their subordi- nates in order to evaluate the employee’s citizenship behaviors. The stem for each of the items assessing citizenship behavior referred to ‘This employee’ as the name of each subordinate was pre-printed on the separate rating forms provided to the supervisors. To encourage supervisors to consider the extent to which employees engage in extra-role behavior we included the following introductory sentence before the set of OCB items: ‘Now, consider the extent that this employee goes beyond the formal requirements of the job in the following ways:’
Consistent with the survey completed by the employees, we also needed to gain approval from the organization’s management on the items included in the surveys completed by supervisors and the length of the survey. Consequently, we attempted to strike an acceptable balance between the number of items used in our scales and their desire to minimize the number of survey items.
We used a three-item scale assessing organizational citizenship behaviors towards clients. These items were adapted from Bettencourt and Brown’s (1997) measure of extra-role customer service Based on discussions with the sponsoring organization’s management, we slightly modified the items to reflect the healthcare context and to refer to patients instead of customers. The following three items
were used to assess employees’ OCB directed towards clients: ‘Goes out of the way to ensure patients are satisfied,’ ‘Demonstrates a strong commitment to patient satisfaction,’ and ‘Works hard to keep patients satisfied.’ The coefficient alpha for this scale was .97.
Workgroup-directed OCB
To measure citizenship toward fellow workgroup members, we used six items drawn from Lee and Allen’s (2002) measure of organizational citizenship toward individuals (OCBI). As noted above, based on management’s request to limit the number of survey items overall and for the OCB towards the workgroup meas- ure in particular (since supervisors rated multiple employees an effort was made to make the survey as concise as possible in order to save supervisors’ time and encourage their participation in the survey) we did not include the following two items from Lee and Allen: ‘Give up time to help others who have work or nonwork problems’ and ‘Share personal property with others to help their work’
on the supervisor survey. In discussions with management, the remaining six items from Lee and Allen were deemed to be the most applicable and relevant for the current work setting. Example items include: ‘Goes out of the way to make newer employees feel welcome in the workgroup’ and ‘Helps others who have been absent.’ The coefficient alpha for this scale was .96.
Control variables
We controlled for organization-focused procedural justice and supervisor-fo- cused procedural justice because prior research has found these sources of justice can impact employee behavior toward customers (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997;
Moliner, Martínez-Tur, Ramos, Peiró, & Cropanzano, 2008). Thus, we are able to determine whether our hypothesized effects of justice source explain unique variance in citizenship behavior toward that specific party (the workgroup and the client) above and beyond organizational and supervisory justice. By focusing on procedural justice, we kept the type of justice consistent across all of the internal sources of justice assessed in this study. We assessed the procedural fairness of the organization’s decision-making using three items based on Greenberg (1993) and Lind and Tyler (1988). An example item is: ‘When making decisions that impact me, the procedures used by my organization are just.’ The same three items were also used to measure the procedural fairness of the supervisor/manager by replacing reference to the organization with reference to supervisor/manager. An example item is: ‘When making decisions that impact me, the procedures used by my manager are just.’ The alphas for organizational procedural justice and supervisor procedural justice are .95 and .91 respectively.
We followed the recommendation of Williams and Anderson (1991) and con- trolled for in-role performance when assessing target-specific citizenship behav- iors in order to isolate variance in these variables not associated with in-role performance. Supervisors completed Williams and Anderson’s four-item measure
of in-role performance for each of their subordinates. A sample item is, ‘Fulfills responsibilities specified in the job description.’ The coefficient alpha for this scale was .98.
We also controlled for the location where the employees worked along with employees’ hours worked per week and organizational tenure measured in num- ber of months due to the high turnover rate in these facilities. We controlled for location because even though the two locations are owned by the same parent company, there are potential differences in the work environments at the two facilities that could have an impact on our results. For example, each facility had its own upper management that could create culture differences in the two loca- tions. While there has been mixed findings concerning the statistical significance of tenure predicting OCBs, evidence does exist that longer tenure is associated with higher levels of citizenship behavior because over time employees learn more about their jobs and how to handle job demands, thus they are able to exhibit increased OCBs (Chou & Pearson, 2010). We controlled for hours worked per week as research has indicated that full-time employees are more likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors than part-time employees (Stamper & Van Dyne, 2001). We also controlled for employees’ age and sex.
Results
Convergent and discriminant validity analyses
Following Anderson and Gerbing’s (1988) two step procedure we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to assess the convergent and discriminate validity of our measures of in-role performance, multifoci citizenship behaviors, and multifoci justice. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) using LISREL 8.8 (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1996) with the maximum likelihood method. We con- ducted separate CFAs to assess the distinctiveness of our measures of justice and measures of in-role performance and OCB. We first tested a four factor model of the justice scales, with separate factors for organization-focused procedural justice, supervisor-focused procedural justice, workgroup-focused procedural justice, and client-focused justice. The four factor model had good fit (χ2 = 120.05, CFI = .95;
NNFI = .93; SRMR = .04). We then compared this model to a single factor model with all of the justice items set to load on a single factor. The single factor model had poor fit (χ2 = 824.55, CFI = .45; NNFI = .33; SRMR = .19). The chi-squared difference test was significant (p < .01) which indicates the four factor model has better fit. The correlation between organization-focused justice and super- visor-focused justice is .71 (p < .01) in our study. Therefore we decided to test a three factor CFA model with the organization-focused and supervisor-focused justice items set to load on a single factor, the workgroup-focused justice items set to load on a single factor, and the client-focused justice items set to load on a single factor. This model had unacceptable fit (χ2 = 251.89, CFI = .86; NNFI = .82;
SRMR = .07). Additionally, the chi-squared difference test was significant (p < .01)
indicating that the four factor model had better fit than the three factor model.
Based on these results, we concluded that our measures of justice were distinct.
We then conducted a CFA on our measures of in-role performance and OCBs.
We tested a three factor model with the in-role performance items, the work- group-directed OCB items, and the client- directed OCB items each set to load on their respective factor. The three factor model had good fit (χ2 = 214.33, CFI = .94;
NNFI = .92; SRMR = .03). We then compared the three factor model to a two factor model with the in-role performance items set to load on a single factor and all of the OCB items set to load on a single factor. This model had poor fit (χ2 = 463.56, CFI = .82; NNFI = .78; SRMR = .06). We also compared the three factor model to a single factor model where all of the in-role and OCB items were set to load on a single factor. The single factor model had poor fit (χ2 = 841.08, CFI = .65; NNFI = .58; SRMR = .14). The chi-squared difference tests comparing the three factor model to the two factor model and the single factor model were significant (p < .01). These results indicated that the three factor model had better fit and that our in-role performance, workgroup-directed OCB, and client-directed OCB measures are distinct.
The means, standard deviations and correlations among the study variables are presented in Table 1.
Tests of hypotheses
In our research employees were nested within supervisors, as the supervisors provided citizenship ratings for more than one employee. Recent research has used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) when supervisors have provided ratings of multiple employees as we do in the present study (e.g. Andrews, Kacmar, &
Harris, 2009; Kacmar, Collins, Harris, & Judge, 2009). Prior to running our full HLM analyses, null models with no predictors were estimated for our depend- ent variables to confirm that sufficient between-supervisor variance existed for our organizational citizenship behavior scales to warrant the use of HLM. The intraclass correlation coefficients indicated that 17% of the variance in organi- zational citizenship behaviors toward the workgroup and 15% of the variance in organizational citizenship behaviors toward clients was due to a supervisor effect.
Therefore, HLM was used to test our hypotheses when OCB serves as the depend- ent variable. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression may not take into account the nesting of the individual-level data (Bliese & Hanges, 2004). Additionally, nested data violates the assumption of normality in OLS regression. Therefore, with OLS standard errors could be underestimated and beta estimates are more likely to be significant. On the other hand, HLM provides more conservative tests of significance (Snijders & Bosker, 2012). As employees assessed their own turno- ver intentions, we used regression analyses to test the hypotheses when turnover intentions were the dependent variable.
The results of our hypothesis testing are presented in Tables 2, 3, and 4. To test our hypotheses, the control variables were entered in step one and workgroup-focused
Table 1. means, standard deviations, and correlations. notes: n = 104; ocB = organizational citizenship behaviors, sex 1 = female 0 = male. *p < .05; **p < .01.
VariableMeanSD123456789101112 1. facility.46.50 2. age39.1112.11.04 3. sex.88.32.09.01 4. hours worked (per week)40.0912.39−.22*.03.13 5. Tenure (months)9.489.51−.24*.20*−.04−.05 6. In-role performance5.131.31.04.30**.00−.05.16 7. organization justice4.821.67−.09.17.05.00−.03.19 8. supervisor justice4.831.50−.08.17−.10−.11−.04.24*.71** 9. Workgroup justice4.751.66−.09.06.01−.17−.07.15.46**.53** 10. client Justice5.761.39−.17−.03−.01−.08.07.16.32**.28**.41** 11. ocB towards the workgroup4.711.24−.19.24*.08. 02.24*.73**.26**.24**.27**.27** 12. ocB towards clients4.901.52.00.27**−.03−.17.17.75**.21*.21*.17.29**.76** 13. Turnover intentions3.572.30.08−.15−.08.01−.06−.14−.38**−.37**−.33**−.35**−.09−.10
Table 2. results of multilevel analyses predicting ocB towards the workgroup.
notes: n = 104; k = 19; ocB = organizational citizenship behavior; s.e. = standard error; R2 is calculated following the formula in heck, Thomas, and Tabata (2010).
*p < .05; **p < .01 (one-tailed tests).
Variables Step 1 (γ) Step 1 S.E. Step 2 (γ) Step 2 S.E.
facility −.49** .17 −.43* .17
age .00 .01 .00 .01
sex .35 .26 .31 .25
hours worked per week .00 .01 .00 .01
Tenure (months) .01 .01 .01 .01
In-role performance .67** .06 .66** .07
organization justice .09 .07 .05 .07
supervisor justice −.01 .08 −.06 .08
Workgroup justice .10* .06
client justice .06 .06
R2 .58** .60**
ΔR2 .02*
Table 3. results of multilevel analyses predicting ocB towards clients.
notes: n = 104; k = 19; ocB = organizational citizenship behavior; s.e. = standard error; R2 is calculated following the formula in heck et al. (2010).
*p < .05; **p < .01.
Variables Step 1 (γ) Step 1 S.E. Step 2 (γ) Step 2 S.E.
facility −.06 .30 −.01 .28
age .00 .01 .01 .01
sex −.13 .31 −.12 .30
hours worked per week −.02 .01 −.01 .01
Tenure (months) .00 .01 .00 .01
In-role performance .83** .08 .81** .08
organization justice .07 .08 .04 .08
supervisor justice −.06 .09 −.08 .10
Workgroup justice .00 .07
client justice .17* .07
R2 .55** .58**
ΔR2 .03*
Table 4. results of regression analyses predicting turnover intentions.
notes: n = 104; s.e. = standard error; unstandardized coefficients reported.
*p < .05; **p < .01.
Variables Step 1 Step 1 S.E. Step 2 Step 2 S.E.
facility .24 .46 .03 .46
age −.01 .02 −.02 .02
sex −.69 .69 −.63 .67
hours worked per week .00 .02 −.01 .02
Tenure (months) −.01 .02 −.01 .02
In-role performance −.05 .18 .01 .17
organization justice −.29 .19 −.19 .18
supervisor justice −.32 .21 −.24 .22
Workgroup justice −.12 .16
client justice −.39* .17
R2 .18* .24*
ΔR2 .06*
justice and client-focused justice were added in step two. In support of H1, only workgroup-focused justice was a significant predictor of OCB towards the work- group (γ = .10, p < .05, one-tailed). In support of H2, only client-focused justice was significantly related to OCB towards clients (γ = .17, p < .05). As displayed in Table 4, H3 was not supported as workgroup-focused justice was not a significant predictor of employees’ turnover intention above and beyond organization focused and supervisor-focused justice (β = -.12, p > .05). H4 was supported as client-fo- cused justice was negatively related to employees’ turnover intention over and above organization-focused and supervisor-focused procedural justice (β = -.39, p < .05). We also examined the variance inflation factor (VIF) for each variable during hypothesis testing to further assess the extent to which multicollinearity may be present. Reassuringly, the largest VIF was 2.3, which is well below the commonly accepted VIF of 10 as well as Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken’s (2013) more conservative VIF recommendation of six.
Discussion
Multifoci justice and OCB
Our study emphasized the effects of workgroup-focused justice and client-fo- cused justice as these are two under-examined sources of fair treatment (Lavelle, Rupp, Manegold, & Thornton, 2015; Rupp et al., 2017). Focusing on the unique effects of these sources of justice (above and beyond organization-focused and supervisor focused justice) on target-specific forms of citizenship behavior allows us to contribute to multifoci perspectives in both the organizational justice and OCB literatures (e.g. LePine, Erez, & Johnson, 2002). We found that justice from external clients was a unique predictor of employee OCB toward clients. This result is consistent with the target similarity model (Lavelle et al., 2007) as client justice was a better unique predictor of OCB toward clients than organizational, supervisory, or workgroup justice. Moreover, this pattern of findings indicates that a target similarity perspective can add value to our understanding of employee engagement in OCB toward clients beyond the mechanisms of the trickle down model of justice (cf. Masterson, 2001).
This finding makes a relatively unique contribution, as we are aware of only one prior study (Shao & Skarlicki, 2014) that has examined the effects of client justice on client focuses OCBs. . One difference between our study and Shao and Skarlicki (2014) is the level of interaction employees have with clients. Shao and Skarlicki (2014) sampled employees in hotels, who have short interactions with clients, while the employees in our sample have much more interaction with clients, as patients live at the senior care facilities and employees see the patients on a daily basis. Additionally, this finding makes a theoretical contribution as it extends the logic of social exchange theory and a target similarity approach to an external source of justice and beneficiary of OCB. Our study indicates that employ- ees can form social exchange relationships with external clients and the quality
of the social exchange relationship can influence the extent to which employ- ees exhibit OCBs towards the clients. Therefore, if clients treat employees well (poorly), then employees are more (less) likely to engage in client directed OCBs.
From a human resource management perspective, this can create a challenge for organizations, as they do not have control over how clients treat employees, in the same way that they have control over how a supervisor or coworker treats an employee. Human resource practices and policies can be developed to help guide the behavior of supervisors and coworkers towards employees, however these same human resource practices cannot be developed to control the behavior of clients towards employees. One solution may be for human resource departments to offer customer service training to employees, so they are better equipped to handle customers who treat them poorly. This is particularly important in health care settings where employees interact with patients (clients) on a daily basis.
A pattern consistent with a target similarity perspective was also found when predicting OCB toward workgroup members. That is, workgroup-focused pro- cedural justice was a better unique predictor of OCB toward the workgroup than were the other two intra-organizational sources (organization-focused and super- visor-focused procedural justice). These findings contribute to the literature on multifoci justice and employee citizenship behavior in several ways. For example, our findings extend prior research (Lavelle, McMahan, et al., 2009) on the effects of workgroup fairness on citizenship toward the workgroup. In the only prior study we know of that examines this relationship, Lavelle et al. found a positive relationship between workgroup fairness and OCB toward the workgroup using a sample of students completing a group project. We found support for this relation- ship using a sample of full-time employees. Additionally, we found a significant unique effect of workgroup-focused procedural justice on workgroup directed OCB while controlling for the effects of organization and supervisor justice. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of simultaneously examining the effects of multiple sources of justice in order to assess their unique contributions to target-specific attitudes and behaviors (cf. Rupp et al., 2014).
Multifoci justice and turnover intention
Organizations seek to minimize voluntary employee turnover in part because it leads to increased costs of hiring and training as well as the loss of tacit knowl- edge that occurs when employees exit the organization. For example, Hausknecht, Rodda, and Howard (2009) found perceptions of justice to be a more important predictor of turnover intentions for high performing employees than for low per- forming employees. This is important from a human capital theory perspective, because it indicates that when high performers feel they are being treated unfairly they are more likely to leave the organization. If high performers leave the organi- zation, then they take their human capital with them which may have detrimental
effects on organizational performance as human capital has been shown to be source of competitive advantage (Wright, McMahan, & McWilliams, 1994).
To our knowledge, we are the first or among the first to examine the effects of workgroup justice and client justice on employees’ turnover intentions. By simulta- neously examining the effects of multiple sources of justice on employee turnover, our findings suggest the importance of taking a multifoci perspective to the study of turnover that goes beyond a target similarity approach. Incorporating insights from multifoci justice and social exchange research we hypothesized that fairness from the more intimate employee relationships (clients and the workgroup) would be negatively related to turnover intentions above and beyond organization-fo- cused and supervisor-focused justice. As hypothesized, client-focused justice pre- dicted turnover intention above and beyond organizational justice and supervisor justice. This pattern of results suggests that we can improve our understanding of the effects of justice on employee turnover and related constructs associated with withdrawal by taking a multifoci justice perspective.
In particular, for those interacting with clients and customers, our findings suggest that justice from these more intimate social exchange partners may be one of the stronger justice-based predictors of turnover intention and eventual employee turnover. This reflects researchers’ suggestions that in service organiza- tions, employees often have more frequent interactions with customers compared to supervisors or even coworkers. Thus, conflicts with customers may be at least as important to employees as conflicts with supervisors or coworkers (Dorman
& Zapf, 2004).
While client justice was significantly related to employees’ turnover intentions, workgroup justice was not. In the health care context of this study, it is possible that employees interact with patients and their families more often than with their coworkers, particularly given that the organizations in this study are senior care facilities and the patients live at the facilities. In this context and with the employees having consistent interaction with the patients, employees may need to exhibit emotional labor to do their work effectively. The emotional labor exhibited may be draining for employees and when patients and/or their family members treat employees in an unfair manner, it can lead employees to have increased intentions to turnover.
Limitations
In calling attention to the limitations of our research, we also suggest avenues for future research. First, given the cross-sectional nature of the research design, the causal impact of justice on citizenship is uncertain. Thus, future research may wish to incorporate a longitudinal design to more confidently assess causality. Second, we examined our hypotheses in a single organization using employees and their supervisors working in a specific and growing segment of the healthcare industry.
While this approach minimizes the potential of unmeasured effects attributable to
differences in organizations impacting our findings, future studies should attempt to conceptually replicate these results in other healthcare settings and industries.
Third, our relatively small sample size may be a limitation although we still had enough power to detect at least three of four hypothesized effects.
A fourth limitation of our study is the relatively short average organizational tenure of the employees in our sample. As the employees were not working in the organization long, they may not have developed the ability to handle demands from multiple sources in the workplace. Therefore, injustice may deplete their resources faster than employees who have longer organizational tenure and have developed the ability to handle demands from multiple sources. An additional limitation is that we assessed employees’ turnover intentions rather than actual turnover. While prior studies demonstrate that intention to quit is a predictor of turnover (Steel et al., 1990), future research can address this directly by collecting actual turnover data.
Finally, as opposed to self-ratings, we used supervisor ratings of employee OCB to minimize if not eliminate a common methods interpretation of our results. We note further, that by controlling for supervisor ratings of in-role performance, we increased our confidence that our model predicted employee behaviors that went above and beyond expectations with respect to client-directed and work- group-directed forms of citizenship behavior. Future research may consider also collecting employee citizenship ratings from fellow workgroup members and the clients themselves to gain their perspective.
Finally, we did not control for job satisfaction in our analyses, as data on job satisfaction was not available in our data. We recommend future research control for job satisfaction to account for any effect of job satisfaction on the relationships between justice and OCB and turnover intentions.
Practical implications
Employee willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty to help their work- group and to ensure client satisfaction is important to the effective functioning of service organizations. Our research points to the importance of fair treatment in increasing the levels of these forms of citizenship behavior and reducing employee turnover intentions. Our findings suggest the importance of encouraging proce- dural fairness in workgroups throughout the organization. We find that employees are more likely to go the extra-mile for clients when clients treat the employees with dignity and respect. In the senior care context of our study, when patients and their family members are going through such a trying time it may be espe- cially difficult for these clients to be aware of how they are treating employees under these circumstances. Our findings suggest that those who are able to do so in these times are more likely to receive an enhanced level of commitment from healthcare workers in terms of efforts to ensure greater levels of client satisfaction.
Our finding that unfairness from an external source of justice was the best unique predictor of employee turnover intention may present a challenge to organizations. Given it is relatively more difficult for organizations to control how customers treat employees compared to internal sources of justice, it becomes increasingly important for organizations to focus on the things they can control that may influence employees’ turnover intentions. For example, organizations could offer training to employees on how to manage and/or cope with difficult customers. Additionally, support from the organization, supervisors, and cowork- ers when employees encounter unfair treatment from customers may lessen the influence of treatment from customers on employees’ turnover intentions. This is particularly critical in a healthcare environment where employees’ work revolves around clients who are dealing with illness and other conditions which may make them difficult to interact with. Therefore, healthcare organizations should focus on ways to help employees manage and cope with difficult clients in order to help reduce their turnover intentions.
Notes
1. We use justice and fairness interchangeable.
2. We use client and customer interchangeably.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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