Journal of Innovation & Knowledge - Elsevier

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Journal of Innovation

& Knowledge

https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-innovation-and-knowledge

Empirical paper

The impact of organizational justice on employee innovative work behavior: Mediating role of knowledge sharing

Tayyaba Akram

^a,b,∗

, Shen Lei

^a

, Muhammad Jamal Haider

^a

, Syed Talib Hussain

^a

aGloriousSunSchoolofBusinessandManagement,DonghuaUniversity,Shanghai,China

bFMS,BUITEMS,Quetta,Pakistan

a r t i c l e i n f o

Articlehistory:

Received23October2018 Accepted14October2019 Availableonline11November2019

Keywords:

Organizationaljustice Knowledgesharing

Employeeinnovativeworkbehavior China

a b s t r a c t

Thisstudyattemptstoﬁndouttheimpactoforganizationaljusticeontheinnovativeworkbehaviorof employeesworkinginChinesetelecommunicationsector,whileanalyzingthemediatingroleofknowl- edgesharingbetweentheindependentanddependentvariablesofthisstudy.Inordertotestthestudy hypotheses,adataof345respondentsworkinginChinesetelecommunicationindustrywascollected.

Confirmatoryfactoranalysissuggestedagoodmodelfit,whilestructuralequationmodelprovidedsig- nificantandpositiveeffectoforganizationaljusticeontheemployeeinnovativeworkbehaviorand knowledgesharing.Knowledgesharingmediatedtherelationshipbetweenorganizationaljusticeand employeeinnovativeworkbehavior.Managerialandpracticalimplicationsofthestudyarealsoprovided.

Introduction

Inpastfewdecades,theimportanceofhoworganizationsshould treattheiremployeeshasincreasedmanifold.Patterson(2001)sug- gestedthatorganizationsshouldserveasplatformsforindividuals ratherthanonlyindividualsservingasresourcesfororganizations.

Thelogicbehindthisprepositionreliesonthefactthatindividuals reactasperhowtheyaretreated.Recently,organizationaljustice (OJ)hasbecomeawidespreadconcernformanyresearchers.Orga- nizational behavior and OrganizationalTheory realm suggested organizationaljusticeasacrucialconceptandorganizationalprac- ticein modern organizational management (Chenet al., 2015).

Dueto thewidespreadefforts for, notonly soliciting organiza- tionaljusticeforemployeesbutalsosustainingitthroughoutthe organizationresultedinvigorousimportanceoforganizationaljus- ticeinorganizationalstructureandculture(Karkoulian,Assaker,&

Hallak,2016).Thisisnotonlyimportantforthewellbeingofindi- vidualemployeesbutalsofororganizationsthemselves.Improve organizationaljusticemayhaveadirectandpositiveeffectonthe performance and sustainability of anyorganization (Karkoulian etal.,2016).Inpast,numberofresearchstudieshavesupported apositiverelationshipbetweenhigherleveloforganizationaljus- ticeandjobsatisfaction,jobcommitment,positiveworkattitudes

∗ Correspondingauthorat:GloriousSunSchoolofBusinessandManagement, DonghuaUniversity,Shanghai,China.

E-mailaddress:tayyaba.akram1@hotmail.com(T.Akram).

andbehaviors(Chenetal.,2015;Dundar&Tabancali,2012;Silva&

Caetano,2014).Ontheotherhand,lowerleveloforganizationaljus- ticeisrelatedwithnegativeeffectssuchasstress,pooremployees’

psychological well-being, employee turnover, retaliatory inten- tionsetc.(Silva&Caetano,2014).Fairtreatmentwithemployees isimportantfororganizationsforencouragingemployeestoinno- vateproducts,servicesandprocedures.Infactﬁrmsandnations areprogressivelyrallyingonthetechnicalskillsoftheiremploy- eesforinnovation(Agarwal,2014).AccordingtoGlobalInnovation Index’(GII)report(2013),regardlessofthedifﬁcultconditionsin globaleconomy,dynamicinnovationhubsaregettingmultipliedall aroundtheworld.Therefore,continuousinnovationhasbecomea direorganizationalsourcefororganizationalsurvival;asaresult, organizationsarehighlyinterestedininvestigatingthosefactors thatmayimpactinnovativeworkbehavior(Agarwal,2014)suchas organizationaljustice.

Onemajorpossibilityfororganizationstobecomemoreinno- vativeis toencourage itsemployees’innovativeworkbehavior (Agarwal,2014).However,innovativeworkbehaviorisverydif- ﬁculttoachieveifemployeesarenottreatedfairly.

Notonly,organizationaljusticeisanimportantelementindeﬁn- inginnovativeworkbehaviorofemployeesbutalsotheknowledge thatisrequiredtoinnovateproducts,servicesandbusinesspolicies etc.Therefore,itseemsrighteousclaimthatinnovationisrelated with knowledge and knowledge sharing within organizations.

Numberofstudiesaboutknowledgemanagementandorganization conﬁrmedthatemployeeknowledgesharingimprovesorganiza- tionalperformancesuchasinnovationcapabilityandabsorptive

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jik.2019.10.001

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

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capacity(e.g.Liao,Fei,&Chen,2007;Liu&Phillips,2011;Yesil&

Dereli,2013).Asknowledgesharingisconsideredakeyelementin organizationalcompetitivenessandgrowth,therefore,notsharing knowledgemightimpedeorganizationalsurvival(Lin,2007).This advocatesthatinthepresenceoforganizationalfairness,sharing therightknowledgeenhancesthechancesofinnovativebehav- iorandencouragesemployeestobemoreinnovative.Anumberof studieshaveinvestigatedthe“why”and“how”aspectsoforgani- zationaljusticeanddetermineditspositiveandnegativeimpacts onemployees(Ouyang,Sang,Li,&Peng,2015).Itcanbeinferred that positive perceptions aboutthe organizational justiceleads topositivebehaviorandactions(Jakopec&Susanj,2014).How- ever,previousstudieslacktheirfocusonadditionalandimportant formsoforganizationaljustice,suchastemporalandspatialjustice (Colquitt,2001;Usmani&Jamal,2013).Thissuggeststhatorgani- zationaljusticeisamulti-dimensionalphenomenon,ratherthana uni-directionalfactor.Further,numerousstudieshavebeencon- ductedto explorethephenomena of organizationaljustice and itsimplicationsinwesterncontext,however,littlehasbeendone ineasterncountries.Particularly,Chinaisaquicklytransforming countryfromplaneconomytomarketeconomyandbecomingthe innovationorientedbusinesshuboftheworld(Bessant,2016).The 13thChinesegovernment5yearsplanfor2016–2020alsosupports theclaimofhigherinnovationorientationofChineseorganizations.

Organizationaljusticeresearcherssuggestedtheneedtoenquire thephenomenaintelecommunicationsectoralongwithpharma- ceutical,education,cementandtextileindustry(Usmani&Jamal, 2013).

ChineseTelecommunicationsectorisoneamongothersectors thatisexpanding andgrowingbothnationallyandinternation- ally(Chinaoutlook,2015).However,theinnovativeexpansionof telecommunicationsectorneedsinternalmotivationofemployees that may be affected by numbers of factors suchas organizational justice and knowledge sharing level of the employees.

Therefore,thecurrentstudyintentstoenhancetheunderstanding about employee innovative work behavior (EIWB) by examin- ingtheimpactof organizationaljusticeand knowledgesharing onemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior.Moreover,itinvestigates themediatingroleofknowledgesharingbetweenorganizational justiceandemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior.Thisstudycon- tributestothebodyofknowledgeboththeoreticallyandpractically.

Theoretically,it istheﬁrstattempttoinclude twonewdimen- sionsoforganizationaljustice(temporalandspatialjustice)intothe modeloforganizationaljustice.Second,itinvestigatesthecombine impactoftheseﬁveorganizationaljusticeformsontheinnovative workbehaviorofemployeesworkinginChinesetelecommunica- tionsector.Third,itattemptstostudytheimpactofknowledge sharingonthe innovative workbehavior. Fourth, it provides a mediationanalysis,whereknowledgesharingmediatestherela- tionshipbetweenorganizationaljusticeandemployeeinnovative workbehavior.Finally,itprovidessomepracticalandmanagerial implications,studylimitationsandfutureresearchsuggestions.

Literaturereview Organizationaljustice(OJ)

Organizationalliteratureprovidesconsiderableattentiontothe phenomenonoforganizationaljustice.Itsuggeststhatinthecre- ation of organizational culture, organizational justice plays an importantrole in shapingthebehavior oforganizational members(Ouyangetal.,2015).Thenotionoffairnessisthefoundation ofEquityTheorythathasbeenwidelyappliedinorganizational behaviorﬁeld(Chenetal.,2015).Theconceptoforganizationaljus- ticeisbasedonEquityTheorywhichisextractedfromtheconcept

ofjusticeorfairness.Organizationaljusticeismainlydefinedasthe employees’perceptionsaboutthedegreeoffairnesswithwhich theyaretreated byorganizational authorities (Whitman, Caleo, Carpenter,Horner,&Bernerth,2012).Theoretically,threeforms oforganizationaljusticearewidelymentionedinorganizational researchliterature namelydistributive, procedural and interactionaljustice (Karkoulian et al.,2016).First, distributive justice is defined as the degree to which organizational leaders may distributepromotionsorfinancialrewardsamongemployees.It isprimarilyestablishedonthepillarsofEquityTheory (Adams, 1965).Itrelatestoindividuals’perceivedfairnessabouttheout- comesthattheyreceive.Itistheanticipationofindividualsabout thereceivingoutcomesthatbasedontheirworkrelatedefforts and organizational contributions (Rio-Lanza, Vazquez-Casielles,

&Diaz-Martin,2009).Whenassessingdistributive justice,com- parisons of inputs from employees(effort) and outcomesfrom organization(Salary,appreciation.performanceappraisaletc.)are usedasevaluationbase(Whitmanetal.,2012).Second,perceived fairnessofindividualsaboutalltheproceduresusedwhilemak- ingemployees’related decisions (Lin & Hsieh,2010;Thibaut &

Walker, 1975) is known as perceived organizational justice. It relatestothoseproceduresthatmanagersoptfordistributingout- comeandalsoreactionofemployeestowardsthefairnessofthose particularprocedures(Tyler,1987).Third,interactionaljusticeis knownasthefairnessofcommunicationofdecisionsandorgani- zationalprocedures(Bies&Moag,1986;Gelens,Dries,Hofmans,

&Pepermans,2013).Itfocusesonfairnessperceptionofindivid- ualsrelatedtocommunicationandinterpersonaltreatmentthat theyreceivefromtheirorganization(Ambrose,2002).Itdeﬁnes theirperceptionofthefairtreatmentoforganizationalauthorities regardingdecisionswithinorganization(Palaiologos, Papazekos,

& Panayotopoulou, 2011). However, these three forms, due to not encompassing all justice area, are not enough explanation ofthecomplexphenomenonoforganizationaljustice.Therefore, literature proposes theneed to explore furtherforms of organizational justice, such as temporal justice and spatial justice (Usmani&Jamal,2013).

Thisstudycontributestoexistingliteraturebyincludingtem- poralandspatialjusticein itstheoreticalframework.Although, researchliteraturecomprisesofnumerousstudiesrelatedtoorga- nizationaljustice,however,mostofthesestudieshavefocusedon distributive, proceduraland interactional justiceforms of organizational justice.Nonetheless, for better understandingof the phenomenon,manyresearchersinsistedtoexplorefurtherforms oforganizationaljustice(Colquitt,Conlon,Wesson,Porter,&Ng, 2001).Therefore,tofillthisgapinliterature,twoadditionaldimen- sionsoforganizationaljusticenamelytemporaljusticeandspatial justicearealsoincludedintheoreticalframeworkofpresentstudy (Usmani&Jamal,2013).Temporaljusticestandsonthefounda- tionofSocialJusticeTheory.Temporaljusticeisdefinedas“having discretionarycontroloverone’sowntime”(Goodin,2010).Itisa matterofhowmuchdiscretionarypoweronehasoverhisorher time(Akram,Haider,&Feng,2016;Usmani&Jamal,2013).Hav- ingplentyoftimesuggeststhatapersonhavemorechoicesabout howhe/shecanspendhis/hertimeandfewerconstraintsinuti- lizingthattime freely.Thisprovidesindividuals withthesense ofuniquefairnessrelatedtotheirpersonaltimeandjobrelated time.Itsuniquenessisarguedbecausetimeinitselfisaresource andtherefore,itshouldnotbeconsideredasapartofdistributive justicerathershouldbetakenasseparateformoforganizational justice(Usmani&Jamal,2013).Itmayhaveitsownimplicationsfor individualsintheorganizations.Finally,spatialjusticeisdefinedas

“havingtodowithspace”(Hawker,2006;Usmani&Jamal,2013), itisa”focusedanddeliberateemphasisonthegeographicaland spatialaspectsofthejustice”(Usmani&Jamal,2013)andittheper- ceptionrelatedto“appropriatenessofdistance”anditencompasses

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“resourcedistance” and also “Budgetallocation discrimination”

amongorganizationalmassesincludingdifferentbranches.

Knowledgesharing(KS)

Morerecently,thedependencyofbusinesseshasincreasedon theirknowledgeassetthat comesintheform oftheiremploy- ees(Safa&Solms, 2016).Currently, businesses andnations are depending on the competitive knowledge that helps them to prosperandsurvive(Lin,2007;Yesil&Dereli,2013).Today,the economyhasbecomemoreknowledgebased;therefore,knowl- edgeisreferred asa basicelementofcompetition,survival and growthfororganizationsandevenfornations(Lin,2007;Xinyan

&Xin,2006).Organizations,whetherlargeor small,might gain acompetitiveadvantageonthebasisoftheexpertise,skillsand integratedknowledgeoftheiremployeesand usethemin their dailybusinesspractices(Hu,Horng,&Sun,2009).Practically,not onlysharingtheknowledgebut alsoconvertingitintopractice isthenormtoday.Moreoever,organizationsareplayingtherole of“knowledge-integratinginstitutions”.Thisintegrationofknowl- edgefromdifferentpeopleandgroupstakesplaceintheprocessof producinggoodsaswellasservices(Ibragimova,Ryan,Windsor,&

Prybutok,2012).AccordingtoXinyanandXin(2006),knowledge sharingisthesigniﬁcantmethodtoobtainandcreateknowledgein theworkplace.Itisthecoreelementofknowledgemanagement (Park,Son,Lee,&Yun,2009)andforsuccessfulknowledgeman- agementinitiatives;knowledgesharingplayscrucialrole(Wang&

Noe,2010).

Therefore,itsuggeststhatwhen usedindailyorganizational activities,knowledgeservestheroleofacompetitiveadvantage for that organization. Knowledge is deﬁned as the “informa- tionprocessedbyindividualsincludingideas,facts,expertiseand judgmentsrelevantforindividual,team,andorganizationalper- formance”(Alavi&Leidner,2001;Bartol&Srivastava,2002;Wang

&Noe,2010).On theotherhand,knowledge sharingisknown asthe“provisionoftaskinformationandknow-howtohelpoth- ers and to collaborate with others to solveproblems, develop newideasorimplementing policiesor procedures”(Cummings, 2004).AccordingtoGrant(1996),knowledgesharingisthecontent anditcapturesthebi-directionalityandthefrequencyofknowl- edgeflowamongco-workers.AccordingtoKong,GohandSandhu (2014),knowledgesharingisdifferentfromknowledgeexchange (knowledgesharingandknowledgeseeking)andknowledgetrans- fer(knowledgesharingbythesourceofknowledgeandacquisition andapplicationbytheknowledgerecipient).Knowledgesharing ismulti-directionalprocessthatinvolvesdonorandcollectorof knowledge.Therefore,itisnotonlycollectingtheknowledgebut alsodonatingtheknowledgetoothers.Inpresentstudy,knowledge sharingisdefinedasknowledgedonatingandknowledgecollect- ing.Knowledgedonatingisdefinedas“thecommunicationbased uponaperson’sownwishtotransferhis/herintellectualcapital”, whereas,knowledgecollectingisknownas”anattempttopersuade otherindividuals tosharetheirintellectualcapitalorwhatthey know”(vandenHooff&DeRidder,2004).Thesebothprocesses aredistinctandactiveprocessesinnatureasknowledgedonat- ingisengagedinactivecommunicationwithothersinorderto transferknowledge,whereas;knowledgecollectingisconsulting othersforthepurposeofencouragingthemtosharetheirintel- lectualcapital(Alhady,Idris,Sawal,Azmi,&Zakaria,2011;Yesil

&Dereli,2013).AccordingtoAlhadyetal.(2011)theorganization thatsupportsitsemployeesforcontributing knowledge(within groupsand organizations)isexpectedtocreatenewand better ideasandencouragenewbusinessopportunities,henceenabling organizationalinnovationactivities.

Employeeinnovativeworkbehavior(EIWB)

AccordingtoJanssen(2004),highlycompetitiveenvironment requires innovationasit canliftthecompetitivenessatalllev- els (individual, group and organizational levels). Innovation is defined as “a process through which economic or social value is extracted fromknowledge. It happens through the creation, diffusionandtransformationofknowledgetoproduceneworsig- nificantlyimprovedproductsorprocessesthatarethenplacetouse bysociety”(Raykov,2014).Innovativeworkbehavior,ontheother hand, is defined as “intentional development,introduction and applicationofnewideasinsideajobrole,groupororganizationfor suitableroleofthegroupororganizationalperformance(Momeni, Ebrahimpour, &Ajirloo,2014).Anotherdefinitionof innovative workbehaviorisprovidedas“anintentionalgeneration,promo- tion and realization of novelideas in the workplace” (Janssen, 2000; Scott &Bruce, 1994; West &Farr, 1989).Thisdefinition presentsthreebasicfunctionalelementsofinnovativeworkbehav- iornamelycreation,promotionandimplementationofnovelideas thatbenefittheorganizations(Janssen,2000,2004;Scott&Bruce, 1994;Yuan&Woodman,2010).Ideagenerationstagemayinclude allthoseconsiderationsthataimedatrefiningnewproducts,orga- nizationalpracticesandservices.Thisstageisgreatlyaffectedby themotivationlevelofemployees.Ideapromotionstageprovides strengthtothosegeneratedideasandstrivestoremoveorganiza- tionalresistanceandbarrierstobringchange(Shane,1994).This stagerequiresstrongerorganizationalsupportandcollaboration.

Finally,theidearealizationstagehelpsinbringingthegenerated andpromotedideasintopracticalrealityandresultsintothedevel- opmentof newproducts, servicesand jobprocedures (Janssen, 2000).Manystudieshavesuggestedthatinrapidlychangingworld employeeinnovativeworkbehaviorservesasasustainablecom- petitiveadvantagefororganizationsthatprovidestheﬁrmswith longtermsurvivalandsuccess(Abstein&Spieth,2014).Thisindi- cates a continuous, dedicated and sincere effort on the behalf oforganizational employeesand themaintenance ofsuchdedi- catedeffortsneedspecialattentionoforganizationalmanagement (Agarwal,2014).Infact,EIWBispronetonumberoforganizational factorssuchasorganizationaljusticeandknowledgesharing.Such factorsmayenhanceorreduceEIWB.

Therelationshipbetweenorganizationaljustice,knowledge sharingandemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior

Raykov (2014) stated that innovative work behavior is the predeterminingfactorfororganizationalsurvivalandcompetitive- ness in globaleconomy. Employeeinnovativeworkbehavior is apersonaldrivenmotivationalbehavior(Shih&Sustanto,2011), therefore, it is expected that organizational justice, if present, maybecomeanelementofthismotivationalprocessthataffects innovativeworkbehavior(Pieterse,vanKnippenberg,Schippers,

&Stam,2009).Itcanbearguedthatorganizationaljusticeisan importantmotivationalfactorthatdirectsemployeestodemon- strateaparticularbehaviorornot(Kerwin,Jordan,&Turner,2015).

Thereviewofliteraturesuggestedthatwhenemployeesperceive theyarenottreatedfairlybytheirorganization,theirconscious obligationtowardsorganization isaffectednegatively and their performanceandpositiveattitudetowardsworktendstodecline (Silva&Caetano,2014).Numberofstudiesinvestigated organizational justiceimpact onthe innovation and innovative work behavior(Dundar&Tabancali,2012;Silva&Caetano,2014).How- ever,acomprehensiveorganizationaljusticemodelwaslacking.

Additionally, themediating role ofknowledge sharingbetween organizationaljusticeandEIWBisnotstudiedpreviously.Janssen (2004)examinedthemoderatingroleofperceiveddistributiveand

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proceduraljustice betweentherelationshipof innovativework behavior and stress. He found a positive relationship between innovativeworkbehaviorandstresswhenthelevelofperceived distributive justice and perceived procedural justice were low.

Recently,Momenietal.(2014)investedtheeffectofinferential organizationaljusticeoninnovativeworkbehaviorbyusingfour factormodeloforganizationaljustice.Theyfoundastrongcorrela- tionbetweendistributive,procedural,interpersonal,informational justiceandinnovativeworkbehavior.However,temporaljustice andspatialjusticewerenotapartoftheiranalysis.Additionally, AlmansourandMinai(2012)exploredtherelationshipbetween organizationaljustice andinnovativework behaviorin Jordan’s governmentsector.Theyfoundthatonlyinteractionaljusticehave a direct and significant relationship with employee innovative workbehavior,whereas,distributiveandproceduraljusticeestab- lishedinsignificantrelationshipwithEIWB.Further,KimandLee (2013)foundtheeffectoforganizationaljustice(3factormodel) ontheorganizational commitmentand innovativeworkbehav- iorinvirtualorganizations.Theysuggestedadirectandsignificant relationshipbetweenorganizationaljusticeandinnovativework behavior.Theyauthorsalsofoundasignificantmediatingeffect oforganizationalcommitmentbetweenorganizationaljusticeand EIWB.

Previousstudiessuggestedthatbesideorganizationaljustice, knowledgesharinghasalsobeenastrongcontributorinemployee innovative work behavior (Kuo, Kuo, & Ho, 2014; Lu, Lin, &

Leung,2012).Knowledge,beingthemostimportantorganizational resource,allowsthenovelorganizationalresultssuchasinnova- tion(Kamasak & Bulutlar,2010; Kogut &Zander, 1996; Smith, Collins,&Clark,2005).Knowledgeisreferredasthemainbuild- ingblockfortheinnovationprocessinorganizationalliterature.

Numberofstudieshasshownthatknowledgemanagementiscru- cialforimprovingorganizationalperformance(e.g.Choi,Poon,&

Davis,2008;Perez-Arostegui, Benitez-Amado, &Tamayo-Torres, 2012)andtheknowledgesharingandinnovativenessofworkersin theorganization(Kuoetal.,2014).Anexcellentknowledgeman- agementsystemrequiresfreeknowledgesharingintheformof donatingandcollectingknowledge.Therefore,knowledgesharing notonlyallowsemployeestopasstheknowledgetootherworkers butitalsoenablesotherstoobtainvaluableknowledge(Kuoetal., 2014),thatfacilitateinthegenerating,promotingandimplement- ingnovelideas.Knowledgesharingissuggestedtohelpindividuals toexpand theirindividual knowledge range and increase their problemsolvingabilityandworkoutputquickly(Huetal.,2009).

Positiveenergy,intheformofknowledgesharing,decreasesthe negativeeffectsofbadworkenvironmentandleadstoinnovative workbehavior(Clercq,Dimov,&Belausteguigoitia,2014).There- fore,inaknowledgeintensiveera;knowledgesharingiscrucial learning strategy for higher innovative performance (Lu et al., 2012).Reviewof theliteraturesuggestedthat thoseemployees whoarehavinghighereducationandknowledge,theyhavethe abilitytodirectlyinﬂuencetheorganizationalcapacityforimple- mentinginnovation(Evans&Waite,2010;Raykov,2014).However, thequestionthatwhatroledoestheknowledgesharingplaysin generatinginnovativeworkbehaviorisstillanunderexploredphe- nomena.

ThisisparticularlytruefortheemergingAsianeconomieslike Chinathatisfocusingheavilyonserviceindustrygrowththrough innovation.Lu et al.(2012) investigated theeffects of learning goalorientationonindividualinnovativeworkperformancewith knowledgesharingasthemediatorinasurveyfrom248employees andtheirsupervisorsfromdiverseindustriesinChina.Theyfound apositivesigniﬁcanteffectoflearninggoalorientationandasignif- icantmediatingroleofknowledgesharing.Focusingonknowledge donatingand knowledge sharing,Kamasak and Bulutlar (2010) exploredtheeffects ofknowledge sharingoninnovation.Using

multipleregressionanalysis,theyfoundpositiveand signiﬁcant effectofknowledgecollectingonalltypesofinnovation;however, knowledgedonatingwasfoundtohavenoeffectonexploratory innovation.Forcurrentstudy,researchersconsideredknowledge sharingasacombinationofknowledgedonatingandknowledge collecting.

Althoughknowledgesharinghavemany benefits,peopleare generally found reluctant to share their knowledge easily (Lu etal.,2012).Onepotentialreasonofsuchreluctancecanbeper- ceived organizational injustice.When employeesfeel that they arenot treatedfairlybytheirorganizations,lackof trustarises between organization and its members. Therefore, employees becomereluctanttosharetheirknowledgewithothermembers oftheorganization,ultimatelyaffectingtheinnovativeactivities withinorganization.AccordingtoLuetal.(2012), ascompared togeneralorroutineperformance orworkbehavior, innovative workbehavioris moredifficultduetothreereasons.First, cur- rentpracticesdonotprescribethemethodsorproceduresinvolved ininnovativeperformance,asorganizationdoesnotprovideany specific guideline for generating, promoting and realizing new ides(Janssen,2004).Second,innovativeinitiativesmayraisecrit- icismbythosewhoresistchangeandareconservative(Luetal., 2012).Third,innovativebehaviorbringsachanceoffailurewith itandtherefore,itisconsideredrisky.Thissuggeststhatinnova- tiveworkbehaviorisheavilydependentonthecooperationand supportfromco-workersandmanagementintermsofknowledge andfairtreatment.Thefairtreatmentisrequiredintheformof distributive, procedural,interactional, temporal and spatialjus- ticerespectively.Inotherwords,ifemployeesperceivethatthey aretreatedfairly,intermsofoutcome,procedures,interactional communicationsaboutdecisionmaking,timeandresources,they areexpectedtobemore encouragedtodepictinnovativework behaviorintheirorganizations.Forfreelygenerating,promoting andfinally realizinginnovativeideas,innovativeworkbehavior requiresacknowledgementandappreciationoftheactionstaken byinnovativeemployees.Additionally,knowledgesharingiskeyto successforemployeesateachandeverystageofinnovativework behavior.Whenemployeesareabletofreelyshareknowledgeby donatingaswellascollectingitfromotherco-workersintheirorga- nization,theyaremoremotivatedtogenerate,share,promoteand implementtheirinnovativeideas.Thisistrueforthoseemployees whoreceivefairtreatmentandcaneasilycollectanddonateknowl- edge,aremoreattachedtotheirorganizationspsychologicallyand tendstocontributeinachievingorganizationalgoalsmoreeffec- tivelythroughbetterperformance andworkbehaviors(Pignata, Winefield,Provis,&Boyd,2016;Somech&Drach-Zahavy,2004).

Amorelogicalandtheoreticalbaseforthepropositionsofcur- rentstudyisprovidedbySocialExchangeTheory.SocialExchange Theory proposedby Blau(1964) suggested that generally indi- viduals seek to reciprocate to those who provide them some beneﬁt.Thiskindofreciprocationcreatesdiscretionaryobligation ontheirbehalftorespondpositivelyandprovidebacksomething morevaluableinresponse(Saks,2006).Thisreciprocalbehavior occursinworksettingswhereemployeesperceivefairtreatment (in theform of distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal andspatialjustice)fromtheirorganizationandthustheytendto showbetterworkbehavior (such asinnovativeworkbehavior) inreturn(Pignataetal.,2016).Theeffectofpositiveperceptions about distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal and spatialjustice onemployee innovativework behavior is mediated byincorporatingknowledgesharingasamediator.Onthebasis of the above literature, research gapand arguments following hypothesesaregenerated andFig.1 presentsthediagrammatic representation.

H1:Positiveperceptionsofemployeesaboutorganizationaljus- ticeeffectsEIWBpositivelyandsigniﬁcantly.

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Organizational Justice

• Distributive

• Procedural

• Interactional

• Temporal

• Spatial

Knowledge Sharing

Employee Innovative Work

Behavior

Fig.1. Theoreticalframework.

H2:Positiveperceptionsofemployeesaboutorganizationaljus- ticeeffectsknowledgesharingpositivelyandsigniﬁcantly.

H3:knowledgesharingamongco-workerseffectsEIWBposi- tivelyandsigniﬁcantly.

H4: Knowledge sharing mediates the relationship between organizationaljusticeandEIWB.

Methodology

Procedureandparticipants

Inordertofindouttherelationshipbetweentheindependent anddependentvariablesofthestudy,employeesworkinginthe ShanghaitelecommunicationsectorofChinawererequestedtofill upthequestionnaire.Duetothenon-accessibilitytoallemploy- ees’databases,convenientsamplingtechniquewasusedtocollect thedatafromtheseemployees.Intotal450questionnaireswere distributedamongemployeeswithclearinstructions abouthow tofillupthequestionnaire.However,finalcollectionoftheques- tionnairesresultedinthegenerationof345useablequestionnaires for testing the hypotheses of current study. This providesthe researcherswithanacceptablepercentage(77%)ofthequestion- nairestoapplystatisticaltestsonthisdata.Outof345respondents, 184weremaleand161werefemalerespondents.Theagerangeof theseparticipantswasfrom18yearsto50yearsorabove.Initial screeningofthedataalsosuggestedthatmostoftheseemployees werehavingaworkexperienceof5yearsto15years.

Questionnairedesign

Inordertovalidatethepropositionsmadeinthisresearchstudy, aﬁvepointLikertscale(1=stronglydisagreeto5=stronglyagree) wasdeveloped.Threedimensionsoforganizationaljustice,i.e.distributive,proceduralandinteractionaljusticeitemswereadapted fromthescaleofAl-Zu’bi(2010).Thesethreedimensionscomprises of5,5and9itemsrespectively.Additionally,twodimensionsof organizationaljustice,temporalandspatialjusticewereadapted fromUsmaniandJamal(2013).Thesedimensionscompriseof4 and3itemsrespectively.OverallAlphareliabilityoforganizational justicescalewasreportedas.872byUsmaniandJamal(2013).Fur- ther,basedonVandenHooffandVanWeenen(2004),knowledge sharingwasmeasuredbyadaptingthescaleofLin(2007).Knowl- edgedonatingwiththreeitemsreportedanAlphareliabilityof0.78, while,knowledgecollectingwithfouritemsandAlphareliability of0.80inpreviousstudies(Goh&Sandhu,2014;Lin,2007;Yesil&

Dereli,2013).Formeasuringemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior,a 9itemvalidatedscaleadaptedfromJanssen(2000).Janssen(2000) reportedanAlphavalueof0.94inhisstudy.Theﬁnalquestion- naireforpresentstudycomprisedof42items.Formaximizingthe responserateandforthebetterunderstandingofChineserespon- dents,thisquestionnairewastranslatedintoChineselanguage.

Table1

DescriptiveStatistics(n=345).

Variables Minimum Maximum Mean Std.Deviation

DistributiveJustice 1 4 3.55 .499

ProceduralJustice 1 4 3.23 .474

InteractionalJustice 1 5 4.12 .676

TemporalJustice 1 5 4.08 .624

SpatialJustice 1 4 3.70 .526

KnowledgeSharing 1 5 4.06 .531

EmployeeInnovative WorkBehavior

1 5 4.34 .586

Resultsandanalysis Descriptiveanalysis

Inordertoanalyzethenatureofthedataandvariables,descrip- tive statistics were conducted. Table 1 presents the values of minimum, maximum,mean and standard deviationfrom these analyses.

CommonmethodBiastest

AccordingtoBagozziandYi(1991),commonmethodbiasnessis the“variancethatisattributedtothemeasurementmethodrather thantotheconstructofinterest”.Beingapotentialvaliditythreat forresearchﬁndings(Jones,2009),itisimportanttotestforcom- mon methodbiasnessprior totesting hypotheses ofthe study.

Therefore,researcherstestedcommonmethodbiasnessthrough Harman’ssinglefactortestmethod(Podsakoff,MacKenzie,Lee,&

Podsakoff,2003).Thistestprovidestheevidencethatthedataof presentstudyisfreefromcommonmethodbias.Thetotalvariance explainedbyonefactorloadingis47%,whichislessthanthe50%

(Podsakoffetal.,2003).

Contentandfacevalidity

Contentandfacevaliditywasensuredbytranslatingtheques- tionnaireintothelanguagethattherespondentscanunderstand andinterpretclearly.Foranaccuratetranslation,backtranslation methodwasused.Respondentswereguidedwithclearinstructions toprovidetheirresponsetoquestionnaires.Additionally,theuse ofdoublebarreledquestions,andconfusingorunfamiliarterms wasalsoavoidedintheself-administeredquestionnaireofpresent study.Allthesecautionsareveryimportantforensuringtheface andcontentvalidityof anyinstrument usedinresearchstudies (Podsakoff,MacKenzie,& Podsakoff,2012).It is alsoimportant thatrespondentsshouldbeensuredabouttheanonymityoftheir responses;therefore,researchersguaranteedcompleteanonymity torespondents.

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Table2

PearsonproductMomentCorrelationAnalysisofthevariablesofstudy(n=345).

Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.DistributiveJustice 1 .666^** .661^** .585^** .682^** .665^** .801^**

2.ProceduralJustice – 1 .742^** .673^** .725^** .706^** .832^**

3.InteractionalJustice – – 1 .655^** .694^** .708^** .816^**

4.TemporalJustice – – – 1 .719^** .719^** .807^**

5.SpatialJustice – – – – 1 .699^** .819^**

6.Know-Sharing – – – – – 1 .811^**

7.EIWB – – – – – – 1

**Correlationissigniﬁcantat0.01level(2-tailed).

*Correlationissigniﬁcantat0.05level(2-tailed).

Convergentvalidity

Correlation analysis explains the convergent validity of any study.Therefore,thestrengthandthenatureoftherelationship betweenindependent,dependentandmediatingvariablesofthe studywere assessed through correlation analysis.Results from PearsonProductMomentcorrelationareprovidedinTable2.Corre- lationanalysissuggestedastrongandpositivecorrelationbetween allvariablesofthestudyatp=0.01signiﬁcantlevel.Distributive justiceis positively and strongly related toknowledge sharing (r=.655***,n=345,p<0.00)andemployeeinnovativeworkbehav- ior(r=.801***, n=345, p<0.00). Procedural justiceis positively and strongly related to knowledge sharing (r=.706***, n=345, p<0.00) and employee innovative work behavior (r=.832***, n=345, p<0.00). Interactional justiceis positively and strongly relatedtoknowledge sharing(r=.706*8**, n=345, p<0.00) and employeeinnovativeworkbehavior(r=.816***,n=345,p<0.00), temporaljusticeispositivelyandstronglyrelatedtoknowledge sharing(r=.719***,n=345,p<0.00)andemployeeinnovativework behavior(r=.801*7**, n=345, p<0.00),andﬁnallyspatialjustice isalsopositively andstrongly correlated withknowledgeshar- ing(r=.699**,n=345, p<0.00), and employee innovativework behavior(r=.819**, n=345, p<0.00). Further, knowledge sharing indicated a positive and strong correlation with employee innovativeworkbehavior(r=.811**,n=345,p<0.00).Besideinde- pendent, dependent and mediating variables, all independent variableswerealsopositivelyandmoderatelycorrelatedwitheach other.

Discriminantvalidity

InTable3,additionalinformationabouttheconvergentvalidity isreportedalongwithdiscriminantvalidity.Convergentvalidityis evidentfromallvaluesofaveragevarianceexplained(AVE)above than0.5.Inter-itemreliabilityisevidentfromcompositereliability (CR)valuesabovethan0.7.Additionally,thesquarerootofaver- agevarianceexplainedisgreaterthananyinter-factorcorrelation presentinTable3.Thissuggestsawesomediscriminantvalidityof studyresults(Fornell&Larcker,1981).

Constructvalidity—Exploratoryfactoranalysis(EFA)

The construct validity is tested through exploratory factor analysisin IBM SPSS 21. For factor extraction, Maximum Like- lihood Method was applied that resulted in the generation of 7 factors.Furtherobservation of theEFAresults indicated that Kaiser–Myer–Olkinvalueof.964wasgreaterthantheminimum suggestedvalueof0.6(Kaiser,1974),Bartlett’sTestofspeheric- itywassigniﬁcantat0.000pvalue(Bartlett,1954)andﬁnally7 extractedfactorshavetheEigenvaluesgreaterthan1.Acumulative varianceexplainedwas66.047%withloadingsabove0.3(Pallant, 2013).Table4presentsresultsofpatternmatrixfromEFA.

Reliabilityanalysis

Althoughresearchersadaptedpreviouslyvalidatedandreliable scalesforpresentstudy,however,therevalidationforthereliabil- ityofthesescaleswasveryimportant.Therefore,Cronbach’sAlpha reliabilitytest wasconductedusingIBMSPSS.Table5 provides theAlpha reliability values for distributive, procedural interactional,temporal and spatialjusticeand knowledge sharingand EIWB.AllmeasuresresultedinhigherCronbach’sAlphareliabil- ityandauthenticatethepreviousreliabilityclaimsofresearchers.

TheCronbach’sAlphavalueof0.6orhigherisconsideredasareli- abilityproofforscaleandsuggestsitsacceptabilityforuseinstudy (Pallant,2013).SincetheAlphavaluesofpresentstudymeasures areallhigherthan0.6,theywerefoundreliabletotestthehypothe- sesofthisstudy.

Conﬁrmatoryfactoranalysis(CFA)—Measurementmodelof thestudy

ThepurposeoftheCFA modelis toexplaintherelationship betweenlatentvariables andmeasuredvariables (Byrne, 2012).

Keepingthispurposeinmind,researchersconductedCFAbyusing 7loadedfactorsofdistributive,procedural,interactional,temporal andspatialjustice,knowledgesharingand employeeinnovative workbehaviorwith42finallyloadeditems.Forabetterauthenti- cationofthestudymodel,thistestisexplainedwithacombination ofmodelfitindicesincludingChi-Squaretest,rootmeansquare errorofapproximation(RMSEA),comparativefitindex(CFI)and standardizedrootmeansquareofresidual(SRMR).Thesepartic- ularmeasurementindices werefocusedduetotheirsuperiority overotherfitindices.Theseindicesareinsensitivetosamplesize andmisleadingparameterestimates(Kline,2005).Goodnessoffit indicesofthefinalmodelisprovidedinTable6andCFAmodelis depictedinFig.2.TheCFAresultsindicatethatthedatafitsthe measurementmodelverywell.ThevalueofCMIN/dfis1.86that liesunderthethresholdof2.Further,thecomparativefitindex (CFI)valueis0.943,whichishigherthanthesuggestedvalueof 0.9(Hu&Bentler, 1999),indicatinganexcellentmodelfit.Root meansquareerrorofapproximation(RMSEA)providesavalueof .050thatislowerthan0.07threshold(Steiger,1990).Additionally, thestandardizedrootmeansquareresidual(SRMR)is.0513that islowerthanthesuggestedthresholdvalueof0.08(Hu&Bentler, 1999).Hence,thesegoodfitvaluesofmeasurementmodelprovide thebasisfortestingthehypothesesofthisstudyinnextsection.

Structuralequationmodeling(SEM) Directeffects

Fortestingthehypothesesofthisstudy,SEManalysiswascon- ductedby usingAmos21. Regressionpathvalues, standardized regressionweights,criticalratios(C.R),standarderrors(S.E),prob- abilityvalues(p)andacceptance/rejectionofthehypothesesare

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Table3

Discriminantvalidityforthevariablesofthestudy(n=345).

StudyVariables CR AVE MSV ASV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1.TEMPJUSTICE 0.924 0.666 0.566 0.411 0.816

2.INTJUSTICE 0.969 0.697 0.602 0.450 0.609 0.835

3.KNWHARING 0.964 0.631 0.585 0.450 0.666 0.671 0.794

4.DISTJUSTICE 0.947 0.639 0.563 0.394 0.531 0.619 0.617 0.800

5.PROJUSTICE 0.941 0.648 0.602 0.448 0.612 0.694 0.654 0.609 0.805

6.EINWB 0.954 0.567 0.423 0.582 0.752 0.776 0.765 0.750 0.776 0.753

7.SPATJUSTICE 0.922 0.691 0.575 0.442 0.654 0.644 0.643 0.621 0.658 0.758 0.832

Table4

PatternMatrixfor7extractedvariablesofthestudy(345).

Factor

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

DJ3 .704

DJ4 .779

DJ1 .826

DJ2 .948

DJ5 .565

PJ4 .657

PJ3 .828

PJ2 .663

PJ5 .834

PJ6 .720

IJ4 .850

IJ7 .658

IJ6 .751

IJ3 .720

IJ8 .925

IJ9 .844

IJ2 .872

IJ1 .874

IJ5 .800

TJ12 .918

TJ7 .858

TJ6 .644

TJ5 .700

SJ1 .698

SJ5 .842

SJ3 .778

KS1 .887

KS2 .881

KS3 .856

KS4 .660

KS5 .701

KS6 .532

KS7 .614

IWB1 .624

IWB2 .472

IWB3 .740

IWB4 .500

IWB5 .488

IWB6 .571

IWB7 .494

IWB8 .837

IWB9 .769

ExtractionMethod:MaximumLikelihood.

RotationMethod:PromaxwithKaiserNormalization.

a.Rotationconvergedin7iterations.

Table5

Cronbach’sAlphareliabilityanalysis(n=345).

Sr.No StudyVariables Numberof

Items

Cronbach’sAlpha reliability

1 DistributiveJustice 5 .897

2 Proceduraljustice 5 .906

3 Interactionaljustice 9 .954

4 Temporaljustice 4 .885

5 Spatialjustice 3 .869

6 Knowledgesharing 7 .921

7 Employeeinnovative workbehavior

9 .922

Table6

CFAmodelﬁtindices.

Indices Finalmeasurementmodel

²(df) 1471.508(791)***

CMIN/df 1.860

p-value .000

CFI 0.943

RMSEA(P-close) .050(.0493)

SRMR .0401

Source:Authors’estimation.

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e1 IJ4 IJ7 IJ6 IJ3 IJ8 IJ9 IJ2 IJ1 IJ5 KS1 KS2 KS3 KS4 KS5 KS6 KS7 DJ3 DJ4 DJ1 DJ2 DJ5

PJ4 PJ3 PJ2 PJ5 PJ6 IWB1 IWB2 IWB3 IWB4 IWB5 IWB6 IWB7 IWB8 IWB9

TJ12 TJ7 TJ6 TJ5

SJ1 SJ5 SJ3 e2

e3 e4 e5 e6 e7 e8 e9 e10 e11 e12 e13 e14 e15 e16 e17 e18 e19 e20 e21

e22 e23 e24 e25 e26 e27 e28 e29 e30 e31 e32 e33 e34 e35

e36 e37 e38 e39

e40 e41 e42

INTJUSTICE

KNWHARING

DISTJUSTICE

PROJUSTICE

EINWB

TEMPJUSTICE

SPATJUSTICE

Fig.2.CFAmodel.

Table7

SEMDirectEffects.

Hypothesis HypothesisPath Pathcoefﬁcient S.E. C.R. p-Value FinalRemarks

H1 KS←DJ .170 .065 2.847 .004 Supported

H2 KS←PJ .145 .062 2.210 .027 Supported

H3 KS←IJ .224 .047 3.477 *** Supported

H4 KS←TJ .270 .055 4.315 *** Supported

H5 KS←SJ .122 .059 1.777 .076 Supported

H6 EINWB←DJ .224 .057 4.719 *** Supported

H7 EINWB←PJ .197 .053 3.880 *** Supported

H8 EINWB←IJ .184 .040 3.694 *** Supported

H9 EINWB←TJ .217 .048 4.339 *** supported

H10 EINWB←SJ .140 .050 2.673 .008 Supported

H11 EINWB←KS .135 .056 2.680 .007 Supported

Source:Authors’estimations.

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e5

e27 e28 e29 e30 e31 e32 e33

e34 e35 e36 e37 e38 e39 e40 e41 e42 e43

DJ3

KS1 KS2 KS3 KS4 KS5 KS6 KS7

IWB1 IWB2 IWB3 IWB4 IWB5 IWB6 IWB7 IWB8 IWB9 DISTJUSTICE

KNWSHARING

PROJUSTICE

INTJUSTICE

TEMPJUSTICE

EINWB

SPATJUSTICE DJ4

DJ1 DJ2 DJ5

PJ4 PJ3 PJ2 PJ5 PJ6

IJ4 IJ7 IJ6 IJ3 IJ8 IJ9 IJ2 IJ1 IJ5

TJ12 TJ7 TJ6 TJ5

SJ1 SJ5 SJ3 e4

e3 e2 e1

e10 e9 e8 e7 e6

e19 e18 e17 e16 e15 e14 e13 e12 e11 e44 e23 e22 e21 e20

e26 e25 e24

Fig.3.Latentfactormodel.

ORG.JUSTICE

KNSHARING

EIWB

e1

e2

.79

.74

.22

Fig.4. Finalpathanalysis.

providedinTable7.FinalSEMmodelisprovidedin Fig.3.SEM resultssuggesteda significantandpositive effectofdistributive (␤=.170;p<0.004),procedural(␤=.145;p<0.027),interactional (␤=.224;p<0.000),temporal(␤=.27;p<0.000)andspatialjustice(␤=.122;p<0.076)onknowledgesharing.Thepositiveand significanteffect of distributive (␤=.224; p<0.000), procedural (␤=.197; p<0.000), interactional (␤=.184; p<0.013), temporal (␤=.217; p<0.000) and spatial justice (␤=.140; p<0.008) on employeeinnovativeworkbehaviorisalsoevidentformtheresults of the SEM. Knowledge sharing also found effecting employee innovativeworkbehaviorpositively andsignificantly ((␤=.135;

p<0.007).R²is.83fortheﬁnalmodelthatsuggests,overallavery goodﬁt(Fig.4).

Mediationeffectsofknowledgesharing

Fortestingthemediationeffectsofknowledgesharing,theboot- strappingtechniquewasusedinAMOS21.AccordingtoPreacher andHayes(2008)bootstrappingis“anonparametricresampling procedureanditdoesnotimposetheassumptionofnormalityof thesamplingdistribution.Itisanintensivecomputationalmethod thatinvolvesrepeatedlysamplingfromthedatasetandestimate the indirecteffect in each resampled data set. This repeatness occursthousandstimesandresultsinanempiricalapproximation ofthesamplingdistributionofab isbuiltandusedtoconstruct conﬁdence intervals for the indirect effect”. In present study, bootstrappingwasdonebytaking2000resamplesand90%conﬁ-

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Table8

SEMHypothesesTesting:DirectEffects.

Hypothesis HypothesisPath Pathcoefﬁcient S.E. C.R. p-Value FinalRemarks

H1 EIWB←ORG.JUSTICE .787 .034 22.968 *** Supported

H2 KS←ORG.JUSTICE .759 .032 23.935 *** Supported

H3 EIWB←KS .247 .036 6.920 *** Supported

Source:Authors’estimations.

Table9

MediationanalysisDOJ,POJ,IOJ,TOJ,SOJ,KS&EIWB.

Regressionpath Indirectestimate S.E Bias Lowerbound Upperbound p-value Finalremarks

EINWB←KS←DJ .028 .018 −.001 .007 .075 .017 Mediation

EINWB←KS←PJ .020 .016 .001 .003 .061 .036 Mediation

EINWB←KS←IJ .024 .016 .000 .007 .066 .018 Mediation

EINWB←KS←TJ .035 .022 .000 .010 .088 .017 Mediation

EINWB←KS←SJ .016 .015 −.004 .000 .058 .099 Nomediation

Table10

MediationanalysisOJ,KS&EIWB.

Hypotheses Hypothesespath Indirectestimate S.E Bias Lowerbound Upperbound p-value Finalremarks

H4 EINWB←KS←OJ .187 .036 −.004 .136 .254 .000 Accepted

denceintervallevel(Mackinnon,Lockwood,&Williams,2004).The resultssupportedmediationroleofknowledgesharingbetween distributive, procedural, interactional and temporal justice and employeeinnovativeworkbehavior.However,itwasfoundthat knowledgesharingdoesnotmediatebetweenspatialjusticeand EIWB. Details of mediation analysis are provided in Table 9.

Overall,itwasfoundthatknowledgesharingmediatesbetween organizational justice and employee innovative work behavior.

Theresultsofmainhypothesisaboutmediationareprovidedin Table10.

Discussions

Theintentiontoconductthisstudywastoﬁndouttheimpactof ﬁveformsoforganizationaljusticeontheinnovativeworkbehav- iorofemployeesworkingintheChinesetelecommunicationsector.

Themainhypothesesofthestudywere“positiveperceptionsof employees about organizational justice effects EIWB positively andsignificantly”(H1),“positiveperceptionsofemployeesabout organizational justice effects knowledge sharing positively and significantly(H2),“knowledgesharingamongco-workerseffects EIWB positively and significantly” (H3), and “knowledge shar- ingmediatestherelationshipbetweenorganizationaljusticeand EIWB(H4)”.Itwasalsointendedtotestforthemediatingroleof knowledgesharingbetweendistributive,procedural,interactional, temporalandspatialjusticeandinnovativeworkbehavior.TheCFA modelprovidedaverygoodmodelfit forproposedmodel.Fur- ther,thehypothesesofthisstudyweretestedbyusingstructural equationmodeling.The resultsofstructural equationmodeling justifiedthatifemployeeshaveapositiveperceptionaboutdis- tributive,procedural,interactional,temporal andspatialjustice;

theywilltendtodisplaymorepositiveworkbehaviorandwillbe moreinvolvedingeneratingnewideas,discussingthoseideasto peersandmaterializingthembypracticallyimplementingthemin theorganization.Thissupportstheclaimsofpreviousresearchers (Almansour&Minai,2012;Janssen,2000;2004;Kim&Lee,2013;

Momenietal.,2014).Thisstudysuggeststhataround23%ofthe variationinemployeeinnovativeworkbehaviorisresulteddueto thedistributivejustice.Whiletemporaljusticeexplainsaround22%

varianceinemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior,procedural,inter- actionalandspatialjusticeexplained20%,18.4%and14%variance inemployeeinnovativeworkbehaviorrespectively.Thehighest impactofdistributivejusticeandtemporaljusticeexplainsthatfor Chineseemployees,it’smoreimportanttohavefairnessindistri- butionoffinancialandotherworkrelatedrewardsfollowingwith temporalfairnesstohave morediscretionarycontrolover one’s owntime.Further,proceduraljusticeandinteractionaljusticealso haveafaircontributionintheinnovativeworkbehaviorofsuch employees.Thisindicatesthatfairnessofproceduresusedinorga- nizationaldecision makingandfairnessofcommunicatingthese decisionseffectivelyinorganizationareimportantcontributorin theemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior.However,ascompareto distributive,procedural,interactionalandtemporaljustice,spatial justicewasfoundaleastcontributorbutstillasignificantvariable thatbringsvariationinemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior.Fur- ther,theresultssuggestedthattemporaljusticeresultsinhighest variationinknowledgesharingwith27%,followingwithinterac- tional,distributive,proceduralandspatialjusticewith22.4%,17%, 14.5%and12.2%respectively,confirmingwithpreviousresearchers (Kamasak&Bulutlar,2010;Luetal.,2012).Additionally,knowledge sharingcontributed 13.5% variance in the employee innovative workbehavior(Kamasak&Bulutlar,2010).Alltheseregression pathsweresignificantandtherefore,providebasestotestmedia- tionbetweenindependentanddependentvariablestheresultsare providedinTable8.Mediationpathsfromdistributive,procedural, interactional,temporalandspatialjusticetoknowledgesharing andthen toemployee innovativeworkbehavior suggestedthat knowledgesharingmediatestherelationshipbetweendistributive, procedural,interactionalandtemporaljusticeandemployeeinno- vativeworkbehavior.However,theseresultsdonotprovidethe evidenceforthepropositionthatknowledgesharingmediatesthe relationshipbetweenspatialjusticeandemployeeinnovativework behavior.Finally,fortestingthemainhypothesesofthestudy,the modelprovidedasignificantimpactoforganizationaljusticeon EIWB.TheoveralleffectoforganizationaljusticeonEIWBis78.7%

atpvalueof0.000,therefore,H1isaccepted.Organizationaljustice wasfoundhavingapositiveandsigniﬁcantimpactontheKSwith 75.9%withp-valueof0.000,leadingtotheacceptanceofH2ofthe

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study.Further,with24.7%andatp-valueof0.000,knowledgeshar- inghasalsoimpliedasigniﬁcantandpositiveimpactontheEIWB, hencedirectingfortheacceptanceofH3ofthisstudy.Lastly,with avalueof18.7%andatplevel0.00,knowledgesharingmediated therelationshipbetweenorganizationaljusticeandEIWB,thusH4 isalsoaccepted.

Conclusion

Onthebasisofliteraturereview,thisstudyproposedthatpos- itiveperception oftheemployeeaboutdistributive, procedural, interactional,temporalandspatialjusticecontributepositivelyin theemployee innovativeworkbehavior.Overall, organizational justiceimpliedapositiveandsigniﬁcantimpactontheemployee innovativeworkbehavior.Due tothecollectivistsocial system, and importanceof families, work unitsand tribes,the needto recognizetheimportanceoforganizationaljusticeingenerating innovative work behavior is particularly important for eastern countries(Usmani&Jamal,2013).Moreover,itwasalsoproposed thatknowledgesharingmediatestherelationshipbetweenorga- nizational justiceand employee innovative workbehavior. The resultshavealsosupportedthisproposition.Itissuggestedinthis studythatnotonlytheexistingformsoforganizationaljusticeare importantbutalsosomenewanduntappedorganizationaljustice formsareworthinvestigating.Further,besideorganizationaljus- tice,knowledgesharingplaysakeyroleingeneratinginnovative workbehavior.Italsomediatestherelationshipbetweendistribu- tive,procedural,interactionalandtemporaljusticeandemployee innovativeworkbehavior.Hence,theroleoforganizationaljustice andknowledgesharingingeneratinginnovativeworkbehaviorof theemployeesshouldnotbeneglectedandneedsspecialattention.

Practicalandmanagerialimplications

Thisstudy hasa number of practical and managerial implications.Firstofallit suggestedtheimportanceofstudyingand investigatingtheroleofdifferentformsoforganizationaljustice ininvestigatingemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior.Historically, onlydistributive,proceduralandinteractionalorganizationaljus- ticewereconsideredimportantelementsoforganizationaljustice.

This study highlights two relatively new but important forms of organizational justiceand their role in generatingemployee innovative work behavior and knowledge sharing. Particularly, temporal justicewas founda prominent contributor in knowledge sharing and employee innovative work behavior (along withdistributive,interactionalandproceduraljustice)inChinese telecommunicationindustry.Therefore,this studysuggeststhat managersshouldpayspeciﬁcattentiontowardstemporaljustice alongwithdistributive,proceduralandinteractionaljustice.The conceptoftemporaljusticecanbeimplementedefﬁcientlywhen assigningprojectsandtasksanddecidingworkhoursandwhen providingworkdeadlinestoemployees.Thiswillhelpinstress managementinemployeesandtheywillbemoreproductiveand innovativeduringworkhours.ThismayhelptheChineseorga- nizationstoincreasethelevelofknowledgesharingamongstaff membersandalsoimprovetheirlevelofinnovativeworkbehavior.

Providingemployeeswithspatialjustice,willensurethatemploy- eesdon’twastetheirenergyandtimeinaccessingresourcesrather spendtheirtimemoreefﬁciently.Toreducethesenseofbudgetary discrimination,resourcesshouldbeallocatedamongemployees, accordingtotheirneedsthroughouttheorganization,hencemak- ingtheusemoreefﬁcient.Next,thisstudysuggeststhatknowledge sharingcontributesintheinnovativeworkbehavioroforganiza- tionalemployeesanditalsomediatestheeffectoforganizational justice oninnovative work behavior;therefore, it is important

thatknowledge sharingshouldbefacilitatedintheformofnot onlydonatingbutalsocollectingknowledge.Knowledgesharing resultsinacooperativeandhealthyworkenvironmentthatgener- atesinnovativeideasandalsofacilitateseffectiveimplementation of those ideas. Management should encourage communication betweenemployeesonregularbasis.Formalcommunicationinthe formofgroupdiscussionsandinformalcommunicationintheform ofsocializationwillfacilitateeffectiveknowledgesharingamong organizationalemployees.

Studylimitationsandfutureresearchsuggestions

Thisstudyisnotfreefromsomelimitations.First,thesample wasselectedonconveniencebases.Onlythoseemployeeswere includedin this studywho showedtheirconsentto ﬁllup the questionnaire.However,futurestudiesmayusesomeotherforms ofsample selectiontechnique suchasrandom probabilitysam- plingtechnique.Second,presentstudyisreferredascrosssectional study;therefore,thismaylimititsabilitytoinaugurateacertain causalrelationshipbetweenallvariables.Although,theresearchers reinforcedthedirectionalityofthisstudyinhypothesesthrough organizationaljustice,knowledgesharingandemployeeinnova- tiveworkbehaviortheories,however,infuture,longitudinalstudy is suggested forthe betterestablishment ofcausalrelationship betweenthevariablesofthestudy.Itisalsosuggestedthattherole oftheseformsoforganizationaljusticeandknowledgesharingin generatingemployeeinnovativeworkbehavior(particularlytem- poralandspatialjustice)mayfurtherinvestigatedinthecontextof otherorganizations.ThisinvestigationmayencompassotherAsian countrieswhichareprogressivelydeveloping.

Uncitedreferences

Tabachnick and Fidell (2013); The Hofstede Centre (2016), Kanter(1998)

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