EMPLOYEES PERCEPTION OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AFFECT THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY GO BEYOND FORMALLY PRESCRIBED ROLES IN THEIR ORGANIZATIONS (OCB).

ABSTRACT: The study investigated how employees’ perception of organizational justice affect the extent to which they go beyond formally prescribed roles in their organizations (OCB). Theory and research on Organizational Citizenship Behaviours (OCB) and organizational justice such as the Motivation Theories, Equity Theory, The Social Exchange Perspective, etc. Has presumed OCB and OJ as a set of desirable behaviours, which contributes to the organizational effectiveness. So far OCB and OJ have been connoted as one of the antecedents of organizational performance. However, the antecedents of OCB were also stated. This study explores various existing definitions of OCB and OJ, and then examines the dimensions of OCB and also the different antecedents. The study also looked at the different types of organizational justice, the effect of OJ, and the significance of OJ.

CHAPTER ONE

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEIVED ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOUR

• INTRODUCTION ON PERCEIVED ORGANIZATION JUSTICE

Organizational justice is a key factor associated with the success of every organization. In order to keep employees satisfied, committed, and loyal to the organization, the organization needs to be fair in its system regarding distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. When employees feel that they are treated fairly by the organization in every aspect, they are inclined to show more positive attitude and behaviors like job satisfaction. Issues like allocating monetary resources, hiring employees in organizations, policy making and policy implications that affect decision maker and the people who are affected from such decisions require special attention in respect of justice (Colquitt, Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005). Organizational justice is considered a fundamental requirement for the effective functioning of organizations. Fairness perceptions holds an important position in the decisions and processes as per human resource aspect (Thurston and McNall, 2010; Jawahar, 2007; Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001) such as pay, benefits and other compensation facets. In actual fact, fairness in compensation received, decisions regarding the compensation-related process and the way this information is communicated to all the employees hold an integral role in formulating the responses about the compensatory system (Nelson, 2008; Milkovich and Newman, 2008).

Organizational justice is an essential component and predictor of successful organizations. Organization that is fair and just in its procedures, policies, interactions and distribution systems, employees of that organization give better response to the organization (in terms of their positive behaviors and productivity). Enhancing organizational justice resulted in improved outcomes from employees. Managers should take actions to improve employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment so to decrease employees’ turnover intension with the help of distributive and procedural justice (Elanain, 2009). Cropanzano(2007) argue that organizational justice has the potential to create powerful benefits for organizations and employees alike include greater trust and commitment. Organizational justice refers to people’s perception of fairness in organizations, consisting of perceptions of how decisions are made regarding the distribution of outcome (distributive justice) and the perceived fairness of those outcomes themselves (as studied in equity theory) (Greenberg and Baron, 2003). Equity has generally been conceptualized in terms of perceived fairness and operationalized as a three dimensional construct: distributive, procedural and interactional justice (Wat and Shaffer, 2005). The word equity connotes feelings of good, just, right and fair and they are deeply embedded in our common heritage (Weller 1995). If people see a discrepancy between the rewards they are receiving for their efforts when compared to those of others (the rewards-to-work ratio), they will be motivated to do more (or less) work (Altman. 1985). Distributive justice concern people’s perceptions of the fairness of the distribution of resources between people (Greenberg and Baron 2003). It’s also refers to the perceived fairness of the amounts of compensation employee receive (Folger and Konovsky,1989). Therefore, distributive justice perspective focuses on the fairness of the evaluations received relative to the work performed (Greenberg 1986). Cropanzano.(2007) distinguish three allocation rules that can lead to distributive justice if they are applied appropriately: equality (to each the same), equity (to each in accordance with contributions), and need (to each in accordance with the most urgency). Distributive justice is concerned with the reality that not all workers are treated alike; the allocation of outcome is differentiated in workplace (Cropanzano. 2007). Dailey and Kirk (1992) found that employee may rationalize their desire to quit by finding ‘evidence’which illustrates how unfairly rewards are distributed. Furthermore, distributive justice seems to play a salient role for employee in evaluating their employing organization (Loi 2006). Employee would be more attached to their organization if they cannot obtain the same benefits in another firm (Lee 2007).

Past research demonstrates that procedural justice often is more predictive of a variety of work attitudes, including organizational commitment (Warner 2005). The fairness of the decision making process itself seems to be more important than the actual amount of compensation that is received by individual (Teprstra and Honoree 2003). Cropanzano, Prehar, and Chen (2002) argued that, although procedural justice and interactional justice are distinct constructs, they are closely correlated. As pointed out by Tyler and Bies (1990), procedural justice is important in shaping interpersonal contexts, and thus it affects perception of interaction justice. Cropanzano (2007) argued that fair process lead to intellectual and emotional recognition, thus in turn, creates the trust and commitment that build voluntary cooperation in strategy execution. This, procedural justice perspective focuses on the fairness of the evaluation procedures used to determine ratings (Greenberg 1986). Folger and Konovsky (1989) found that opportunities for employees to express their feelings when evaluated predicted a measure of perceived fairness and accuracy of performance evaluation. If the process is perceived as just, employees show greater loyalty and more willingness to behave in an organizational best interest (Cropanzano 2007).

1.2. ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZEN BEHAVIOUR

In recent decades, employees’ behavior at the work place has long been of interest for the managers and organizational behaviorists (Chelladurai, 2006). The work space influences the relations between individual characteristics of employees and their treatments in shape of opportunities and constraints. Globally, work
environment features could be strengthen or diluted the staff’s tendency to engage them in certain behaviors due to their personal or organizational motivations (Williams 2002, Deconinck, 2010 ). Management of organizational behavior as an aspect of the most popular area of management disciplines, made a great effort to study the human behaviors, and finally achieve the organizational goals.
Changing conditions, environment of organization, and increased competition required the organization to have new generation of employees to maintain and improve their effectiveness in such circumstances. These staff
and workers are the main difference between effective and non-effective organizations. Organizations as a unique alive organism need their sustainability and strong linkage between elements and components. In between, human resource is one of the most valuable and critical resource for an organization to achieve goals. Today, workforce play a prominent role to revive organizations from different threatening (Tannova and Nadiri, 2010).

The concept of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) introduced by Bateman and Organ (1983) has become a focus studied in recent years. Although the concept has been latter refined and strengthened by a number of researchers (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Paine and Bacharach, 2000; Jahangir, 2004; Khalid and Ali, 2005; Turnipseed and Rassuli, 2005; Chi-Cheng, MengChen and Meng-Shan, 2011; Yaghoubi, Salehi and Moloudi, 2011; Sahafi, Danaee, Sarlak and Haghollahi, 2013) in different sectors of the economy. In an organizational setting, Organ and Ryan (1995) assert that organizational Citizenship Behavior is special type of work behaviors, and is defined as individual behavior that is beneficial to the organization and are discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system. It is often part of an informal psychological contract in which the employee hopes that such extra effort may be perceived and then rewarded by the boss and the organization (Dhitiporn and Brooklyn, 2004).

Managers value OCB that creates a work environment conducive to cooperation (Buenetello 2007). This makes some employees to go extra length in performing their responsibilities while others choose to withhold such appropriate work behaviors, particularly when such behaviors are not recognized, or do not result into direct or indirect benefits. Extra discretionary work behavior has serious positive impact on work quality, actual performance, service quality and service
delivery, good reputation etc., hence, corporate image. To sum it up, lack of OCB affects the organizational performance as well as image in today’s highly competitive business. The image of a company’s operations and its product (brand) is a major source of competitive advantage and is therefore a strategic asset. Kim, Kim, Kim, Kim and Kang (2008) are of the opinion that in competitive market, branding is a valuable intangible asset which it plays an important role in enabling customers to better assess and understand products, reduce customers’ perceived risks in buying process. A product with clear distinctive identity is advantageous
in attracting customers which later results to superior organizational performance. Although, many organizations are not conscious of passing a strong and clear message to existing and potential customers that not only differentiate their offerings from the competitors’ but places in their mind unforgettable positive manner. A serious problem affecting corporate image and organizational performance is that companies are unable to properly link their identity with brand
loyalty. Among ways of achieving positive corporate image is through OCB. The belief among theorists is that as more employees engage in OCB, the organization becomes more successful (Yen and Neihoff, 2004) in building corporate image and improving performance. Employees high on OCB rating will not show any Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) that can have negative effect on production, service delivery and promotion of corporate image. Akinbode
(2005) posits that Nigerian workplace reveals that public and private organizations seem to have failed in this respect.

The vast majority of OCB research has focused on the effects of OCB on individual and organizational performance. There is consensus in this particular field that OCB addresses silent behaviors for organizational enterprises (Barbuto, Brown, Wilhite, & Wheeler, 2001). Successful organizations have employees who go beyond their formal job responsibilities and freely give of their time and energy to succeed at the assigned job. Such altruism is neither prescribed nor required; yet it contributes to the smooth functioning of the organization. Organizations could not survive or prosper without their members behaving as good citizens by engaging in all sorts of positive behaviors. Because of the importance of good citizenship for organizations, understanding the nature and sources of OCB has long been a high priority for organizational scholars (Organ, 1988) and remains so. Organizational citizenship behavior has been defined in the literature as a multi-dimensional concept that includes all positive organizationally relevant behaviors of organizational members including traditional in role behaviors, organizationally pertinent extra-role behaviors, and political behaviors, such as full and responsible organizational participation (Van Dyne, Graham, & Dienesch, 1994) . Organ (1988) argued that OCB is held to be vital to the survival of an organization. Organ further elaborated that organizational citizenship behavior can maximize the efficiency and productivity of both the employee and the organization that ultimately contribute to the effective functioning of an organization. Prominent current organizational researchers such as Brief have supported Organ’s position regarding the importance for effectiveness of those behaviors which he labeled as organizational citizenship behavior (George & Brief, 1992). Although the current authors know of no studies, which have specifically investigated the nature and extent of the relationship between OCB and organizational effectiveness per se, it is widely accepted among contemporary organizational behavior theorists, that organizational citizenship behaviors have an accumulative positive effect on organizational functioning (Wagner & Rush, 2000).

• Definitions of terms

• POJ: perceived organizational justice.
• OCD: organizational citizenship behavior
• BEHAVIOUR: the way a living creature behaves or act.
• ORGANIZATION: a group of people or other legal entities with an explicit purpose and written rules.
• PERCEIVE: to see, to be aware of, to understand.
• SUPPORT: financial or other help
• CITIZENSHIP: the status of being a citizen
• JUSTICE: the state of being just or fair

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