Collective Change Reactions, Emotional Exhaustion and the Buffering Role of Distributive Justice

Abstract

Adaptation to external demands is important for organization’s prosperity, and according change measures affect all levels of the organization. Yet research has so far neglected collective reactions in the course of these measures. Drawing on conservation of resources theory we analyze job impact perceptions as collective restructuring reaction and its association with emotional exhaustion. We put specific focus on the question whether distributional justice on team and organizational level moderate the association of job impact and emotional exhaustion on the individual level. In total 1,523 employees, nested in 166 teams and 26 organizations participated in our study. To test our hypotheses we used Bayesian multilevel modeling. We found positive associations between job impact and emotional exhaustion on all three organizational levels. Distributional justice on the team level moderated the relationship between job impact and emotional exhaustion on the individual level. Our study contributes to the understanding of multilevel collective perceptions of changing working conditions in restructuring and the moderating role of distributive justice – particularly on the team level – with respect to emotional exhaustion. Based on our results, teams and team leaders should particularly be supported in restructuring in order to prevent employees emotional well-being.