Investigating How and When Regulatory Focus Differentially Relates to Employee Justice Perceptions

Abstract

This study contributes to the emerging literature that considers organizational justice as an endogenous variable that may be influenced by attributes of the employees themselves. Integrating the regulatory focus and social exchange theories, we test a model that links trait promotion and prevention foci with justice perceptions through work engagement. We propose that promotion focus is positively related with distributive, procedural and interactional justice with work engagement as the mediating factor. We further suggest that the association of prevention focus with the justice dimensions via work engagement depends on the extent to which the employee feels grateful at work. We test our hypothesized model in a two-wave study using a sample of 222 full-time working professionals. We find partial support for our model, as results indicate that high promotion focus employees perceive distributive and procedural justice due to high levels of engagement. On the other hand, we find that prevention focus is negatively related with distributive and procedural justice via engagement, but only for employees who experience lower levels of gratitude at work. Overall, our findings indicate that it is worthwhile to examine employee-based antecedents of justice perceptions.