Organizational justice as a determinant of affective commitment and silence of employees

Abstract

As we move into the 21st century, increased global competition, rapid developments in the area of information technologies and redesigning of former business processes have deeply affected the way of managing people at workplaces. With the flattening of organizational structures and reduction of management intervention, more responsibilities have been given to the employees for making decisions and managing their daily activities. Besides increasing responsibilities, individuals are expected to be more attached to the goals, objectives and values of their organizations, and also more willing to express their opinions, ideas, suggestions and concerns about workrelated issues. However, building affectively committed workforce and breaking silence by encouraging employees to speak up about critical issues have emerged as crucial management challenges of today’s organizations. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have revealed that attitudinal and behavioral reactions of individuals toward their organizations are mainly influenced by their fairness perceptions. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of perceived organizational justice with employee silence and affective commitment. Study was conducted on total 200 white collar employees working in a private sector company. Results indicated that distributive justice has no significant contribution on employee silence and affective commitment. Also, it was revealed that procedural justice has significant positive contribution on acquiescent silence and defensive silence. Finally, interactional justice has been found to be a good predictor of employee silence and affective commitment.