Perceived Organizational Justice, Job Satisfaction and Turnover

Intentions: A Co-relational Study

Kuldeep Kumar (UGC-JRF) Dr. Gayatri Gupta

Lect. in Psychology Principal
Trikuta Degree College Trikuta Degree College
Jammu Jammu
E-mail: kkmalhotra1@yahoo.co.in Ph. 0191-2594262

Abstract

The present study aims to study the Perceived Organizational justice, Job satisfaction and
Turnover Intention of male (N = 26) and female (N = 26) lecturers of various private
colleges of Jammu district. The sample was selected using random sampling technique
and data was collected personally. Results indicated a significant difference in Perceived
Organizational Justice, Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention of male and female
lecturers. Female lecturers were low on Justice Perceptions and Turnover Intentions and
high on job satisfaction as compared to male lecturers of the college. There was a
significant positive correlation between Perceived Organizational justice and Job
satisfaction whereas significant negative correlation was found between Perceived
Organizational justice and Turnover Intention; Job satisfaction and Turnover Intention.

Keywords: Perceived Organizational justice, Job satisfaction and Turnover

Intention
Perceived Organizational Justice, Job Satisfaction and Turnover
Intentions: A Co-relational Study

Introduction
In general organizational contexts have undergone fundamental changes. The prevalence
of long-term relational psychological contracts, based on a “job for life” in return for
loyalty, is diminishing (Rousseau, 1995). Instead, the prevalence of a growing number of
short-term contracts and portfolio workers, combined with increasing employee mobility,
has been observed. At the same time, the value of human capital has increasingly been
recognized and it has been suggested that “organizations should become platforms for
individuals, as opposed to individuals becoming resources for organizations” (Patterson,
2001, p. 384).
Perceived Organizational justice
Employees in any organization are important because their attitudes and behaviors play a
vital role in the quality of service provided by them. Customer satisfaction and customers'
perceptions of service quality are significantly influenced by the attitudes and behaviors
of service employees (Bitner, Booms, & Tetreault, 1990; Schneider & Bowen, 1993).
The interaction between employees and manager in service delivery is essential to the
satisfaction or dissatisfaction of customers (Bitner, Booms, & Tetreault, 1990). In this
regard, employees are primarily responsible for providing a sustainable competitive
advantage for the organization. Therefore, success of an organization depends on
managing and retaining employees (Woods, 1992). Employee turnover is particularly
important in the private organizations because, turnover is critical and costly (Bonn &
Forbringer, 1992). Woods and MacCauley (1988) describe both the tangible and
intangible costs of the turnover decision. One of the most critical intangible costs is the
loss of employee morale for those employees who choose to remain with the
organization. This result in the poor morale of employees who may be overworked, and
can, in turn, effect the level of service provided. Therefore, it is imperative that
management understand the specific dimensions that help shape employees' attitudes
toward their jobs (Rogers, Clow, & Kash, 1994).
When employees react to the way they are treated at work, their motivation to respond
cannot be understood adequately without taking into account two separate notions of
fairness: distributive justice and procedural justice (Folger & Konovsky, 1989;
Greenberg, 1986). Adams (1965) conceptualized fairness by stating that employees
determine whether they have been treated fairly at work by comparing their own payoff
ratio of outcomes (such as pay or status) to inputs (such as effort or time) to the ratio of
their co-workers. This is called distributive justice, and it presents employees' perceptions
about the fairness of managerial decisions relative to the distribution of outcomes such as
pay, promotions, etc (Folger & Konovsky, 1989). In contrast, procedural justice focuses
on the fairness of the manner in which the decision-making process is conducted (Folger
& Konovsky, 1989). In other words, the focus shifts from what was decided to how the
decision was made (Cropanzano & Folger, 1991).
Justice perceptions also have been linked to important outcome variables (Dailey & Kirk,
1992; Folger & Konovsky, 1989; Martin & Bennett, 1996; McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992).
For instance, perceptions of procedural justice are negatively related to intentions to quit
(Dailey & Kirk, 1992), significantly correlate with organizational commitment (Folger &
Konovsky, 1989; Martin & Bennett, 1996), and produce high subordinates' evaluation of
supervisors (McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992). In other words, if employees perceive that the
decision making process is fair, they are less likely to form an intention to quit. On the
other hand, distributive justice perceptions are associated with pay raise satisfaction
(Folger & Konovsky, 1989), and tend to be a strong predictor of job satisfaction (Martin
& Bennett, 1996; McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992). Greenberg (1990) also reports that
organizational justice, which refers to people's perceptions of the fairness of treatment
received from organizations, is important as a basic requirement for the effective
functioning of organizations.

Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction or Employee Satisfaction (also referred to as morale) is one of the most
used variables in Organizational Behavior. It is an employee's attitudinal response to his
or her organization. As an attitude, job satisfaction is conceptualized as consisting of
evaluative, cognitive and affective components.
The Evaluative Component- An individual's overall response to the employing
organization is summarized in the evaluative component. It represents dislike vs. like for
the organization.
The Cognitive Component- An individual's perceptions, opinion, beliefs and
expectations regarding the organization are the focus of his or her cognitions. Employees
hold cognitions about each of the four major inducement systems. Cognitions in which
the individual perceives that his or her expectations have been met generally lead to
positive evaluations. Additionally, positive evaluations are more likely when cognitions
(expectations) support a positive and secure future with the organization.
The Affective Component- This represents the feeling evoked by the organization.
Does thinking about and association with the organization evoke pleasurable or
uncomfortable feelings; feelings of anger or joy; feelings of security or stress; feelings of
affirmation or invalidation? In general, positive affect results from information,
feedback, and situations that affirms or reinforces the individual's self worth and self-
concept, while negative affect is evoked by invalidating situations. Self worth is validated
when individuals feel accepted as values members of the organization and their
competencies and core values are affirmed. When individuals are in a positive affect
state while working, they tend to evaluate the organization positively.

Turnover intention
The conceptual definition for turnover intentions is the relative strength of an individual's
intent to leave the organization. It is an outcome variable in this study, and is
operationally defined by three single indicators: thinking of quitting, intent to search, and
intent to quit (Hom and Griffeth, 1991).

The present study attempts to explore the relationship between perceived organizational
justice, job satisfaction and intention to quit. Both job satisfaction and intention to quit
were expected to correlate significantly with perceived organizational justice. Those who
perceive justice in their organization are more likely to feel satisfied with their job and
feel less likely to leave and feel more committed to their job.

Significance of the study:

The current study will provide the administrators and policy makers with insights into the
relationship between perceived organizational justice and work attitudes and the
formations of employees' justice perceptions, and with insights into how to manage
employees using organizational justice to draw positive attitudinal and behavioral
reactions from employees. The present study will help them better understand how to
retain valuable employees, increase employees' commitment to and satisfaction with their
work, reduce employee turnover, and improve the performance of the employees.

Objectives:
1. To study the Perceived Organizational justice, Job satisfaction and Turnover intention
of male and female lecturers of various private colleges of Jammu district.
2. To study the relationship between organizational justice perceptions and the job
satisfaction of employees.
3. To study the relationship between organizational justice perceptions and the turnover
intentions of employees.
4. To study the relationship between job satisfaction and the employees’ turnover
intentions.

Hypotheses:
1. There will be a significant difference in the Perceived Organizational justice, Job
satisfaction and Turnover intention of male and female lecturers of various private
colleges of Jammu district.
2. There will be a significant relationship between organizational justice perceptions and
the job satisfaction of employees.
3. There will be a significant relationship between organizational justice perceptions and
the turnover intentions of employees.
4. There will be a significant relationship between job satisfaction and the employees’
turnover intentions.

Methodology
Sample:
Sample for the present study consisted of lecturers teaching in various private colleges of
Jammu district. A total of 52 lecturers were selected randomly. To control the effect of
gender 26 males and 26 females were selected. The mean age of the participants is 32.

Variables:
Independent Variable: Gender
Dependent Variable: Perceived Organizational Justice, Job Satisfaction and Intention to
Quit
Tools used:
Distributive Justice Index
Perceptions of distributive justice will be measured with the Distributive Justice Index,
developed by Price and Mueller (1996). All reliabilities reported have been above .90,
and the scale has shown discriminant validity in relation to job satisfaction and
organizational commitment (Moorman, 1991).
Procedural Justice Scale
Perceptions of procedural justice will be measured using 15 item scale developed by
Niehoff and Moorman (1993). Moorman (1999) has reported reliabilities above .90.
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction was measured using five facet items from the Job Diagnostic Survey
(JDS; Hackman & Oldham, 1975). Coefficient alpha from 6,930 employees working on
876 jobs in 56 organizations has reported highs ranging from .64 to .87.

Turnover intention
The turnover intentions scale was developed as a part of the Michigan Organization
Assessment Questionnaire (Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins, and Klesh, 1979). They
reported an internal consistency of 0.83 for the scale.

Results and discussion:

All statistical analyses were computed using SPSS version 12.0 for Windows.

Descriptive statistics
Participants’ mean perceived organizational justice was above the scale midpoint (mean
rating 5.43, SD=0.74). Participants were on average satisfied with their job (mean rating
4.74, SD=1.68). However, they were low on intention to quit (mean rating 3.82,
SD=1.65).

TABLE – I Case Summaries

Perceived
Organizational Job Turnover
Gender Variables Justice satisfaction Intentions
Female N 26 26 26
Mean 98.6538 67.7692 7.2308
Std. Deviation 4.61252 3.98304 2.19650
Male N 26 26 26
Mean 111.5000 56.0000 14.0769
Std. Deviation 8.35344 3.81576 1.85306
Total N 52 52 52
Mean 105.0769 61.8846 10.6538
Std. Deviation 9.31128 7.08673 3.99943
TABLE – II
Comparison of means on Perceived Organizational justice, Job satisfaction and Turnover
intention of male and female lecturers

Variable Variance F Sig. t df Sig. (2-tailed)

Perceived Equal
variances 7.45
Organizational 6
.009 -6.864 50 .000**
Justice assumed
Job Equal
variances .000 1.000 10.880 50 .000**
satisfaction assumed
Turnover Equal
variances .492 .486 -12.147 50 .000**
Intentions assumed

** Difference is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

TABLE – III Correlations

Perceived
Organizational Job Turnover
Justice satisfaction Intentions
Perceived
Organizational 1 0.562(**) -0.571(**)
Justice
Job satisfaction
0.562(**) 1 -0.711(**)

Turnover
-0.571(**) -0.711(**) 1
Intentions
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table-I shows that female have lower Perceived Organizational Justice (Mean=98.65,
SD=4.61), higher job satisfaction (Mean=67.76, SD=3.98) and lower turnover intentions
(Mean=7.23, SD=2.19) as compared to male Perceived Organizational Justice
(Mean=111.50, SD=8.35), job satisfaction (Mean=56.00, SD=3.81), and turnover
intentions (Mean=14.07, SD=1.87). Females have low Perceived Organizational Justice
and turnover intentions as compared to male employees and the difference is statistically
significant at 0.01 level of significance. Moreover, females have high score on job
satisfaction as compared to their male counterparts and the difference is statistically
significant at 0.01 level of significance. (Refer Table-II)

There was significant difference (t = -6.864, p< 0.01) between the mean scores of
Perceived Organizational Justice of male and female lecturers. It indicates that males
have higher perceptions of justice than females.
There was significant difference (t = 10.88, p< 0.01) between the mean scores of Job
Satisfaction of male and female lecturers. It indicates that females have higher Job
Satisfaction than males.

There was significant difference (t = -12.14, p< 0.01) between the mean scores of
Turnover Intentions job satisfaction of male and female lecturers. It indicates that males
have higher Turnover Intentions than females.

Going through the Table-III it was found that:

(1) There is a significant correlation (r = 0.562) between organizational justice

perceptions and the job satisfaction of the employees. It was concluded that there
is a true and positive correlation between organizational justice perceptions and
the job satisfaction of the employees.
(2) There is a significant correlation (r = -0.571) between organizational justice
perceptions and the turnover intentions of employees. It was concluded that there
is a true and negative correlation between organizational justice perceptions and
the turnover intentions of employees. Thus as the justice perception in the
organization increases, the employees’ intention to quit decreases.
(3) There is a significant correlation (r = -0.711) between job satisfaction and the
employees’ turnover intentions. It was concluded that there is a true and negative
correlation between job satisfaction and the employees’ turnover intentions. Thus,
employees who are satisfied with their job are less likely to quit the organization.

Conclusions:
1. Females have low Perceived Organizational Justice and turnover intentions as
compared to male employees.
2. Females have high score on job satisfaction as compared to their male
counterparts.
3. There is a positive and true correlation between organizational justice perceptions
and the job satisfaction of the employees.
4. There is a negative and true correlation between organizational justice perceptions
and the turnover intentions of employees.
5. There is a negative and true correlation between job satisfaction and the
employees’ turnover intentions.

Limitations of the study:

1. The study was limited to the lecturers of the college. Other employees should also
be included in the study to enhance our understanding of the effects of perceived
organizational justice on job satisfaction and turnover intentions.
2. The study included only private colleges of the Jammu district.
3. The random sample was limited to 52 lecturers only.
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