Effect of Perceived Organizational Justice and Organizational Virtuousness on Work Engagement
1
Kaveri Gupta,
2Nishi Misra
1Dept. of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, India
2Scientist ‘F’, Defence Institute of Psychological Research, Defence R&D Organization, Delhi, India
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between perceived organizational justice and organizational virtuousness with work engagement. As the concept of organizational virtuousness is relatively emerging and less researched concept in the literature of organizational behavior, the present study attempts to understand the meaning of being virtuous in an organizational context in relation with the perceptions of justice among the employees, ultimately affecting the work engagement. The data was collected using Organizational Virtuousness Scale (Cameron et al, 2004), Organizational Justice Scale (Colquitt, 2001) and Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, English Version, (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2003).
A web survey was conducted on a sample of 50 employees working in different professional organizations, employed under different departments and job designations. Correlation and Regression analysis were done using SPSS version 21. The correlation results revealed significant relationships between the dimensions and total scores of the three main variables, wherein the relationship between interpersonal justice and dedication, between optimism and interpersonal justice, between optimism and informational justice and between distributive justice and absorption were the strongest. The regression analyses showed optimism as the only significant factor which could predict work engagement.
Keywords
Perceived Organizational Justice, Organizational Virtuousness, Work Engagement, Interpersonal Justice, Informational Justice, Dedication, Optimism
I. Introduction
Drawing upon the literature of scientific management, division of labour and bureaucracy, the study of organizational behaviour expanded itself to the study of group dynamics, leadership, organizational structure and many such issues which held importance in an organizational context. The present study is an attempt to understand the aspects of justice, virtuousness and engagement. Justice as a concept is fundamental to human social interaction [1] it is the central concern for human beings [2] especially in the case when it is a question on their equity, [3].
Virtuousness as a concept is relatively less researched in OB and management literature but it be well understood in similar lines to the pioneer work done by Luthans [4] on Positive Organizational Behavior. And the concept of Engagement holds the baton for the core issue of involvement and productivity, as it explains the state of being immensely immersed in one’s work.
The present study is one of the first studies to see the combined effects of employees’ perceptions of justice in the organization and the dimensions of organizational virtuousness on employees’ work engagement, a brief explanation of the dimensions is presented below:
A. Organizational Justice
The term Organizational Justice was first considered as the individuals perception’s of and reactions to fairness in the organization [5]. The operational definition of Organizational Justice, appropriate for the present study was “Organizational justice is concerned with the ways in which employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables” [6]. The four forms of organizational justice, first of them being Distributive justice has been defined as that form of organizational justice that focuses on people’s beliefs that they have received fair amounts of valued work related outcomes (e.g.
pay, recognition, etc). Second is Procedural Justice which refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the procedures used to determine the outcomes they receive. Third is Interpersonal justice which refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the manner in which they are treated by others, typically authority figures.
And the fourth is Informational Justice which refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the information used as the basis for making a decision [7].
B. Organizational Virtuousness
Virtuousness has been defined in connection with meaningful life purpose [8-9], the ennoblement of human beings [10], personal flourishing [11-12], and that which leads to health, happiness, transcendent meaning, and resilience in suffering [13-14]. The operational definition of Organizational Virtuousness for the present study was, “Virtuousness in organizations can be referred to as transcendent, elevating behavior of the organization’s members”.
Attributing the quality of virtuousness to an organization means that the organization enables and supports virtuous activities on the part of its members [15]. The five dimensions of the Organizational Virtuousness, in context to organizations has been defined as follows [16] Optimism has been defined as “the member’s impression that they will be successful in carrying out their tasks even when they will face major challenges”. Trust is defined as the dimension “governed by courtesy, attendance and respect”. Forgiveness is defined as the dimension in which
“mistakes are quickly forgiven and are used as opportunities for learning with high-standard functions”. Compassion is defined as the dimension in which “employees have sympathy and caring for each other in common”. And Integrity is defined as a dimension which “indicates that honesty, good moral character and respect are common and prevalent in organizations, and employees interact honestly with each other” [17].
C. Work Engagement
The operational definition of work engagement for the present study was “an active, positive work related state that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption”. Vigour refers to high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, whereas dedication refers to being strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, and challenge. Absorption is
characterized by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in work, such that time passes quickly [18].
Each of the above mentioned variable and their dimensions have been explored to some extent within the organizational literature, some of the studies in relevance with the current study [19]
showed that distributive justice acts independent of employee engagement while interactional justice ,which was further divided into interpersonal justice and informational justice [7]
had a positive influence on employee engagement whereas there was no significant relationship to be found between procedural justice and employee engagement. Few researchers [20] gave importance to Overall Justice, proving that overall justice as a whole is able to mediate the relationship between specific justice judgments and attitudes and behavior. Review on studies related to Organizational Virtuousness showed an absence of good amount of research on the variable, especially in Indian Context. One of the reasons highlighted in a text on organizational virtuousness and performance [21], states that because there are no ‘pragmatic outcomes’ of practising virtuousness, mangers and organizations on whole do not tend to focus on such non-instrumental phenomena. In a study [22], findings indicated towards the need of the organizations to understand and manage virtues properly in order to improve employee’s citizenship behaviors. Among the handful of studies done in Indian context, important contribution comes from a study [23] which beautifully explained the concept of being a transcendent leader giving examples of leaders as Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Dalai Lama among others who exhibited the core ideals of compassion, reliability and bravery, modesty etc. The interpretation of the study suggests the qualities of a leader as explained in Bhagavat Gita, to be a leader who addresses the emotional side of people, has integrity as a trait, a shared vision, compassion towards his followers, and is an individual who works without expecting any results. In terms of Work Engagement, a study [24] provides an important research literature for the present study as it’s finding precisely revealed that both organizational virtuousness and optimism helps in predicting work engagement. How two dimensions of organizational justice, namely distributive and procedural justice can predict work engagement, through the moderating factors of transactional and transformational leadership showed a greater level of work engagement among employees who reported high transformational leadership and a low transactional leadership [25].
With reference to the mentioned studies [2, 19-20, 23-24] no single study could be identified to the best of researcher’s knowledge which aimed to study the three variables identified in the present study in a combined manner. Therefore, the hypotheses formulated are as follows:
Hypothesis 1:
• All four dimensions of perceived organizational justice are positively related to work engagement.
Hypothesis 2:
• Organizational Virtuousness is positively related to Work Engagement.
Hypothesis 3:
• There is a positive relationship between perceived organizational justice and organizational virtuousness.
Hypothesis 4:
• Perceived Organizational Justice and Organizational Virtuousness will have a significant impact on Work Engagement.
II. Methodology A. Sample
A total of 50 employees from different professional organizations were considered as the sample for the study. The sampling was done with snowball sampling technique as only a small pool of initial informants were nominated by the researcher. Through the contacts of the informants, further respondents were identified who could potentially contribute to the study. The sample differed in age, designation, years of service, and the total work experience.
B. Instruments
1. Organizational Justice
A 20 item measure [26] was adopted for the present study as it is the only measure to assess all four dimensions of organizational justice namely distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice and informational justice. The responses were recorded in 5 point Likert scale where ‘1= to a small extent, 2= to somewhat a small extent, 3= neither large nor small extent, 4= to somewhat a large extent, 5= to a large extent’. Predictive validity of the scale has been established through structural equation modelling by Colquitt (2001) for all four justice dimensions.
2. Organizational Virtuousness
Organizational Virtuousness was assessed with a 15 item measure [15]. The responses were recorded in a 6 point Likert Scale where,
‘0 =strongly disagree, 1= quiet disagree, 2= slightly disagree, 3=
neutral. 4= slightly agree, 5= quiet agree, 6= strongly agree. The scale assesses all the five dimensions of organizational virtuousness identified by Cameron et al, (2004) namely, optimism, trust, compassion, integrity, and forgiveness. The scale has equally attributed three items for each of the five dimensions.
3. Work Engagement
Work engagement was assessed using Utrecht Work Engagement Scale UWES consisting 17 items [27]. This scale has been developed in 11 languages; the English version of the scale has been taken for the present study. The items measures all three dimensions i.e. vigour, dedication and absorption with specified items given to each dimension. Factorial Validity, inter correlation between the three dimensions, along with a good internal consistency has been established for the scale.
Data Collection was done online using platforms such as Google Forms and Survey Monkey wherein, initial informants selected by the researcher distributed the questionnaires among their contacts appropriate for the study.
III. Results and Discussion
The results of the present study were analysed using IBM® Statistics Version 21. The demographic details revealed 43 respondents to be falling in ‘Less than 30’ and 7 respondents falling in ‘31-40’
age groups, and gender distribution was among 23 males and 27 females, department, job designation, present service (number of years/months) and total work experience (number of years) of the respondents is shown through bar diagrams:
Fig. 1: Bar Diagram Representing Departments (Horizontal Axis) and the Number of Respondents (Vertical Axis)
Fig. 2: Bar Diagram Representing Job Designations of Respondents (Horizontal Axis) and the Number of Respondents (Vertical Axis)
Fig. 3: Bar Diagram Representing Respondents Total Number of Work Experience in the Present Organization (Horizontal Axis) and the Number Of Respondents (Vertical Axis)
19
11 8 5 4 2 1
0 2 4 6 10 8 12 14 16 18 20
1 year-
2 year 3 year -
4 year 5 year-
6 year 7 year-
8 year 9 year-
10 year 11 year- 12 year
13 year - 14 year Total Work Experience
Total Work Experience
Fig. 4: Bar Diagram Representing Respondents’ Total Years of Work Experience (Horizontal Axis) and the Number of Respondents (Vertical Axis)
According to the hypothesis, Correlation and Regression analysis were obtained for the present study to see the relationship between the two independent variables i.e. Perceived Organizational Justice and Organizational Virtuousness with Work Engagement as the dependent variable. Relationship between the two independent variables was also seen. Correlation results show significant relationships among the main variables of the study as shown in the table:
Table 1: Correlations Among Three Main Variables Correlations Justice Virtuousness Engagement
Justice 1 .727** .493**
Virtuousness 1 .677**
Engagement 1
** Correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed)
According to the hypothesis majority of the relationships among the dimensions of the three variables were also significant at the 0.01 level of significance, only four relationships were observed at the 0.05 level of significance. The relationships which were significant at the 0.05 level were, first, between interpersonal justice and dedication (.291), second, between optimism and interpersonal justice (.307), third, between optimism and informational justice (.327), and fourth, between distributive justice and absorption (.338). Other interesting findings include the single variable of optimism to be strongly related to all three work engagement dimensions i.e. Vigour, (.737), Dedication (.704) and Absorption (.724) at 0.01 level of significance. As mentioned above, Interpersonal justice showed two of the strongest relationship with separate dimensions dedication and optimism but it did not show any significant relationship with total work engagement score. Also informational justice was found to be significantly related to vigour (.416) and dedication at the 0.01 level of significance (.368) but not with absorption. Whether any dimension or the total of the two independent variables had a significant impact on the dependent variable dimensions’ or as a whole was seen through regression analysis. Stepwise method was applied to find out the significant independent variables. The results are represented as follows:
Table 2: Coefficients and Beta Values Coefficients
Method Unstan-
dardized Beta
Standar- dized Error
Stand- ardized Beta Sig.
1 (Constant)
Optimism 20.611 5.200 .788 .000
Dependent Variable: Total Engagement
The results revealed that only one dimension of Organizational Virtuousness i.e. Optimism could strongly predict the dependent variable i.e. Work Engagement. This indicates that when 1 unit of Optimism increases, Work Engagement will increase by .788 units. Following the above results, model summary is shown in the following table:
Table 3: Model Summary (Regression Analysis) Model Summary
Model R R square
Standard Error of the estimate
Adjusted
R square F Sig 1 .788a .621 11.1983 .613 78.747 .000 a. Independents: (Constant), Optimism
The value of R square can be interpreted as 62.1% of the variance in work engagement as predicted by the dimension of Optimism’.
The results of stepwise regression analysis show only Optimism as a single dimension of Organizational Virtuousness that can strongly predict the total engagement, out of all other variables of Organizational justice and Organizational Virtuousness. F= 78.747
reflects an extremely strong association among variables.
From the above mentioned results the most important finding of the study comes from the result of the stepwise linear regression analysis which shows optimism to be the one and only dimension significantly predicting work engagement. The importance of optimism in predicting work engagement is noteworthy as, the concept of optimism has been largely neglected in the organizational behavior literature till date, and only recently psychologists have started giving attention to optimism as applied in an organizational context and not just in a general context [4]. The importance of optimism as a positive force at the workplace has also been highlighted [28]. Employees or workers who are optimists are more likely to have high morale, have the ability to persevere in the difficult times, do not consider themselves as inadequate and view the goals as one time opportunities and are motivated to work harder. First three hypotheses were accepted, whereas the fourth hypothesis of the present study was rejected as Optimism emerged as the only dimension among all the other dimensions and the total scores of the three main variables. Overall, this study shows many significant positive correlations between the three concepts i.e. perceived organizational justice, organizational virtuousness and work engagement, which implies that employees will have greater perceptions of justice if they are being given voice in making decisions in the organizations, when they know that there is fairness in the procedures undertaken to take any decision, when they believe that the outcomes/rewards are fairly distributed in the organization, when they perceive fairness in the manner in which they are treated by their colleagues and specially by authorities and finally when they perceive unbiased decision making followed in their organization. As observed in the results the positive relationship between perceived organizational justice and organizational virtuousness clearly highlights the importance of behaving virtuously at the organizational level. If the employees behave with moral goodness towards other employees, the impact of their goodness will flourish their interpersonal relationships, which would finally lead them to work beyond self interest, i.e.
to work towards the social betterment of the organization as a whole.
IV. Conclusion
Despite the limitations and possibilities of including other variables in the present research, the study has revealed some of the important findings if not on a larger scale but certainly on a pilot level to understand the relationships among the three rarest variables combined together in researches done in the organizational behavior literature so far. The results have shown how important it is for an organization to receive greater work engagement from the employees when they have higher perceptions of justice and a sense of virtuousness (moral goodness) in and around them. Last but not the least, the findings of optimism as a significant independent of work engagement can well be reflected from the study [24] wherein optimism as an important need for the organizations to remain competitive in the face of volatile economic environment has been highlighted.
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Kaveri Gupta, completed her post graduation in Applied Psychology from Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her interest area in psychology extends from the philosophical foundations of psychology to the more applied areas of social and organizational psychology.
Her inclination towards academic research has enabled her to understand, various subjects of research from a multidisciplinary perspective.
Dr. Nishi Misra, Ph.D., is scientist ‘F’
at Defence Institute of Psychological Research, Defence Research and Development Organization, Delhi.
Having the specialization in Clinical Psychology, she obtained her M.Phil.
in Medical and Social Psychology from Central Institute of Psychiatry(CIP), Ranchi and Doctorate degree from Ranchi University, Ranchi. She has 24 years of service as a scientist and has served as a psychologist in Services Selection Board, Allahabad. She has worked extensively in the areas of suicides and fratricides, job stress and post- traumatic stress in Armed Forces. Presently she is working in the area of development of new selection system for the Indian Armed Forces.
