The role of organizational justice in organizational citizenship behavior

This special issue highlights the relationships between the concepts of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior. The articles advance our understanding of these concepts and their relevance to organizational behavior by describing the theoretical and empirical relationship between them. The present article sets the stage for the papers that follow by providing background on the concepts of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behavior and explaining various connections between them.     

A comparative analysis of performance assessment: international joint venture managers versus regional headquarters managers

This paper examines a relatively unexplored dimension within the IHRM literature: whether JV CEOs and representatives of their foreign parents' regional headquarters differ in their evaluations of JV effectiveness. This study is based upon a sample of 153 JVs located in China. Existing theories suggest an alternate rationale detailing why the evaluations of JV managers and their foreign parent companies should differ and why they should be similar. Our investigation generally finds that evaluations are similar, with some differentiation occurring when our sample is divided by JV age and by JV industry. Overall, the results suggest that isomorphic forces may exist between managers of JVs and managers of their foreign parents in the JV system.     

Personal attributes of expatriate managers,subordinate ethnocentrism,and expatriate success: a host-country perspective

This study had two objectives. First, to establish the relative importance of expatriate managers' job knowledge, relational leadership skills, and cultural openness and adaptability for expatriate success from the perspective of host-country national subordinates, and to test whether these personal attributes are related to expatriate success criteria (expatriate work adjustment, subordinate commitment, subordinate job satisfaction, and unit performance). Second, to test whether host-country national subordinate ethnocentrism is related to expatriate work adjustment. Respondents were 129 host-country national subordinates of expatriate managers. Results showed that subordinates perceived all personal attributes as important and that all personal attributes were positively related to most of the success criteria. However, relational leadership skills was the most important personal attribute, and it was the crucial success factor for expatriate managers' unit performance. Subordinate ethnocentrism was negatively related to expatriate work adjustment. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Becoming competent expatriate managers: Embracing paradoxes in international management

This conceptual paper bridges international management literature with paradox theory to contribute to a paradoxical perspective for understanding expatriate competence. Synthesizing the international management literature, we argue for a ‘both/and’ approach for expatriates to effectively engage with tensions in a dynamic and ever-changing international environment. Our discussions provide novel insights on salient paradoxical tensions across three areas, namely, expatriate learning, expatriate identity, and expatriate performance. We develop strategies to address those tensions and a theoretical model that delineates the interactions of these three areas for superior performance on international assignments. We contribute to the international management literature by drawing attention to the dynamic and enabling role of paradoxical tensions as facilitators of, rather than barriers to, the development of expatriate competence and superior performance on international assignments.     

Coping and adjustment of Western expatriate managers in Hong Kong

This article examines coping mechanisms of Western expatriate business managers in Hong Kong to determine how these strategies are associated with the expatriates’ sociocultural and psychological adjustment. This is important since the few previous studies that have touched upon expatriate coping strategies have focused on other topics which affected both their samples, methodology and findings. Furthermore, effective coping strategies can be taught in cultural training programs better preparing expatriate candidates for their foreign assignments. As predicted, the results indicated a clear positive association between problem focused coping and both sociocultural and psychological adjustment as well as a negative relation between symptom focused coping and both dimensions of adjustment. Implications for international business firms and future research of the findings are discussed in detail.     

Cultural distance and expatriate failure rates: the moderating role of expatriate management practices

Abstract

This study examines moderators of the relationship between cultural distance and the two critical indicators of expatriate failure – maladjustment and premature return rates. Results based on a sample of 126 Taiwanese multinational corporations indicate that expatriate selection and performance management practices moderate the cultural distance–expatriate maladjustment relationship, and expatriate performance management practices moderate the cultural distance–premature return relationship. Additionally, these relationships were stronger when the use of practices was low. We discuss theoretical and practical implications, and offer suggestions for future research.     

The relationships of organizational justice,social exchange,psychological contract,and expatriate adjustment: an example of Taiwanese business expatriates

In the field of international human resource management, studies have seldom examined organizational justice, social exchange, and psychological contract together as important factors in influencing the expatriate adjustment process. The purpose of this research is to fill the research gap by examining these factors and their relationships with expatriate adjustment. The researcher conducted a survey of Taiwanese business expatriates during the first quarter of 2007, collecting 219 valid samples for analysis. A hierarchical regression model was used to test the research framework hypotheses, which showed that expatriates' perception of organizational justice has a positive influence both on their perceptions of social exchange and on their psychological contract fulfillment. Expatriates' perceived that social exchange has a positive influence on their perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment and foreign adjustment. Finally, research implications are discussed and future study suggestions are recommended.     

The mediating role of organizational justice on the relationship between administrative performance appraisal practices and organizational commitment

This study investigates the relationships among administrative performance appraisal (PA) practices, perception of organizational justice and organizational commitment. The results obtained from 395 employees who work in manufacturing companies in Taiwan show that the implementation of administrative PA activities is highly associated with employee perception of organizational justice and that the level of perceived organizational justice is highly associated with the level of organizational commitment. The results also demonstrate that perceived organizational justice has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between administrative PA practices and organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

Relationships between organizational justice,organizational trust and organizational commitment: a cross-cultural study of China,South Korea and Australia

In an increasingly globalized world, organizations that operate in more than one country are a substantial part of the world economy. It is therefore beneficial to understand the attitudes of employees in different countries and their impact on the organization. One important area is organizational justice and its relationships with organizational trust (OT) and organizational commitment. This empirical study collected survey data from university employees across China, South Korea and Australia. We proposed that OT would mediate the relationships between affective organizational commitment (AOC) and both distributive justice (DJ) and procedural justice (PJ) in all three countries. In Australia, we found that PJ and AOC were significantly related, and OT fully mediated the PJ-AOC relationship. In China and South Korea, both DJ and PJ were significantly related to AOC, and OT fully mediated the PJ-AOC relationship. OT partially mediated the DJ-AOC relationship in China but fully mediated this relationship in South Korea. Implications for theory and for management practitioners are discussed, and areas for future investigation are identified.     

Perceived organizational support and expatriate performance: understanding a mediated model

What are the mechanisms by which multinational corporations (MNCs) can facilitate the effective performance of their expatriate staff in foreign countries? There is a substantial literature on expatriation, yet few studies have addressed how perceived organizational support (POS) may impact upon expatriates' work adjustment and affective commitment, and then on their job performance. We use data on 118 expatriates working at the German subsidiaries of Japanese MNCs, and demonstrate that career POS has a direct positive influence on work adjustment and affective commitment. Our results indicate that work adjustment fully mediated the relationship between career POS and task performance. We further discovered that both work adjustment and affective commitment play a pivotal role in mediating the impact of career POS on contextual performance. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and provide suggestions for future research.     

Personality in context: effective traits for expatriate managers at different levels

The purpose of this article is to assess how management level as a contextual factor interacts with personal characteristics in predicting expatriate performance. In particular, we focused on proactive personality (the individual’s disposition to change the organizational environment) and self-control (the individual’s disposition to change oneself to fit the organizational environment). Surveying 307 business expatriate managers in China, we hypothesized that in relation to work outcomes, the effect of proactive personality would be stronger for CEOs while the effect of self-control would be stronger for non-CEOs. We found both proactive personality and self-control to have favorable effects on our performance indicators: job performance, effectiveness, and time to proficiency. In line with our prediction, we also found the effect of proactive personality on job performance to be stronger for CEO expatriates while the effect of self-control on performance was stronger for non-CEO expatriate managers.     

Job and organizational attitudes in relation to financial performance in Greek retail banking: an exploratory empirical investigation

In an attempt to contribute to satisfaction and commitment research, the current study explores the differential relationships that job attitudes (e.g. job satisfaction) and organizational attitudes (e.g. organizational satisfaction and organizational continuance commitment) may have with financial performance in Greek retail banking. A total of 331 employees completed the standardized questionnaires. Three sets of hypotheses were tested, investigating direct effects, mediation effects, and moderation effects. Findings suggest that financial performance yields increased levels of high-sacrifice continuance commitment, resulting in enhanced employee satisfaction – both with the job and the employing organization. Results are discussed, limitations are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.     

The role of organizational justice in multi-source performance appraisal: theory-based applications and directions for research

This paper develops a model of organizational justice to explain the outcomes of multi-source performance appraisal. Central to this explanation is how employee reactions to appraisal cause changes in performance. This paper examines the literature on organizational justice and proposes a model to determine how employees will react to performance appraisal ratings. The model suggests that when performance appraisal ratings are low, employees use procedural justice evaluations to determine the fairness of those ratings. Employees act to improve low ratings that they perceive to be fair. Their performance may decrease on ratings they perceive to be unfair.     

The role of perceived organizational justice in shaping the outcomes of talent management: A research agenda

Talent management is in need of a theoretical foundation and empirical research at the level of the individual. To address these gaps, the current paper relies on the literature on workforce differentiation and provides a research agenda by introducing perceived organizational justice as a key mediator between talent management practices and differential employee reactions. We discuss employees' varying reactions to talent management on one hand and their underlying perceptions of organizational justice, on the other hand. In particular, we propose that, amongst others, an employee's high potential status serves as an antecedent for different distributive justice perceptions, while procedural interventions and relationship building can provide organizational latitude in shaping employee reactions to talent management. Research methods, challenges, and practical implications are discussed.     

The tails of justice: A critical examination of the dimensionality of organizational justice constructs

Justice experiences are proposed to demonstrate a normal distribution with very fair and very unfair experiences being relatively rare and the majority of experiences in the middle of the distribution. Further, it is the extreme experiences of unfairness and fairness that are most important in shaping behavioral reactions to fairness. The reliance on traditional Likert-type measures to assess organizational justice constructs and use of linear correlation-based statistics has limited the opportunity to observe these effects. Two proposals for developing new measures that could enhance our understanding of the tails of justice distributions include: (a) develop a zone of tolerance model to assess violations and “more than fair” tails of the fairness distribution and (b) examine baseline levels of fairness and the influence of these baselines on reactions to specific justice events.     

Personality traits and cross-cultural competence of Chinese expatriate managers: a socio-analytic and institutional perspective

Drawing from socio-analytic theory and institutional theory, this study investigates the influence of personality traits on cross-cultural competence (CCC) in Chinese expatriate managers' overseas managerial experiences. Given the growing importance of Chinese outward foreign direct investment to other economies, this study is timely as it expands our knowledge of expatriates from this large emerging ‘superpower’. In order to explore the impact of personality traits on CCC, multi-level in-depth interviews were conducted including interviews with 25 Chinese expatriate managers, 15 foreign colleagues and 10 cross-cultural experts or expatriate supervisors. The findings suggest that although conscientiousness and openness emerge as major traits that may contribute to CCC, their influences are considerably constrained by institutional differences between home and host countries. This study contributes to theory building by proposing a new conceptual model that incorporates institutional factors into socio-analytic theory to explain how personality traits contribute to CCC of expatriates. It also advances the field by examining the experiences of expatriates from an emerging economy and how their experiences differ from those previously researched.     

Public sector expatriate managers: psychological adjustment,personal characteristics and job factors1

Although public sector expatriates are becoming increasingly common, research on them is very limited. There is reason to believe that the situation for expatriates from the public sector may be different than for those from the private sector. This study investigated US Department of Defense administrators assigned to US embassies worldwide. Results showed that self-efficacy, role clarity and role discretion had a positive association with the psychological adjustment of the respondents while role conflict and role overload only had a marginal negative relationship with the criterion variable. On the other hand, neither international experience nor the effectiveness of preparatory training had any association with the psychological adjustment of respondents. Surprisingly, these findings suggest a similar picture for the expatriates from the public and private sector. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.     

The moderating effect of leadership on perceived organizational justice and affective commitment: a study in China

While western literature proves the importance of procedural justice, interactional justice is found to have a greater impact on employees in China. This study investigates the effect of employees’ perceptions of organizational justice on affective commitment, and the moderating effect of leadership style in the relationship. The authors proposed that the positive association of interactional justice with affective commitment is stronger than the positive association of procedural and distributive justices with affective commitment. In addition, the authors hypothesized that leadership style in teams moderates the relationship between interactional justice and affective commitment. Data were collected from 10 companies in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Wenzhou, Wuhan, and Qingdao, China. The results support the hypotheses stating that interactional justice has a robust impact on affective commitment and that leadership in teams moderates the relationship. These findings have important implications for human resource management. When setting up HR policy in China, putting the right HR procedures in place is essential. Employees’ affective commitment relies heavily on interactional justice and whether or not employees perceive that they are being treated fairly by their managers. We discuss the implications of these findings.     

Perspectives on line managers in human resource management: Hilton International's UK hotels

Although contextual factors act to encourage the devolvement of human resource management to line managers, recent research indicates that there is substantial potential for human resource specialists and line managers to share more effectively responsibility for their organization's human resource activities in business partnerships. The foundation for this is arguably commonality in opinions on the principles and practices of human resource activities. However, line managers and human resource specialists often have dissonant opinions on human resource management.

This paper explores line manager and human resource specialists' perspectives on line manager involvement in human resource management, theoretically and empirically. The primary work comprises a survey of the views of line managers and human resource specialists on devolving a range of human resource activities to line managers in a case organization, Hilton International's UK hotels. Differences between line managers' and human resource specialists' perspectives are found in five aspects: understanding and ownership of the company's service and HR strategy; line manager involvement in and rankings of HR activities; HR specialists' support of line managers; barriers to line managers' involvement in HR activities; and the competence of line managers in HR activities. Importantly, it is found that where there are divergent views across line managers and their HR specialist in their hotel there is poor hotel business performance and, conversely, convergent views are evident in the effectively performing hotels. These findings may have resonance for other organizations in devolving human resource management to the line and developing human resource business partnerships for business performance. It is proposed that three types of line manager buy-in are central to their active involvement in HR, namely: conceptual understanding of the rationale for their involvement; implementation effectiveness through HR role clarity and capability; and affective commitment in believing in the value of their involvement in HR.     

Linking job insecurity to well-being and organizational attitudes in Belgian workers: the role of security expectations and fairness

The aim of this study was to investigate how perceptions of job insecurity and fairness associate with individual well-being (job satisfaction and general health) and organizational attitudes (organizational commitment and turnover intention), under the condition that the psychological contract as perceived by the employee includes a promise on job security, or not. More specifically, we suggest that (H1) job insecurity is negatively related to individual well-being and organizational commitment and positively related to turnover intentions when job security is expected as part of the psychological contract, (H2) that job insecurity is negatively related to fairness perceptions when job security is expected as part of the psychological contract, (H3) that fairness associates positively with individual well-being and organizational commitment and negatively with turnover intentions and (H4) that the association between job insecurity, individual well-being and organizational outcomes is mediated by fairness under the condition that job security is expected as part of the psychological contract. Thus, we propose a model of mediated moderation. Results based on a sample of Belgian employees (N = 559) supported our hypotheses for organizational outcomes. For individual well-being, the mediation framework was not conditional upon a perceived promise of job security as part of the psychological contract. We conclude that employees' perceptions of job insecurity and fairness are important factors in employees' well-being and their attitudes towards the organization. More importantly, these perceptions can in part be shaped by organizational agents such as managers and supervisors. Additionally, the active utilization of the psychological contract in management strategies seems to have favourable results for the fostering of pro-organizational attitudes among employees.