Perceptions of equity and justice and their implications on affective organizational commitment: a confirmatory study in a teaching and research institute.
| Autor | Balassiano, Moises |
| Cargo | Report |
Introduction
The complex aspects inherent to human relations have long been the subject matter of scholars and researchers in the social, human, and cultural domains. Significant implications for the agenda of human resource management have changed in work environments (Evans, Pucik, & Tanure, 2007). The issue of deverticalization (unbundling) of organizational structures and the emergence of a new way for individuals to move forward in their professional lives is added to this phenomenon (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996; Balassiano & Costa, 2006). Questions concerning the centralization/decentralization of power, forms of cultural integration, attachment of individuals to organizations, among others, need to be considered in light of their impact on human resources, particularly those related to understanding how the affective facet of organizational commitment is generated and sustained. The central concepts of human resource management vary significantly among different cultures and cultural groups, with implications on the definition of their true role in the organization. Therefore, despite the influence of the internationalization process in labor relations nowadays, the values that establish a universally accepted model for human resource management are not yet clear.
Among the most striking features in organizational behavior are the perceptions of how organizations recognize employee's values and the way they show their appreciation (Brooke, Russel, & Price, 1988; Morris & Steers, 1980). Studies on the topic, conducted from both Business and Organizational Psychology perspectives, have shown that organizational affective commitment can be explained to a great extent by perceptions of justice (Kim & Mauborgue, 1991, 1996, 1997; Mcfarlin & Sweeney, 1992; Naumann, Bennett, Bies, & Martin, 1998). Unfortunately such studies present mismatched, and sometimes inconclusive, results and do not enable comparisons or generalizations, given the bias of the area and/or different ways researchers operationalize this concept (Meyer & Allen, 1991; Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979).
This study aims to evaluate both the existence and significance of the relationship between perceptions of justice and equity on organizational commitment in its affective dimension based on a sample of employees from a teaching and research institute. It is expected that the results may contribute to the construction of systematic knowledge on the subject, as well as provide practitioners with the necessary tools to optimize the process of talent retention in organizations.
To this end, it was deemed appropriate to separate the two concepts--equity and justice, as antecedent elements of organizational commitment--and check their individual influence and impact on the affective commitment attitude of employees toward the organization. It was found that the justice perception factor can be considered as an antecedent to organizational commitment, confirming Rego (2002). However, the same was not true for the equity factor. This may lead to reflections on the value-based and relative nature of this concept, as well as the ambiguous consequences the perception of inequity can lead.
The theory of equity has been highlighted in the literature after the seminal work by Adams (1965), followed by others like Deutsch (1975), Leventhal (1980), and more recently by Bakhshi, Kumar, Rani (2009) and Burrus and Mattern (2010). According to those studies, the concept of equity is based on the perception of the way outcomes are consistent with the norm for allocation of rewards.
Studying issues related to affective organizational commitment in light of equity and justice perspectives requires methodologies that enable measurements and analyses appropriate to the context under analysis. Methodological issues have proven to be the main barriers to the convergence of results in investigations on the topic. Porter, Steers, and Mowday (2005), highlight the lack of any universal agreement on the definition of organizational commitment; demonstrating the different ways of defining this concept over the course of the past fifty years. Without a general consensus on what the concept actually represents, it becomes difficult to operationalize it; which may explain the divergences detected in the literature.
Human riddles
The assumption that people are the key elements in organizational systems has occupied a central place in discussions on administrative issues ever since the Movement of Human Relations in the late 1920's. However, there is still little known about the human element and the forces present in its sphere of interaction.
According to Barnard (1971), no theory of organizations can exclude the knowledge of the intervening psychological forces in human behavior. In other words, human nature is the crux in understanding organizations. When such understanding does not happen, beliefs are taken for granted, leading to the implementation of the wrong administrative techniques. As a result, individual and organizational targets will not match, giving rise to ineffective or unreliable results.
Dejours (2002) and Goffman (2005) show the parallel existence of an administrative space and a human space in organizations. As a consequence, their rationales and subjectivities need to be integrated. However, the actual construction of the administrative space is nothing less than the result of individual actions, but instead of emerging from the individuals themselves, it evolves from systems of collective actions. The integration of those spaces causes changes in the individuals who need to behave under their functional rationale. As pointed by Barnard (1971), that adjustment provokes what, in some cases, is defined as the shaping of the individual to the organization personality; i.e., the aggregation and superimposition of institutional values upon personal values.
Making people efficient collaborators for the achievement of organizational effectiveness has always been the great challenge both in Administration theory--when developing techniques and procedures--and for managers when trying to apply them. However, beliefs and myths created and established around the motivational process obfuscate their understanding and lead to fragmented and misleading arguments in relation to complex human behavior. Thus, organizational vitality and longevity can be compromised, as they depend to a great extent on the willingness manifested by the actors to contribute to the achievement of institutional goals.
From the standpoint of organizational commitment, studies have been conducted since the 1970s in an attempt to operationalize the concept and identify its antecedents and its consequences (Mowday et al., 1979, p. 224). A gap that exists in the literature, however, refers to the lack of research and consensus on the possible influence of perceptions of justice and equity, respectively, on the affective commitment of individuals to their organizations. It is understood that this knowledge can influence managers in the definition of actions that lead employees to have such an attitude.
Justice and Equity in Organizations: Complex Perceptions
One of the starting points for the pursuit of knowledge about the perception of justice and equity by individuals and groups is attributed to the Theory of Inequity, proposed by Adams (1963, 1965). According to the author, in any trade-off relationship equity exists when the ratio between the investment and the return of an individual is perceived as being identical in terms of ratio to that of other people or groups, such that the recognition and relevance of inputs and investments are shared both by who is investing and who is the recipient of the investment. When this fails to occur, the relationship is considered inequitable; leading to tension between individuals who try to remedy the situation in a quest for the restoration of equity by means of cognitive adjustments. Furthermore, the perception of inequity affecting both the interpersonal and the organizational outcomes is not of logical, but instead, of emotional and psychological nature.
Rawls (1971) narrowed Adams' theoretical postulates seeking to identify what antecedents would lead individuals to perceive justice in the distribution of rewards. As a result, two conceptual criteria of justice were defined: distributive justice, which refers to the distribution of scarce goods; and the justice of criteria relating to the choice of procedures to be used in the distribution (Cropanzano & Folger, 1991).
Adams (1965) also pointed out that the perception of equity in comparative judgment could lead to two types of emotions: anger--when people feel under-benefited, i.e., they do not receive enough when compared to others; and guilty--when they feel over-benefited, i.e., they receive too much when compared to others. Burrus and Mattern (2010) state that distributive justice judgments are formed by the concepts of equity, egoism, and egocentrism. They show that there is a tendency to judge, from a self-centered perspective, the relationship between their own contributions and those of others (based more heavily on assumptions); thus enabling new interpretations on the perception of equity.
Theoretical contributions that occurred after Adams, as reported by Paz (1999) and Mendonca (2003), sought to establish empirical evidence of his proposals and investigated the behavior of individuals in situations where they experienced feelings of injustice. However, this model of justice, as claimed by prevailing studies, proved to be limited, making it difficult to understand the psychological processes involved in this phenomenon (Santos & Odelius, 2005). Thus, a systemic view of the issue brought to light other dimensions and further exacerbated the underlying theoretical questions.
The new directions of studies on organizational justice came to be based on the multidimensional approach...
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