ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B

›› 2007, Vol. 39 ›› Issue (02): 335-342.

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Withdrawal Behaviors Under Distributive Injustice:the Influence of Procedural Justice and Interactional Justice

Wang Yan,Long-Lirong,Zhou Jie,Zu Wei   

  1. College of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

    School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

  • Received:2006-03-01 Revised:1900-01-01 Published:2007-03-30 Online:2007-03-30
  • Contact: Long Lirong

Abstract: Generally, organizational justice and organizational injustice are deemed to be corresponding, which means organizational injustice also has three dimensions and has negative effects on organization. On the basis of previous research, Jawahar proposed that different forms and combinations of justice perceptions are likely to elicit different forms of aggression that also vary in terms of the target of aggression and the manner in which harm is delivered to the target. Synchronously, because of the system innovation, there is no complete organizational justice at all in China. And distributive injustice is a familiar phenomenon in organization. Therefore, it is better to study the effect of procedural and interactional justice on withdrawal behaviors when in a situation of distributive injustice. Chinese culture emphasizes ‘forbear’ and ‘harmony’, so overt aggression seldom occurs. Moreover, covert aggression has been discussed. Therefore, this research wants to know whether procedural justice and interactional justice are most likely to elicit different withdrawal behaviors, and elicit different extent of withdrawal behaviors.
The different consequences of procedural justice and interactional justice under distributive injustice were examined for the promotion situation of teachers. 160 high school teachers participated in the study. A 2×2 completely randomized design was employed, and 4 scenarios which consisted of the information on distributive injustice, organizational justice/injustice, interactional justice/injustice were used as study materials to analyze teachers’ withdrawal behaviors (e.g. slack in work, intention to quit, refusing to help, negative attitude to the principal) . Multi-variable variance analysis was employed to test the hypothesis.
The results indicated that, in the condition of promotion was unfair, (1) organizational justice and interaction justice had significant negative main effects on ’slack in work’ respectively; (2) organizational justice and interaction justice had both significant negative main effect and interaction effects on ’refusing to help’; (3) interaction justice had significant negative main effect on ’negative attitude to the principal’, but organizational justice hadn’t significant main effect; (4) organizational justice and interaction justice had no significant effects on ’intention to quit’.

This research showed that organizational injustice could induce individual withdrawal behaviors theoretically and enriched the research on effects of organizational injustice. Previous research mainly focused on theft, retaliation behaviors, attack on the own body and job burnout, while research on the withdrawal behaviors in Chinese culture is not enough. There is relation not only between organizational justice and the result referred to the organization, but also between international justice and the result referred to the international object. This is consistent with the relation model of organizational injustice and aggression behavior proposed by Jawahar, and is also corresponding with the research on the effect of distributive, procedural and international justice that Zhou Hao and Long Lirong did. And when distribution, procedure and interaction are all unfair, employees’ withdrawal behaviors are most significant. In organization, for some reasons, complete distribute is impossible. Therefore, when employees feel justice of the power of system execution and communication of superior-subordinate, withdrawal behaviors can be reduced and avoided

Key words: organizational injustice, distributive injustice, procedural justice, interactional justice, withdrawal behaviors

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