Trust as a mediator of the relationship between organizational justice and work outcomes: test of a social exchange model

TLDR

The study tests a social exchange model linking organizational justice, trust, and work attitudes/behaviors among public sector employees in India. Data from full‑time employees were analyzed using LISREL to examine relationships among justice dimensions, trust, and outcomes. Interactional justice uniquely predicts trust in supervisor, while trust in organization mediates distributive and procedural justice effects on job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and commitment; trust in supervisor fully mediates interactional justice effects on task performance and citizenship behaviors. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Abstract Data obtained from full‐time employees of a public sector organization in India were used to test a social exchange model of employee work attitudes and behaviors. LISREL results revealed that whereas the three organizational justice dimensions (distributive, procedural and interactional) were related to trust in organization only interactional justice was related to trust in supervisor. The results further revealed that relative to the hypothesized fully mediated model a partially mediated model better fitted the data. Trust in organization partially mediated the relationship between distributive and procedural justice and the work attitudes of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and organizational commitment but fully mediated the relationship between interactional justice and these work attitudes. In contrast, trust in supervisor fully mediated the relationship between interactional justice and the work behaviors of task performance and the individually‐ and organizationally‐oriented dimensions of citizenship behavior. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.