Treating Employees Fairly and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Sorting the Effects of Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and Procedural Justice Robert H. Moorman,! Brian P, Niehoff? and Dennis W. Organ? SARE lesion company competed a survey containing measures of work stigfnen affective and continuance commitment, and perceptions of folmece ahi io ‘managers completed an OCB survey. ‘using LISREL 7 indicated Ficnionships between procedural justice and commitment, satisfaction, wh OL to be related to a number of positive tional outcome variables. For exam- ple, Folger and Konovsky (1989) found that justice perceptions were sclsted to organizational commitment, trust in supervision, and pay satisfaction, Alesander ‘Deparment of Managemen. Colege of Busincs and Economics, Wel Virgina University, Morganown, West Viginia 26506. “Deparment of Mansgemest, Coleg of Buszen Adnintraton, Kans Ste river, Manhatien, Kansas 66506, "Department of Management, School of Busines, indians Universi, Bloomington, Indiana 4748, 209 (A SSRN AO © 19) Pemem Mig Capenne Moorman, Niehof, and Organ and Ruderman (1987) also reported that perceptions of procedural justice were significantly related to turnover intentions and the degree to which there existed conflict or harmony in the work group. Other studies have been published as well which have shown relationships between perceptions of fairness and positive or- nizational attitudes (see Greenberg, 1990, for a review). But, besides being important predictors of key job attitudes, perceptions of fairness may also promote effectiveness in organizations by influencing an individual employee's decision to perform organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). OCBs are job-related behaviors which are discretionary, not formally recognized by the ‘organizational reward system, and, in the aggregate, promote the effective func- tioning of the organization (Organ, 1988a). ‘Organ (19882, 1988, 1990) has suggested that perceptions of faimess may be related to OCB because such perceptions are instrumental in developing the levels of faith and trust needed for employees to provide the beneficial, yet discre- tionary, behaviors that define citizenship. Recent work by Farh, Podsakoff, and Organ (1990), Konovsky and Folger (1991), Martin and Bies, (1991), Moorman (1991), and Niehoff and Moorman (1993) has supported a robust relationship be- tween faimess perceptions and various forms of employee citizenship. However, fairness perceptions are just one of several job attitudes that have been shown to relate to measures of organizational citizenship behavior. What, then, is the importance of fair treatment amid the suggested causes of OCB? In this article, we discuss the relationship between perceptions of procedural ju: and OCB and compare the strength of this relationship with job attitudes alre suggested as antecedents of citizenship. We will suggest that perceptions of fair- ness are important in promoting both citizenship and the job attitudes of satis- faction and commitment and that these relationships may provide one more reason why managers should accord considerable emphasis to the fair treatment of employees. OCB AND THE JOB ATTITUDE — JOB PERFORMANCE, RELATIONSHIP The search for the relationship between job attitudes and job performance hhas a long history. Lengthy reviews (e.g., laffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985) have Feported numerous attempts to show definitively that job attitudes are related to ‘or even cause job performance, yet most efforts have resulted in only a weak relationship, far below that suggested by conventional wisdom (Brayfield & Crockett, 1955; laffaldano & Muchinsky, 1985; Schwab & Cummings, 1970; Vroom, 1964) However, Organ (1977) suggested that the reason why work attitudes were not related to performance was because we were looking at the wrong performance. Instead of traditional measures of insrole performance, we should be looking at more discretionary extrarole performance, like OCBs. Because the employee has greater control over the exercise of OCBs than of in-role requirements, Organ, (1977, 1988a, 1990) has stated that the relationship between job attitudes and OCBJob Atttndes and OCB. a should be greater than the relationships found between job attitudes and in-role ‘behavior. Also, to “reduce inputs” in the form of decreased personal productivity invites sanctions and/or the denial of incremental pay. However, by being discre- tionary, OCBs would probably be subject to the influence of changing attitudes about the job or the company. Therefore, the conventional wisdom suggesting a Felationship between job attitudes and job performance may be correct if OCBs are considered as that job performance. RESEARCH ON A JOB ATTITUDE TO OCB RELATIONSHIP ‘Since Organ's (1977) suggestion that job attitudes may be more strongly re- lated to OCBs than in-role performance, two job attitudes have been studied 28 possible antecedents: job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The first job attitude that was tested for a relationship with OCB was job satisfaction. Studies by Bateman and Organ (1983), Smith, Organ, and Near (1983), Motowidlo, Packard, and Manning (1986), Puffer (1987), and Organ and Konovsky (1989) have all supported a significant relationship between differing forms of job satisfaction and either OCB or prosocial organizational behavior (see Organ, 1988a for a review). A second job attitude found more recently to be related to OCB was organ- izational commitment. Organizational commitment describes “the relative strength of an individuals identification with and involvement in a particular organization” (Mowday, Porter, é& Steers, 1982, p. 27) and has been suggested as an antecedent to OCB because it reflects an employee's willingness to aid the organization even if direct reward is not contingent upon that aid, Theoretical models of commitment cited by Scholl (1981) and Weiner (1982) both describe commitment as an attitude that could promote personal sacrifice for the sake of the organization (see Williams & Anderson, 1991 for a review). Work by O'Reilly and Chatman (1986) and Becker (1992) provide support for a significant relationship between commitment and oc. However, in a recent article, Williams and Anderson (1991) have chal- Jenged the finding that both organizational commitment and job satisfaction may be predictors of OCB because those studies finding such relationships did not include and control for the relationship between either job satisfaction and OCB or organizational commitment and OCB. To remedy this, Williams and Anderson measured both job satisfaction and organizational commitment along with a two-dimensional model of citizenship. They found that when the rela- tionship between job satisfaction and OCB was controlled, no relationship was found between organizational commitment and OCB, On the other hand, when the relationship between organizational commitment and OCB was controlled, Job satisfaction still explained significant variance in OCB. They thus concluded that the relationship reported between commitment and OCB may be over- stated.