ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE, TRUST AND ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS: TEST OF A MULTI-SOURCE AND MULTIFOCI MODEL OF SOCIAL EXCHANGE AT WORK

Abstract

It is increasingly accepted that fairness constitutes
an important motivational basis for the
understanding of employee attitudes and behaviors
in organizations, particularly of those contributions
that go beyond prescribed roles. Based on social
exchange theory, the present research proposes a
multifoci model that accounts for the effects of
justice on organizational citizenship behaviors. This
model predicts that trust is an important mediator of
the relationships among justice dimensions and
organizational citizenship behaviors and attempts to
extend current research in this area by considering
not only the social exchange relationships of
employees to the global organization but also their
relationships with immediate supervisors and coworkers. Results of a survey that addressed these
constructs largely support our hypotheses and show
that for the different foci considered (organization,
supervisor, and co-workers), trust is a mediator of
the effects of justice dimensions on organizational
citizenship behaviors targeted towards the
corresponding foci. These results are discussed and
the implications for future research are examined on
both theoretical and empirical grounds.