Association between organizational justice and depressive symptoms among securities company workers

Abstract

BackgroundThe organizational justice model can evaluate job stressor from decision-making process, attitude of managerial or senior staff toward their junior workers, and unfair resource distribution. Stress from organizational injustice could be harmful to workers' mental health. The purpose of this study is to explore the association between organizational justice and depressive symptoms in a securities company.MethodsTo estimate organizational justice, a translated Moorman's organizational justice evaluation questionnaire (Korean) was employed. Cronbach's α coefficient was estimated to assess the internal consistency of the translated questionnaire. To assess depressive symptoms, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) scale was used. The link between the sub-concepts of the organizational justice model and depressive symptoms was assessed utilizing multiple logistic regression models.ResultsThe risk of depressive symptoms was significantly higher among workers with higher levels of all subcategory of organizational injustice. In the full adjusted model odds ratio (OR) of higher level of procedural injustice 2.79 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.58–4.90), OR of the higher level of relational injustice 4.25 (95% CI, 2.66–6.78), OR of higher level of distributional injustice 4.53 (95% CI, 2.63–7.83) respectively. Cronbach's α coefficient of the Korean version was 0.93 for procedural justice, 0.93 for relational justice, and 0.95 for distributive justice.ConclusionsA higher level of organizational injustice was linked to higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among workers in a company of financial industry.

Diversity and Inclusion Favoritism: Creating Distributive Injustices That Erode Organizational Identity

“…However, organizations that favor a particular social group as less likely to care about operational efficiency (Tang, 2017). Lack of operational efficiency is consistent with findings that distributive injustice negatively affects co-workers' psychological health (An et al, 2015), influences anxiety (Lee et al, 2019), and links to organizational identity. Comparatively, distributive injustice degrades employees' psychological bonds (Berthelsen et al, 2018) and self-perception within the organization (Farivar et al, 2018).…”

Organizational Justice and Health: Reviewing Two Decades of Studies

“…On the other hand, it should be considered that some of the results found in this review may be also explained by the ERI and JDC models, due to their similarities with the OJ model. For example, low levels of OJ have been suggested as an indicator of high job demands [43], procedural justice could be considered a measure of job control [32], and the distributive justice dimension has been seen as an analog of the ERI model [64]. However, the OJ model aims to capture the relational and administrative dimensions of the workplace environment [28], which is a relevant difference from other theoretical models and a key point to understanding the diverse impact that injustice can have among occupations or cultures.…”

“…(1) Depressive Symptoms. Lower OJ was associated with a higher prevalence of depressive symptoms among Korean office workers [32] and Taiwanese executives [33]. High levels of overall OJ were also linked to depression and burnout in a sample of Italian school teachers [34].…”

Distributive Injustice: Leadership Adherence to Social Norm Pressures and the Negative Impact on Organizational Commitment

“…Employees perceive distributive justice as ethical, and thus it has a positive influence on employees' commitment to the organization Hur & Ha, 2019;Jehanzeb, 2020;Jiang & Lavaysse, 2018;Ohana & Meyer, 2016). Comparatively, distributive injustice is defined as unfair treatment, and meritless may harm employees' mental health and increases stress (H. Lee et al, 2019). This is likely to have a negative relationship with AC.…”