Employee conscientiousness, agreeableness, and supervisor justice rule compliance: A three-study investigation.

Abstract

Researchers have paid limited attention to what makes organizational authority figures decide to treat their employees either justly or unjustly. Drawing from the actor-focused model of justice, as well as the stereotype content model, we argue that employee conscientiousness and agreeableness can impact the extent to which supervisors adhere to normative rules for distributive, procedural, informational, and interpersonal justice, as a result of supervisors' evaluations of their employees' effort and their liking of the employees. Supervisory compliance with justice rules may, in turn, impact the extent to which employees judge themselves to be treated either justly or unjustly. We tested these possibilities in 3 studies. In Study 1, we utilized a meta-analysis to demonstrate positive relationships between employees' conscientiousness, agreeableness, and their justice perceptions. In Study 2, we conducted 3 experiments to test the causal relationship between employee personality and supervisor intentions to comply with justice rules. In Study 3, we conducted an employee-supervisor dyadic field survey to examine the entire mediation model. Results are discussed in terms of the potential roles that both employees and supervisors may play in shaping employees' justice perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record

Just What I See? Implications of Congruence Between Supervisors’ and Employees’ Perceptions of Pay Justice for Employees’ Work-Related Attitudes and Behaviors

“…The present results suggest that employees' attitudes and behaviors are shaped by factors other than the supervisor's enacted justice in regard to pay setting (i.e., insofar as the ratings of enacted justice reflect their actual behavior in relation to pay setting). Even though the supervisors' behaviors have previously been found to impact employees' attitudes and behavior (Karam et al, 2019), the present results are in line with studies indicating that employees do not passively receive justice from their supervisors (Zapata et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2017;Karam et al, 2019). Along with supervisors having been identified as having a key role in employees' justice perceptions, it has also been pointed out that supervisors' enacted justice can act as an antecedent to employees' perceived justice (Koopman et al, 2019) and that employees shape their justice perceptions based on their supervisors' actions.…”

“…However, even on a correlational level, no significant relationship was found in our study between the perceived justice ratings of the employees and the enacted justice ratings of the supervisors. In the few previous studies on justice that have measured both perceived and enacted justice, however, weak but significant correlations have been found between the two (Zapata et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2017;Koopman et al, 2019). For instance, Koopman et al (2019) found a 0.33 correlation between overall justice perceptions and overall justice enactment.…”

“…Following the call for a greater focus on enacted justice (Scott et al, 2009), there has been an increase in studies examining actor-focused justice. However, most studies have focused on why supervisors act fairly and other characteristics of supervisors (Patient and Skarlicki, 2010;Brebels et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2017), and there is a need for further research on the potential consequences of justice enactment.…”

“…Although there are few studies that have investigated justice perceptions and justice enactment as related to one another (Zapata et al, 2013;Huang et al, 2017;Koopman et al, 2019), there are no studies, that we are aware of, that have examined the effects of perceptual congruence in regard to pay justice or organizational justice in general. However, there are studies on congruence in other literatures that can be helpful to make predictions.…”

General mental ability, conscientiousness, and the work–family interface: A test of mediating pathways

“…As an example, Huang et al. () examined how higher conscientiousness and agreeableness in employees may elicit supervisors to perceive higher levels of employee effort and greater degrees of interpersonal liking, which, in turn, lead to supervisors’ greater compliance with justice rules when interacting with these employees. Similarly, we posit that high conscientiousness and high GMA may elicit more favorable reactions from supervisors, allowing supervisors to offer customized work arrangements (idiosyncratic deals; Liao, Wayne, & Rousseau, ).…”