Organisational justice and innovative behaviour: Is knowledge sharing a mediator?

Abstract

Purpose Encouraging employees to exhibit innovative behaviour at the workplace is the need of the hour. Prior studies reported the impact of organisational justice on innovative behaviour; however, the majority of these studies are from the Western context. Moreover, the underlying mechanism linking these variables, namely, the role of knowledge sharing, is sparse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of knowledge sharing in the relationship between organisational justice and innovative behaviour through the lens of social exchange theory in the Indian context. Design/methodology/approach Mediation analysis using PROCESS macro was performed on a sample of 288 employees using three structured questionnaires. Participants were recruited from various manufacturing organisations in India. The validity of the hypothesised model was established using AMOS software. Findings Organisational justice impacted both knowledge sharing and innovative behaviour. It was also illustrated that knowledge sharing influenced employees’ innovative behaviour. The most important finding is the partial mediation of knowledge sharing in the organizational justice–innovative behaviour relationship. Originality/value This study tries to demystify the organisational justice–innovative behaviour relationship by highlighting knowledge sharing as an underlying mechanism. The existing theoretical framework that describes the effects of organisational justice is enriched.

Unraveling the relationship between workplace dignity and employees’ tacit knowledge sharing: the role of proactive motivation

“…Workplace dignity is mainly manifested in respectful interactions, recognition of one’s competence and contributions, feelings of being valued and equality at work (Thomas and Lucas, 2019; Tiwari and Sharma, 2019). Findings of current research corroborate the earlier empirical evidence which suggests that perception of fairness, equality and well-being and feelings of respect and being valued at work augment employees’ tendency to move beyond transactional obligations and exhibit extra-role and self-sacrificial behaviours (Eva et al , 2020; Jnaneswar and Ranjit, 2020) such as knowledge sharing (Jia et al , 2019; Gupta et al , 2021). In this way, the present investigation contributes to SET (Blau, 1964) by validating its core proposition which suggests that positive treatments perceived by employees at workplace prompt them to reciprocate with desirable behaviours.…”

“…Prior research suggests that such work characteristics are the reflection of positive treatment from colleagues and organization in terms of respect, care and trust (Luo, 2007). These positive treatments augment employees' perception of self-esteem and meaningful existence and thus stimulate positive social exchange process (Jnaneswar and Ranjit, 2020;Dayan et al, 2009) whereby employees are inclined to reciprocate with selfsacrificial, voluntary and extra-role behaviours (Bartel et al, 2012). Consistent with this reasoning, prior empirical evidence indicates that respect, care, well-being and fairness exhibited by work environment nurture positive social exchange process that make employees feel obligated to reciprocate such supportive treatments with discretionary and extra-role behaviours such as organizational citizenship behaviour (Eva et al, 2020), innovative behaviour (Jnaneswar and Ranjit, 2020) and knowledge sharing (Jia et al, 2019), particularly TKS (Gupta et al, 2021).…”

Organization justice, knowledge sharing and employees' innovative behavior: evidence from the knowledge-intensive industry

“…In other words, if employees perceive that they are treated fairly, in terms of outcomes, procedures, interactional communications about resources and decision-making, they are expected to be more encouraged to depict knowledge sharing. Furthermore, fairness in the organization boosts confidence and trust among employees, and employees reciprocate by demonstrating desirable behavior such as knowledge sharing (Khaola and Coldwell, 2019; Janeswar and Ranjit, 2020; Ye et al ., 2023). Knowledge sharing is key to success for employees at each and every state of innovative work behavior.…”

“…Although organizational justice has various definitions, organizational justice is considered as the extent of employees' perception of equality and fairness in the organizations they are working for (Pan et al, 2018;Greenberg, 1990). There are a large number of researches implies that organizational justice is crucial because it has significant effects on the employees' attitudes: job satisfaction (Hao et al, 2016), employee commitment (Aggarwal et al, 2022), turnover intention (Suifan et al, 2017;Kang and Sung, 2019) or employees' innovative behaviors (Janeswar and Ranjit, 2020;Khaola and Coldwell, 2019), that eventually result in work performance, work outcome (Sembiring et al, 2020;De Clercq and Pereira, 2020;Arab and Atan, 2018).…”

“…In today's turbulent business environment, innovation attracts more attention from academia and industry because it enables one to create and attain competitive advantages (Janeswar and Ranjit, 2020; Jada et al ., 2019). Innovation occurs through creating and implementing ideas at all levels in the organization.…”