The relationship between justice and commitment: the moderation of trust

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether distributive justice interacts with procedural justice to influence affective commitment; whether organizational trust moderates the relationships of affective commitment with these two justice perceptions; and whether organizational trust moderates the interactive effect of justice perceptions on affective commitment.

This study administered both paper and online surveys to university employees from China, South Korea, and Australia, obtaining 706 usable responses from 65 universities. Hierarchical regressions were employed to test hypotheses for each country. The patterns of results were compared across nations.

It was found that in Australia, but not in South Korea and China, distributive justice interacted with procedural justice to influence affective commitment. Results also revealed that in Australia, organizational trust moderated the relationship between affective commitment and distributive justice but not the relationship between affective commitment and procedural justice. By contrast, in South Korea and China, organizational trust had no moderating effect on justice-commitment relationships.

Although this study was limited due to the use of self-report data and the focus of a single type of organization, it provides relatively new cross-cultural evidence regarding justice effects and the role of trust in the Asia Pacific region.

This study is among the first to provide empirical evidence of a moderating effect of trust on justice-outcome relationships. It is also one of the first to cross-culturally investigate the interactive effect of distributive justice and procedural justice, with an additional focus on trust’s moderation role.