Organizational change and organizational justice: Assessing the impact on organizational commitment, change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, and attitude toward future change

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organizational change and organizational justice perceptions and their impact on organizational commitment, change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, and attitude toward future change. The sample for the cross-sectional field study included 209 respondents from all organizational levels. Based on the results of this study, organizational justice is best represented by the four-factor model comprised of distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, and informational justice. Personal valence of global change was found to be negatively correlated with affective commitment and openness toward future change. In addition, personal valence of work change was found to be negatively correlated with openness toward future change. Therefore, change that was perceived to be personally detrimental reduced levels of affective commitment to the organization and openness toward future change, whereas change that was perceived to be personally beneficial increased levels of affective commitment to the organization and openness toward future change.;It was hypothesized that organizational justice would moderate the negative relationship between personal valence of change and organizational commitment, change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, and attitude toward future change; however these hypotheses were not supported. Additional exploratory analyses revealed that the relationship between personal valence of global change and affective commitment was fully mediated by distributive justice, procedural justice, informational justice, and interactional justice. Furthermore, informational justice explained unique variance in affective commitment above and beyond all other justice dimensions. This study confirms that management practices that are perceived as fair will reap the benefits of positive organizational outcomes. Regardless of the change model used to implement organizational change, it is recommended to use the organizational justice framework to increase the successfulness of the change effort in the long run. Implications of the findings are discussed along with directions for future research.