Using self-definition to predict the influence of procedural justice on organizational, interpersonal, and job/task oriented citizenship behaviors

Abstract

An integrative self-definition model is proposed to improve our understanding of how procedural justice affects different outcome modalities in organizational behavior. Specifically, it is examined whether the strength of different levels of self-definition (collective, relational, and individual) each uniquely interact with procedural justice to predict organizational, interpersonal, and job/task oriented citizenship behaviors respectively. Results from experimental and (both single and multisource) field data consistently revealed stronger procedural justice effects (1) on organizational oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves strongly in terms of organizational characteristics, (2) on interpersonal oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves strongly in terms of their interpersonal relationships, and (3) on job/task oriented citizenship behavior among those who define themselves weakly in terms of their distinctiveness/uniqueness. We discuss the relevance of these results with respect to how employees can be motivated most effectively in organizational settingsstatus: publishe