상호작용 공정성과 과업성과:리더인정 및 심리적 계약의 매개효과

Researchers studying the concept of justice in the workplace have linked fair treatment to a number of beneficial employee attitudes and behaviors. Some of those studies have focused on distributive justice, which reflects the perceived fairness of decision outcomes. Other studies have concentrated on procedural justice which is the perceived fairness of the decision-making processes. Still other researchers have focused on interactional justice, which means the quality of the interpersonal treatment people receive when procedures are implemented. When compared to distributive justice and procedural justice, interactional justice has “day-in day-out” significance that the other justice dimensions may not possess. That is, whereas the concepts of distributive and procedural justice are somewhat bounded as relatively infrequent types of exchanges, interactional justice can be judged in virtually any encounter between supervisors and subordinates. Therefore, employee’s reactions, such as task performance, are expected to be more directly influenced by interactional justice. Despite the theoretical implication and practical importance of interactional justice in organizational settings, scholars have devoted relatively little attention to the interactional justice-task performance relationship. In addition, the existing organizational research on interactional justice and task performance,mostly conducted in the West, has showed relatively mixed results, with some studies demonstrating a significant relationship and others failing to support the linkage. One possible interpretation of the unclear relationship is that from a cultural standpoint, westerners concentrate more on the rules and procedures of the organization (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001), and so are less sensitive to supervisor-related justice. In contrast, Asians emphasize interpersonal relationships, respect for authority, and dependence on superiors (Tripathi, 1990), and are, therefore, more sensitive to interactional justice. In other words, a study of the relationship between interactional justice and task performance in an Asian context could yield informative results to both add to and explain the body of existing literature. In particular, researchers still do not adequately understand the mechanisms through which interactional justice affects an employee’s task performance due to the mixed results found in the existing literature. According to leadership and psychological contract literature, leader endorsement and psychological contract fulfillment play a mediating role in the relationship between interactional justice and task performance. Based on that premise, for this study we developed and empirically tested the following hypotheses:H1: Interactional justice is positively related to task performance. H2: Leader endorsement mediates the relationship between interactional justice and task performance. H3: Psychological contract fulfillment mediates the relationship between interactional justice and task performance. Separate employee and supervisor surveys were conducted on 360 employee-supervisor dyads from several Korean organizations in Seoul and the Chungcheong area. Employee surveys assessed organizational justice, leader endorsement, and psychological contract fulfillment, while supervisor surveys evaluated task performance. In the employee sample, 74% were men and the average age was 34.7 years (SD = 5.9). Around 51% of the respondents had at least a bachelor’s degree and their average tenure was 6.5 years (SD = 5.3). In the supervisor sample, 93% were men and the average age was 44.3 years (SD = 5.5). Approximately 53% of the respondents had at least a bachelor’s degree and their average tenure was 12.4 years (SD = 7.3). In the data analysis,several demographic variables were controlled for in order to rule out alternative explanations for the findings, and distributive justice and procedural justice were used as control variables to investigate the unique effect of interactional justice on task performance. A seven-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree) was used to survey all of the items except demography, and a total of 255 matched dyadic data points was the basis for hierarchical regression analysis of our hypotheses. Specifically, we adopted the three tests suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986) to explore the mediating roles of leader endorsement and psychological contract fulfillment. Controlling for distributive and procedural justice, results indicated a positive relationship between interactional justice and task performance. In addition, we found that leader endorsement and psychological contract fulfillment fully mediated the effect of interactional justice on task performance. Therefore, all hypotheses were supported. Several theoretical and practical implications can be drawn from this research. First, the study provides empirical evidence of the positive effect of interactional justice on task performance. In particular, the results provide new consideration for understanding the interactional justice-task performance relationship in the Asian context, specifically in Korea, where task performance appears to be influenced by interactional justice through leader endorsement and psychological contract fulfillment. This research is not free from limitations. First, the cross-sectional research design precluded any inference of causality. Second, other variables that may be potential mediators or may have impact on task performance were omitted in our research design. For this reason there is scope for future research to examine other variables expected to mediate the effect of interactional justice on task performance, as well as consider potential moderators.