Illuminating the ‘Face’ of Justice: A Meta‐Analytic Examination of Leadership and Organizational Justice

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12402

Illuminating the ‘Face’ of Justice: A Meta-Analytic

Examination of Leadership and Organizational

Justice

Elizabeth P. Karam, Jinyu Hu, Robert B. Davison,

Matthew Juravich, Jennifer D. Nahrgang,

Stephen E. Humphrey and D. Scott DeRue

Texas Tech University; University of Nevada , Reno; University of Kansa s; The Universi ty of Akron;

Arizona Stat e University; Penn sylvania State University; Uni versity of Michiga n

ABST RACT A signif icant body of research has describ ed effective leader behaviours and has

connected these behaviour s to positive employee outcomes. However, this research has yet to

be systematica lly integrated with organi zational justice research to descr ibe how leader

behaviours inform ju stice perceptions. Therefore, we conduct a meta-analysis (k = 166,

N = 46,034) to investi gate how three types of leader behaviours (ta sk, relational, and change)

inform four dimensions of org anizational justice (pro cedural, distributive, inter personal, and

informational ) referenced to the leader and to the orga nization. Further, we examine the joint

impact of leader behaviours a nd justice perceptions on soc ial exchange quality (i.e., leader –

member exchange), task perform ance, and job satisfaction. Our results s uggest that leader

behaviours dif ferentially inform leader- and orga nization-focused justice perceptions, a nd the

joint effect of leader behaviours a nd justice perceptions offer more nuanced explanat ions for

outcomes.

Keywo rds: Leader behav iours, organi zational justice, meta-analysi s, social exchange theory

INTRODUCTION

Leadership is one of the most studied phenomenon in management (Cascio and Agu inis,

2008), and an extensive body of resea rch has examined t he behaviours that contrib-

ute to effective leadership (D inh et al., 2014). For exa mple, studies that have exam-

ined task leader behaviours (i.e., transactional leadership, contingent reward, i nitiating

structure) have articu lated that effective leaders def ine roles, solve problems, and plan

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:1 January 2019

doi: 10.1111/ jom s.124 02

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

Address for re prints: Elizab eth P. K aram, Rawls College of Busi ness, Texas Tech University, 703 Fli nt Ave,

Lubbock, TX 79 409-2101 (elizabeth. karam@ttu.edu).

Illuminat ing the ‘Face’ of Justice 135

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

activities ( Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978; Podsakoff et al., 2006; Yukl, 2012). Research into

relational leader behaviours (e.g., consideration, servant leadership, participat ive lead-

ership) describe how leaders demonstrate support and develop followers (Fleishma n,

1953; Greenleaf, 1977; Spreitzer, 2007; Yukl, 2012). Change leadership research (e.g.,

transformational, charismatic) has focused on how effective leaders in spire, develop a

vision, and encourage innovation ( Bass, 1985; Howell and Avolio, 1993; Yuk l, 2012).

The positive effects of leaders on employee attitudes and behaviours have been noted in

numerous conceptual and meta-analy tic reviews (e.g., DeRue et al., 2011; Gardner et al.,

2010; Judge et al., 2004). Indeed, this body of research contains deta iled descriptions of

what leaders do and how they affect indiv idual, team, and organi zational performance

outcomes.

A significant stream of organizational justice research has also examined the role of

the leader in employee assessments of (un)fair treatment (Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp and

Cropanzano, 2002; Rupp et al., 2014). This research has found that justice perceptions

of the leader (i.e., supervisor- or leader-focused justice), rather than perceptions of other

organizational entities (e.g., the organization itself), are most strongly related to employee

outcomes (Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp et al., 2014). This is not surprising given that an

employee’s relationship with his or her leader ‘may be the single most powerful con-

nection an employee can build in an organization’ (Hui et al., 2004, p. 233). Therefore,

justice research has identified the leader as an important source of justice (thereby an-

swering the question, who is responsible for the (un)just treatment?), yet this research has

not adequately answered the question of what behaviours the leader engages in to inform

justice perceptions. This has prompted Rupp and Aquino (2009) to suggest that justice

research is ‘ripe for integrative application’ with other theories so that more specific guid-

ance can be given to leaders about how to promote fairness in the workplace (p. 208).

Hence, one purpose of this study is to integrate research on leader behaviours with

organizational justice research to explicate the specific behaviours that leaders utilize to

inform justice perceptions. In doing so, we attempt to provide greater focus to the ‘face’

(i.e., the leader) of justice.

An increased understanding of the relationships between leader behaviours and jus-

tice perceptions is important for two reasons. First, employee-leader relationships are

often characterized as social exchange relationships and are distinguished from other

forms of exchanges by having expectations of longer-term, interdependent interactions

that generate trust, reciprocal behaviours, and high-quality relationships (Blau, 1964;

Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005; Mitchell et al., 2012). This dynamic, interactive re-

lationship suggests that employees’ justice perceptions may not be based exclusively on

the leader’s justice decisions, but that these perceptions may also be informed by a range

of the leader’s role-relevant behaviours. For this reason, examining only leader-focused

justice perceptions, particularly in relation to an explicit ‘event’ (e.g., a single episode such

as a performance appraisal), fails to consider the broader task, relational, and change in-

teractions between the leader and the employee and how these interactions may impact

justice assessments.

Second, studies that examine leader-focused justice commonly focus on research

questions related to either (a) investigating the unique effects of leader-focused justice

136 E. P. Karam et al.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

dimensions (i.e., procedural, distributive, interpersonal, informational justice) on organi-

zational outcomes (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2013; Frazier et al., 2010), or (b) exploring how

(un)fair treatment attributed to a leader is similar to or different from (un)fair treatment

attributed to others (e.g., the organization; Lavelle et al., 2009; Liao and Rupp, 2005).

This has produced a robust body of research informing scholars about which dimension

of justice is most strongly related to specific organizational outcomes, and how leader-

focused justice more strongly predicts affective and behavioural employee outcomes than

justice attributed to other organizational entities (Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp et al., 2014).

However, research has neglected to explore the specific behaviours of the leader that

relate to these justice dimensions.

The second purpose of this study is to assess the joint effects of leader ship and justice

in explaining social exchange quality (i.e., leader-member exchange, LMX) and em-

ployee outcomes (i.e., task performance and job satisfaction). Accumulated meta-an-

alytic research to date has found that leader behaviours and justice perceptions have

similar relationships with employee outcomes. For example, the effect size estimate

for the relationship between leader-focused justice perceptions and task performance

reported in a leader behaviour meta-analysis is .28 (Podsakoff et al., 2006), whereas

organizational justice meta-analyses have reported this relationship to range from .16

to .27 (Colquitt et al., 2013; Rupp et al., 2014). Therefore, existing research has ex-

amined the independent relationships of leader behaviours and justice perceptions

with employee outcomes, but not the joint effects nor the relative importance of these

predictors when considered together. This is a striking omission given that this exam-

ination would provide a more comprehensive view of the effects of a leader’s decisions

and behaviours.

Thus, we integrate leadership research with organizational justice research to explore

how leader behaviours inform justice perceptions. Then, we conduct a meta-analysis (k

= 166, N = 46,034) to provide effect size estimates of the relationships between leader

behaviours and justice dimensions, and we examine the joint effects of leadership and

justice on LMX, task performance, and job satisfaction. We find that task, relational, and

change leader behaviours differentially inform procedural, distributive, interpersonal,

and informational justice perceptions. Additionally, combined leader behaviours and

justice perceptions offer a more nuanced explanation for the relationships with social

exchange quality and performance outcomes as compared to considering only the inde-

pendent effects of leadership behaviours or justice on outcomes.

Using meta-analysis for this study has several strengths including serving as a tool

for theory development related to effective leader behaviours and organizational justice

(Combs et al., 2011; Hunter and Schmidt, 2004). Therefore, we develop new theory

that describes how leader behaviours have direct implications for justice perceptions.

We point to the omission of, and the need for, current leadership theories to clearly ar-

ticulate the importance of fairness in leader behaviours, and we describe how taking a

more comprehensive view of the decisions and behaviours of the leader, by integrating

leader behaviours and justice perceptions, is critical to accurately assessing the impact of

a leader on employee outcomes.