The Impacts of Employee Benefits, Procedural Justice, and Managerial Trustworthiness on Work Attitudes: Integrated Understanding Based on Social Exchange Theory

Date01 March 2014
AuthorJaekwon Ko,SeungUk Hur
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12160
Published date01 March 2014
Jaekwon Ko earned a doctoral degree
in the Center for Public Administration and
Policy at Virginia Tech. His research interests
include human resource management,
organizational theory, public management,
and contracting.
E-mail: jaekk75@vt.edu
SeungUk Hur is a doctoral student in
the Center for Public Administration and
Policy at Virginia Tech. His research interests
include organizational theory, organiza-
tional culture, and leadership.
E-mail: seunguk@vt.edu
176 Public Administration Review • March | April 2014
Public Administration Review,
Vol. 74, Iss. 2, pp. 176–187. © 2013 by
The American Society for Public Administration.
DOI: 10.1111/puar.12160.
Jaekwon Ko
SeungUk Hur
Virginia Tech
Recent public management literature has emphasized
the inf‌l uence of human resource management (HRM)
policies, including traditional benef‌i ts, family-friendly
benef‌i ts, procedural justice, and managerial trustworthi-
ness, on work attitudes. However, little research in public
administration has explored more detailed impacts of
each HRM policy.  is article provides an integrated
understanding of the impacts of HRM policies using
social exchange theory. In addition, the moderating
impacts of procedural justice and managerial trustwor-
thiness on the relationship between employee benef‌i ts and
work attitudes are examined. Using the Federal Human
Capital Survey 2008 data set, the authors f‌i nd that
two types of employee benef‌i ts, procedural justice, and
managerial trustworthiness are positively related to job
satisfaction, whereas family-friendly benef‌i ts, manage-
rial trustworthiness, and procedural justice are negatively
associated with turnover intention.  e implications of
these f‌i ndings are thoroughly discussed.
The impact of human resource management
(HRM) policies on work attitudes has been
an important topic in the f‌i elds of HRM and
organizational psychology. Ef‌f ective management of
human resources has been emphasized, as scholars
believe that human resources are organizations’ most
important assets and that the development of human
resources of‌f ers competitive advantages. To achieve
ef‌f ective human resource management, public orga-
nizations have adopted various strategies, including
extensive training and development, regular perfor-
mance appraisals, performance-contingent rewards,
improved communication, increased empowerment,
employee benef‌i ts, fair treatment, improvement in
the employment relationship, and so on. Focusing
on employee benef‌i ts, this article explores the direct
impact of these benef‌i ts on work attitudes and how
employees’ relationships with their organizations and
leaders serve to moderate the impact of employee
benef‌i ts on work attitudes.
In order to improve work attitudes, public organi-
zations provide traditional benef‌i ts such as health
insurance, life insurance, and retirement benef‌i ts, as
well as family-friendly benef‌i ts consisting of child
care and alternative work schedules (Newman and
Mathews 1999). In particular, during the last several
decades, we have witnessed the dramatic growth of
family-friendly benef‌i ts designed to support employ-
ees who are faced with work–life conf‌l icts (Lee and
Hong 2011; Saltzstein, Ting, and Saltzstein 2001).
HRM policies in public organizations are under
pressure to respond to changes in family structure,
which have increased workforce diversity (Roberts
2000). For example, there has been a rapid change
in women’s participation in the labor force since the
last half of the twentieth century. Female represen-
tation in administrative and professional jobs has
shifted noticeably in the past several decades. For
example, between October 1996 and October 2006,
the percentage of women holding administrative or
professional positions rose from 47.2 percent to 58.5
percent.1 With regard to working mothers, Ezra and
Deckman (1996) indicate that the percentage of
women with children under six years of age increased
from less than 19 percent in 1960 to 60 percent in
1990. In addition, the percentage of women in the
workforce with children between ages 6 and 17 rose
from 39 percent to 75 percent during the period
from 1960 to 1990. In the United States in 2008, 71
percent of women with children under 18 years of age
were employed, and among married couples, almost
60 percent reported that both spouses were employed
(U.S. Department of Labor 2010).
e changing demographics of the workforce mean
that employees now have greater responsibilities aris-
ing from their family life, in addition to the tradi-
tional concerns regarding success in the workplace. As
a result, public organizations have adopted a variety of
family-friendly work practices, such as f‌l extime, f‌l ex
site, telework, job sharing, part-time employment,
child care, elder care, maternity leave, and family leave
(Lee and Hong 2011; Newman and Mathews 1999).
However, as public organizations react to increasing
f‌i nancial dif‌f‌i culties, downsizing pay and benef‌i ts has
e Impacts of Employee Benef‌i ts, Procedural Justice,
and Managerial Trustworthiness on Work Attitudes:
Integrated Understanding Based on Social Exchange  eory

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