An examination of the relationships among the justice facets, overall justice, strain, and intent to turnover in a military context

Abstract

A paucity of research exists on sources of organizational justice outside of supervisors and the organization itself. In addition, only recently have researchers begun to examine the construct of overall justice, despite its centrality in previous justice theory (e.g., Fairness Heuristic Theory; Lind, 2001). To address these shortfalls, I conducted a cross-sectional correlational study using a military sample to examine how the traditional justice facets (i.e., distributive justice, procedural justice, informational justice, and interpersonal justice), co-worker interpersonal justice, and overall justice perceptions relate to strain and intentions to turnover. Based on past research, I expected that a six-factor model of justice would best represent the data. I further proposed a path model in which overall justice would mediate the relationship between the justice facets and strain, and strain would mediate the relationship between overall justice and intentions to turnover. Structural Equation Modeling analyses provided support for my hypotheses. The results of this study suggest that justice evaluations from different sources (coworkers, supervisors and organizations) and at different levels (sub facets and overall justice) are related to strain and intentions to turnover. Limitations and implications of this research are discussed.