The Relationship between Organizational Justice and

International Journal of Basic Sciences & Applied Research. Vol., 4 (5), 255-259, 2015
Available online at http://www.isicenter.org
ISSN 2147-3749 ©2015
The Relationship between Organizational Justice and Organizational
Commitment of Physical Education Teachers of Tabriz
Ali Rajabi1,2, Mohammad Rahim Najafzadeh1,2*
1
Department of Physical Education, East Azarbaijan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz,
Iran
2
Department of Physical Education, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran
*
Corresponding Author Email: najafzadehrahim@yahoo.com
Abstract
The aim of conducting this research is determining the relationship between organizational
justice and organizational commitment of physical education teachers of Tabriz. The
research method is descriptive-correlative. The population included all physical education
teachers of Tabriz, among which 181 individuals participated in the research. Data
collection tools were organizational justice inventory by Niehoff and Moorman and Allen
and Meyer organizational commitment questionnaire. Pearson correlation coefficient was
used for data analysis. Results showed that there was a significant correlation between three
components of organizational justice, affective organizational commitment, normative
organizational commitment and continuance organizational commitment. It is suggested to
managers of physical education to use strategies for increasing organizational justice in
order to increase the organizational commitment of physical education teachers
Keywords: Organizational justice, Organizational commitment, Physical education teachers.
Introduction
Organization is a social system and its life and sustainability depends on existence of a strong link between its
constituent parts and elements. Perception of unfairness has destructive effects on the spirit of teamwork; because it
affects the efforts and motivation of employees. Unfairness and unfair distribution of achievements and outputs of the
organization weakens the employees’ morale and decrease their spirit of making efforts and doing activities; thus
observing justice is the key to survival and sustainability of development and progress of the organization and its
employees (Seyed Javadin et al., 2008). During the history, justice has always been discussed as an essential need for
the social life of human beings. Nowadays regarding the comprehensive and multidimensional role of justice in the
social life of human beings, its role has become more obvious than ever. Since a long time ago experts in social
sciences have known about the importance of justice as the basic and necessary pillars of effectiveness of actions and
performances. Such importance of justice in organizations is not unexpected; because it is claimed that justice is the
first factor of health of social institutions. Organizational justice is a term used for describing the role of justice which is
directly related to job positions; especially it is discussed in organizational justice that what methods should be used for
dealing with employees so that they feel that they are being treated fairly (Yaghoubi et al., 2009). Studying and
surveying justice in organization has resulted in detecting three different components of justice in organization
including distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. Distributive justice refers to the fairness of
outcomes and results received by employees. This type of organizational justice is rooted in the equity theory.
This theory pays attention to the answering method of individuals regarding the interventions and unfair behaviors
of managers and supervisors in distributing facilities and rewards in organizations (Eric G et al., 2007). Procedural
justice points out the fairness in procedures evaluating performance. Procedural justice is defined as the perceived
fairness of procedures and processes by which the outcomes are allocated. This dimension of justice emphasizes on
methods and procedures during which the decisions related to outcomes are made. Procedures are perceived to be fair
when they are used constantly and regardless of personal benefits and based on specific base and information and when
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they consider the interests of all participatory parts of organization and also when the ethical standards and norms are
observed. By increasing the perception of procedural justice the employees will have a positive idea about the superiors
and the organization; even if they complain about the payments, promotions and even if they use other personal
messages (Pool W., 2005).
Procedural justice focuses on the personal aspect of organizational actions especially behavior and
communications between management and employees. Interactional justice focuses on the behaviors of supervisors and
their role in observing the organizational justice and conceptually it is similar to informal quality of behavior. This
dimension of justice includes the interpersonal behaviors or perceived level of fairness of behavior of employees in an
organization. Interactional justice less includes the formal dimensions of interactions (James, 2008). Organizational
commitment has been widely studied by different researches and different definitions have been provided for it.
Mowday et al state that organizational commitment is the amount of power and identity an individual feels with its
organization. In another definition it has been said that organizational commitment is the feeling of attachment and
dependence of an individual to the organization. The common thread in different definitions of organizational justice is
the term attachment, dependence or link between individual and organization. Generally researchers have detected three
types of commitment which result in organizational commitment: affective commitment, normative commitment and
continuance commitment (Handlon, 2009); in the following lines these three types of commitment are explained.
Affective commitment is the most important element of organizational commitment. Affective commitment is
defined as the individual’s attachment to or dependence on the organization. Normative commitment is the second
concept and element creating organizational commitment. Normative commitment is defined as a kind of commitment
and obligation which directs employees toward this feeling to stay at the organization (Chang & Lin, 2008).
Researchers have found out that normative commitment is not guided by the level of payment, education or age; rather
it is a mutual trust that creates the obligation and commitment for staying. In a research Allen & Meyer stated that
organizations trying to create a culture that expects the employees to be loyal to the organization have higher chances of
having employees with high normative commitment. Normative commitment results in increasing the trust in the
organization and it is an important factor for stimulating individuals to participate in the organization. Normative
commitment is highly related to job satisfaction. Also researchers found out that employees who have high normative
commitment stay at the organization because they feel that ethically this is the right thing to do. In a study, Wiener
(1982) stated that individual’s internal ethics and organizational culture guide the employees’ normative commitment
(Quoted by Handlon, 2009). Continuance commitment is the third component of organizational commitment.
Continuance commitment is defined as a need for staying with one organization because of the high costs of turnover.
Allen and Meyer state that continuance commitment is created based on two factors: number or amount of investment
and the importance of that investment. Employees stay at the organization because they think that probably the costs of
turnover are very high (Handlon, 2009). Thus the current research tries to answer this question that is there a
relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment of physical education teachers or not.
Methodology
The research method was descriptive-correlative. The population included all physical education teachers of
Tabriz with the number of 334 individuals; and based on Morgan table 181 individuals randomly participated in this
research. The predictor variable was organizational justice and criterion variable was organizational commitment. At
the research implementation stage, after providing introductory explanations about the measuring tools and aim of
conducting the test, the answering method was fully explained to participants. Regarding the ethical considerations,
after obtaining their testimonials, and providing enough information, they were assured that the received information
would be only used in this research and they would be protected from all sorts of abuse. The following questionnaires
were used for measuring research variables.
Organizational Justice Inventory: This inventory was designed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) and it includes
20 questions which measures three dimensions of organizational justice (distributive justice, procedural justice and
interactional justice) and items are graded based on a 5-degree Likert scale. In a research Nadiri & Tanoa (2010)
achieved the validity of the questionnaire through Cronbach alpha; for distributive justice it was 0.91, for procedural
justice it was 0.92, for interactional justice it was 0.76 and for overall organizational justice it was 0.94, which indicates
acceptable reliability for the questionnaire (Quoted by Etebarian, 2010).
Organizational Commitment questionnaire: This questionnaire was designed by Allen & Meyer (1990) and it
includes 24 questions by which three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective commitment, continuance
commitment and normative commitment) are measured. Items are graded based on a 5-degree Likert scale. In a
research Schneider (2003) showed that questions of organizational commitment had desirable validity. Its reliability
was equal to 0.81 and generally, it showed acceptable reliability of the questionnaire (Quoted by Dehghanian, 2013).
Validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by professors and experts. Reliability of the questionnaires was surveyed
by the use of Cronbach alpha and the achieved coefficients were 0.91 and 0.84 respectively for organizational justice
and organizational commitment which indicate the desirable reliability of measuring tools. Pearson correlation
coefficient was used for data analysis. In all analyses the significance level was p≤0.05.
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Results
Table 1 shows the mean and standard deviation of research variables.
Table 1. Statistical description of research variables.
Variable
Distributive justice
Procedural justice
Interactional justice
Organizational justice
Affective commitment
Continuance commitment
Normative commitment
Organizational
commitment
No. of Items
5
6
9
20
8
8
8
24
Mean
10.97
13.44
20.62
45.04
12.03
17.25
19.65
48.94
SD
4.28
5.90
8.83
15.60
5.75
6.98
8.84
16.59
Change Range
13
18
24
46
26
25
24
61
Minimum
4
4
6
20
4
4
6
21
Maximum
17
22
30
66
30
29
30
82
Pearson correlation coefficient showed a significant correlation between organizational justice and organizational
commitment (r= 0.9, p≤0.05). Also, the correlation between component of procedural justice and organizational
commitment was surveyed. The results achieved from Pearson correlation showed that there was a significant
correlation between component of procedural justice and affective organizational commitment (r= 0.26). Thus it could
be concluded that by increasing the procedural justice the affective organizational commitment increases and by
decreasing the procedural justice the affective organizational commitment decreases. Also there was a significant
correlation between procedural justice and normative organizational commitment (r= 0.16); which means that by
increasing the procedural justice the normative organizational commitment increases and by decreasing the procedural
justice the normative organizational commitment decreases; and ultimately, there was a significant correlation between
procedural justice and continuance organizational commitment (r= 0.64); which means that by increasing procedural
justice the continuance organizational commitment increases and by increasing the procedural justice the continuance
organizational commitment decreases (Table 2).
Table 2. Correlation between procedural justice and dimensions of commitment.
Independent variable
Procedural justice
Dependent variable
Affective organizational commitment
Normative organizational commitment
Continuance organizational commitment
r
0.26*
0.16*
0.64*
p
0.000
0.026
0.000
No. of observations
181
181
181
*
p≤0.05
Other results showed that there was a significant correlation between component of distributive justice and affective
organizational commitment. It could be concluded that by increasing the distributive justice, the affective organizational
commitment increases and by decreasing the distributive justice the amount of affective organizational commitment
decreases. Also there was a positive and significant correlation between component of distributive justice and
normative organizational commitment. It could be said that by increasing the distributive justice the amount of
normative organizational commitment increases and by decreasing the distributive justice the normative organizational
commitment decreases; and ultimately there was a significant correlation between component of distributive justice and
continuance organizational commitment and the correlation coefficient was (r= 0.15); which means that by increasing
the distributive justice the amount of continuance organizational commitment increases and by decreasing the
distributive justice the amount of continuance organizational commitment decreases (Table 3).
Table 3. Results of correlation between two variables of distributive justice and dimensions of organizational
commitment.
Independent variable
Distributive justice
Dependent variable
Affective organizational commitment
Normative organizational commitment
Continuance organizational commitment
r
0.64*
0.23*
0.15*
p
0.000
0.000
0.041
No. of observations
181
181
181
*p≤0.05
Other analyses showed that there was a significant correlation between component of interactional justice and affective
organizational commitment; which means that by increasing the interactional justice the amount of affective
organizational commitment increases and by decreasing the interactional justice the amount of affective organizational
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commitment decreases. Also there was a significant correlation between component of interactional justice and
normative organizational commitment. And ultimately, there was a positive and significant correlation between
component of interactional justice and continuance organizational commitment; which means that by increasing
interactional justice the amount of continuance organizational commitment increases and by decreasing the interactional
justice the amount of continuance organizational commitment decreases (Table 4).
Table 4. Results of correlation between two variables of interactional justice and dimensions of organizational
commitment.
Independent variable
Interactional justice
Dependent variable
Affective organizational commitment
Normative organizational commitment
Continuance organizational commitment
r
0.21**
0.88**
0.63*
p
0.000
0.000
0.000
No. of observations
181
181
181
*
p≤0.05
Discussion and Conclusion
The aim of conducting this research was surveying the correlation between dimensions of organizational justice
and organizational commitment of physical education teachers of Tabriz. Results showed that there was a positive and
significant correlation between all dimensions of organizational justice and all dimensions of organizational
commitment. These findings were consistent with research results of Moghimi (2005), Zarifi et al (2011), Moorman
(1991), McFarlin & Sweeney (1992), Carash & Spector (2001), Yavuz (2010), Shen et al (2010), Fatt et al (2010),
Jennifer (2011) and Ren (2011). Their results showed that there was a positive and significant correlation between
components of organizational justice and organizational commitment and its three dimensions. Since the most
important and valuable capital of an organization is its human capital and the more attention paid to this valuable capital
the more success the organization will have, thus the managers should try to create organizational justice in order to
achieve employees’ commitment. The more fair relationships in the workplace the more the probability of development
of organizational justice will be. If the workplace is full of injustice and high social injustice, then the development of
organizational justice will be harder. Based on these findings it could be said that increasing the organizational justice
increases the organizational commitment and decreasing organizational justice decreases the organizational
commitment. It is suggested to managers, authorities and experts of physical education in Tabriz to pay attention to the
fact that developing and preserving fair behaviors, creating a sense and perception of justice in organization and
employees are necessary for increasing the employees’ positive attitudes, commitment, loyalty, motivations for efforts
and individual and team performances. The more the amount of employees’ organizational justice the more the effect
on the organizational commitment will be and it results in improving the organizational commitment which ultimately
results in increasing effectiveness and performance of organizational activities. Thus these results indicate that physical
education managers should use the suggested strategies to increase the amount of organizational justice and
organizational commitment of employees. Managers could have a significant role in empowering employees, recruiting
competent individuals, creating a system of meritocracy, creating job safety, making employees participate in decision
makings and helping them develop their capabilities and increasing the organizational justice and improving the
employees’ organizational commitment.
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