Study On The Relationships Of Organizational Justice, Employee Voice And Work Outcomes: Moderated By The Chinese Traditionality

Budd pointed out in his research that the goals of employee-employerrelationship are organizational justice, voice, and efficiency (Budd, 2004). As theoutcome variable of efficiency, work outcomes have received extensive attentionfrom the scholars. However, the current researches mostly focus on the antecedents ofwork outcomes, including the factors from the individual, leadership, andorganizational levels. Out of these, the impacts from organizational justice andemployee voice have been overlooked. The systematic theoretical analysis andempirical studies on their relationships are also needed.There have been studies exploring the relationship between organizational justiceand work outcomes, as well as the three dimensions of distributive justice, proceduraljustice, and interactional justice. However, the focuses of these studies have mostlybeen on the direct effects of organizational justice, but lacking the buffer model andmediating effect researches. Meanwhile, the systematic theoretical analysis andempirical studies on distinguishing the three dimensions are also needed. As for theemployee voice, the past studies have been fallen into the problem of mixing up theconcepts and measures of voice perception and voice behavior, and lacking thedefinition and distinction of them. Apart from this, there also should be studiesexploring the ancedenting and mediator role of employee voice. Some studies showedthat employee voice could be the buffer between organizational justice and workoutcomes as mediator, which is the basis of the theoretical model of this paper.Besides, even though there have been some calls for exporing the relationshipsof organizational justice, employee voice, and work outcomes, the current researchesare mostly conducted on the basis of social exchange theory from western contexts. Because of the significant differences from western countries, the Chinese culture andsocial context will affect the universality of social exchange theory. So there is anurgent need to examine the boundary conditions of the relationships among justice,voice, and outcomes in the Chinese context, which has important theoretical andpractical significance.In order to solve the aboved problems and gaps, this study explores therelationship of organizational justice, employee voice, and work outcomes on thebasis of past literatures and theories. First, this paper examines the effects oforganizational justice and its dimensions on work outcomes, and then the mediatingeffect of employee voice between justice and outcomes. Secondly, throughexploratory research and empirical study, this study tests the moderating effect oftraditionality on the relationship of organizational justice, employee voice, and workoutcomes.Through the regression equation by means of 876 valid questionnaires for dataanalysis, the results show that: 1, organizational justice and its three dimensions havepositive impacts on work outcomes. 2, organizational justice and its three dimensionshave positive impacts on employee voice. 3, employee voice and its dimensions havepositive impacts on work outcomes. 4, employee voice plays a mediating rolebetween the relationship of organizational justice and work outcomes. 5, for theemployees with higher traditionality, the impacts of organizational justice on workoutcomes are stronger. 6, for the employees with higher traditionality, the impacts oforganizational justice on employee voice are stronger. 7, for the employees withhigher traditionality, the impacts of employee voice on work outcomes are stronger.The following are the conclusions of this study: 1, organizational justice not onlyhas a direct, but also has an indirect effect on work outcomes through employee voice;employee voice can reveal the mechanism how the organizational justice affects thework outcomes. Therefore, the theoretical model which is presented in this paper canbe supported. 2, the three dimensions of organizational justice and two dimensions ofemployee voice have distinct effects on work outcomes. 3, the Chinese traditionality plays a moderating role between relationships of organizational justice-workoutcomes, organizational justice-employee voice, and employee voice-workoutcomes.Theoretical significance of this study is as below: providing a new theoreticalmodel to understand the relationships between organizational justice, employee voice,and work outcomes; discussing the mechanism that organizational justice can impactwork outcomes through employee voice, which enriches the studies on voice;revealing the boundary condition that can influnce the relationship amongorganizational justice, employee voice, and work outcomes, which is traditionality.Practical significance of this study is reflected in following aspects: managersshould realize the different effects of three dimensions of organizational justice, andfoster the justice atmosphere correspondingly; managers and scholars should alsorecoganize the distinction of voice perception and voice behavior so that organizationcan pay attention to the opportunity and instrumentality of voice that employeeperceive; besides, practitioners should pay more attention to the cultural tradition, andtake diverse incentives to motivate employees in order to improve theemployee-organization relationship.