The relationship among leadership style, decision making, and organizational justice

Organizational justice has been linked to variables such as organizational commitment, organizational citizenship, job satisfaction, and performance (Colquitt, 2002; Tatum, Bradberry, Eberlin, & Kottraba, 2002). Additionally, recent literature suggests that there is an intimate link between leadership style, decision making, and organizational justice (Tatum, Eberlin, Kottraba, & Bradberry, 2003). These theoretical relationships purported by Tatum et al. (2003) while plausible, had little empirical evidence to support them. It was the aim of the current study to examine these theoretical relationships and provide more empirical support.;Two-hundred and sixty-one participants (96 males and 165 females), from a variety of industries, racial categories, occupational levels, and location, were used to test the hypotheses in the current study. Participation occurred entirely on-line. The participants read one of four vignettes and then responded to a questionnaire that asked them to rate the manager in the vignette on leadership style (transactional versus transformational), decision making style (comprehensive versus restrictive), and the extent to which the manager promoted a sense of fairness and organizational justice. The implementation of a forced choice compliance allowed for all two-hundred and sixty-one participants to be included in the final analyses.;It was hypothesized that there would be a significant two-way interaction between leadership style and organizational justice, such that the transactional leader as compared to the transformational leader would demonstrate higher structural justice ratings, and that the transformational leader as compared to the transactional leader would demonstrate higher social justice ratings. A significant two-way interaction between leadership style and justice emerged, but there were no significant differences for a transactional or transformational leadership style between structural and social justice.;It was further hypothesized that there would be a significant two-way interaction between decision making style and organizational justice, such that the a restricted decision making style as compared to a comprehensive decision making style would demonstrate higher structural justice ratings, and that a comprehensive decision making style as compared to a restricted decision making style would demonstrate higher social justice ratings. There was a significant two-way interaction between decision making style and justice, but this hypothesis was only partially supported. A comprehensive decision making style as compared to a restricted decision making style yielded significantly higher mean values for social justice.;A significant interaction between decision making and leadership style was also hypothesized; but the predicted relationship was only partially supported. It was demonstrated that a comprehensive decision making style as compared to a restricted decision making style yielded significantly higher mean values for transformational leadership.;There was no significant three-way interaction among leadership style, decision making style, and organizational justice hypothesized; however some interesting patterns did emerged. Both the transactional and transformational leaders who utilized a comprehensive decision making style over a restricted decision making style yielded the anticipated higher mean values for social justice.;While not hypothesized in the current study, Greenberg's (1993) four factor taxonomy of organizational justice was supported. Exploratory analyses revealed that there were no significant effects for gender. However, a significant two-way interaction between occupational level and leadership rating emerged. Furthermore, there was a three-way interaction among occupational level, leadership style, and decision making. In general, the study found that organizational justice, leadership style, and decision making style are interconnected in ways that are consistent with relationships proposed by Tatum, et al. (2003).