When Employees Experience Low Levels of Job Autonomy, Fair Procedures Buffer Unfair Outcomes

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Occupational Health Psychology
• Workplace Wellbeing Research

Background:

• Organizations aim to enhance employee wellbeing through fair practices.
• Procedural justice may buffer negative effects when distributive justice is low.
• Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings on the interaction between distributive and procedural justice.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate job autonomy as a boundary condition for the interplay between distributive justice and procedural justice on wellbeing.
• To examine the three-way interaction of distributive justice, procedural justice, and job autonomy on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion.

Main Methods:

• Cross-sectional data collected from Dutch employees across two studies (N=411 and N=1117).
• Validated self-report measures used for distributive justice, procedural justice, job autonomy, job satisfaction, and emotional exhaustion.
• Statistical analysis to test the hypothesized three-way interaction effect.

Main Results:

• A significant three-way interaction was found for job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion in Study 1.
• A significant three-way interaction was observed for emotional exhaustion in Study 2.
• Simple slopes analysis indicated that the interaction between distributive and procedural justice significantly predicted wellbeing for employees with low job autonomy, but not for those with high job autonomy.

Conclusions:

• Job autonomy acts as a crucial boundary condition influencing the relationship between justice perceptions and employee wellbeing.
• The findings highlight the importance of considering job autonomy when implementing fairness strategies to promote employee wellbeing.
• Implications for workplace practices and the differential impact on employees with varying levels of job autonomy are discussed.