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Manager Trustworthiness or Interactional Justice? Predicting Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

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Abstract

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are essential for effective organizational functioning. Decisions by employees to engage in these important discretionary behaviors are based on how they make sense of the organizational context. Using fairness heuristic theory, we tested two important OCB predictors: manager trustworthiness and interactional justice. In the process, we control for the effects of dispositional factors (propensity to trust) and for system-based organizational fairness (procedural and distributive justice). Results, based on surveys collected from 120 employee–supervisor dyads, indicate that manager trustworthiness explains variance in OCBs over and above the variance accounted for by interactional fairness. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2006 Annual Academy of Management Meeting in Atlanta, GA. We extend our thanks to Linda Treviño and Jennifer Kish Gephart, who provided comments on a previous draft of the manuscript.

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  1. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Dan S. Chiaburu & Audrey S. Lim

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  1. Dan S. Chiaburu
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Correspondence to Dan S. Chiaburu.

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Chiaburu, D.S., Lim, A.S. Manager Trustworthiness or Interactional Justice? Predicting Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. J Bus Ethics 83, 453–467 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-007-9631-x

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