Abstract

Purpose – This study seeks to examine the impact of distributive justice on employee’s

satisfaction with collectivism as a culture moderating the relationship between them.

Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative research methodology is adopted.

Findings –Literature indicates that distributive justice is strongly related to job

satisfaction of employee in an organization and collectivism moderates this relationship.

Research limitations/implications – Being our first qualitative exploratory study, this

study only looks at the unique effects of distributive justice on employee’s job

satisfaction. It is recommended that future studies in this area continue to explore the

unique effects of distribution justice on other work related attitudes, such as

organizational commitment, employee’s evaluations of supervisors, or intend to leave an

organization.

Practical implications – Distributive justice is an important predictor of two personal

outcomes pay satisfaction and job satisfaction in an organization.

Originality/value –The purpose of the present study was to explicate the relative effects

of distributive justice on employee job satisfaction with collectivism as a moderating

variable to enhance this relationship.

Keywords – Distributive justice, collectivism, and Job Satisfaction.

Paper type – Qualitative Research Paper

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Introduction

This research report elaborates very important aspects of modern day organization which
are of great concern to employees and managers. A lot of academic research has also
been done in this area and some of the relevant research articles have been studied for
this report. The work of those authors has also been mentioned in this report. In infect,
the previous researches by different authors support our latest findings.

Our research primarily took “job satisfaction” as the dependent variable or the variable or
prime interest. Job satisfaction is the one important factor and probably the most
important factor which contributes to the success of and organization on the macro level
and to the success of an individual’s career on the micro level. So, the prime factor for
which we were interested to study was the job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is considered
to be a dependent variable because job satisfaction itself depends upon multiple
independent factors such as employee salary, employee participation, employee
involvement, training, office layout etc. Job satisfaction is a big term which encompasses
many factors which employers want to explore to make their employees happy and
satisfied from their job. That is why job satisfaction is considered as dependent variable
and not as an independent variable.

On the other hand, we have considered the distributive justice as an independent variable.
It is the only factor that we took as an independent variable although so many other
independent variables are also possible. But due to the restriction of time and cost, we
took only one variable for this study. Distributive justice can be defined as the actual
fairness delivered to the employees of an organization from different management or
work related procedures of the organization. Some researchers have reported that
distributive justice does not affect trust in organization in Western societies (e.g.,
Konovsky & Pugh, 1994; Sweeney & McFarlin, 1993). Wong, Ngo, and Wong (2002),
however, found that distributive justice has a positive effect on employee satisfaction in
organization.

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A moderating variable of collectivism has also been considered for this study. It is mainly
because our society is a collectivist society and as the research was carried out in
Pakistan, it made it more important for us to consider this variable. A moderating effect
of moderating variable is its indirect effect on the relationship of dependent and
independent variables. That is why we took it as a moderating variable.

The finding of research showed that a positive and strong relationship exists between the
independent and the dependent variable which is being moderated by the moderating
variable of collectivism. The proposed model has been shown on the next page.

Distributive Justice Job Satisfaction

(Independent (Dependent Variable)
Variable)

Collectivism
(Moderating
Variable)

Figure: Shows the proposed model on the job satisfaction in the organizations with its
relation with the other variables

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Literature Review
The concept of justice has been studied in a multiplicity of contexts and has been
acknowledged as the first virtue of social institutions (Rawls, 1971). Justice assumes that
people seek to regularize their interactions with others and is a socially constructed
concept (Colquitt et al., 2001) that "exists within the minds of all individuals" (Tyler et
al., 1997). At the organizational level, Greenberg (1990) defined justice as encompassing
people's perceptions of fairness based upon the implicit and explicit nature of
organizational roles and duties.
Over the last 30 years, organizational justice has been researched extensively in social
psychology, specifically in organizational contexts by psychologists and management
researchers, among others interested in the construct (Blakely, Andrews & Moorman,
2005; Moorman, 1991; Trevino & Weaver, 2001). Perceptions of organizational justice
constitute an important indicator in organizational decision-making, as research relates it
to job satisfaction, turnover, leadership, organizational citizenship, organizational
commitment, trust, customer satisfaction, job performance, employee theft, role breadth,
alienation, and leader-member exchange (Cohen Charash & Spector, 2001).
Organizational justice is the perceived fairness in the organization that has three types;
i.e., distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice, and we have taken
distributive justice. From Hofstede (1984) cultural dimensions, we have taken
collectivism among the five dimensions that are individualism-collectivism, power-
distance, uncertainty-avoidance, femininity-masculinity and long term-short term
orientation.
We have picked single dimension of organizational justice and Hofstede (1984) cultural
dimension because of limited access to data, and time span is short. The study that is
undertaken by us is theoretical rather it is not an empirical study due to which we have
picked distributive justice and collectivism culture.
Distributive Justice
Distributive justice outcomes, or the fairness of outcome distributions, have been a
fundamental consideration in justice theory for nearly forty years (Colquitt et al. 2001).
Equity theory (Adams, 1965), relative deprivation theory (Crosby, 1976, 1982), and
referent cognitions theory (Folger, 1986) were integrated in providing a framework for

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the theory of distributive justice (Tata, 2000). Measures of equity, equality and need
assess outcomes that are matched with relative inputs, effort, or relative contribution; or
to all members of identified classes of stakeholders on an equal basis, without distinction
based upon any other criteria; and based upon need measured by a formally defined need
criterion.
Collectivism
Collectivism is the degree to which individuals base their identities on group
memberships (Hofstede, 1984). Hofstede (1980, 1994, and 2001) has written extensively
about the impact of cultural factors on individual perception and developed five
dimension frameworks that are following:
♣ Individualism/Collectivism
♣ Power Distance
♣ Uncertainty Avoidance
♣ Masculinity/Femininity
♣ Long term-Short term Orientation
Among the above given five dimensions of Hofstede (1984), we have selected
collectivism cultural dimension for our research study. Collectivists view themselves as
interdependent with their groups (Triandis, 1995). In collectivist cultures, group interests
supersede individual interests and one's sense of identity is defined by the relationship to
the in-group, the extended family, the organization, or the community. Group harmony
and loyalty are more important than individual achievement and autonomy. For
collectivists, interpersonal relations are one of the key mechanisms through which
employees become attached to their organizations (Boyacigiller & Adler, 1991; Wasti,
2003).
Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction is person's general attitude towards their job. Job satisfaction has
received considerable attention from organizational researchers for many years (e.g.,
Locke, 1976). Likewise, management scholars have also long noted the significance of
fairness considerations in organizations (e.g., Adams, 1965). Recently the focus of
organizational justice research has shifted away from the perceived fair ness of outcomes
to the perceived fairness of the processes used to deter mine outcomes (Greenberg, 1990).

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Moreover, the construct of procedural justice has been studied with respect to both its
structural qualities (i.e., the characteristics of formal procedures) and its interactive
qualities (i.e., the interpersonal treatment people receive from decision makers)
(Greenberg, 1990). Indeed, there is a growing body of literature linking perceptions of
both distributive and procedural fairness to a number of organizational variables
including various facets of work-related satisfaction (Greenberg, 1990; Lind & Tyler,
1988).
Theoretical Framework
Relationship between Distributive Justice and Collectivism
Culture can be defined as the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the
members of one category of people from those of another. One of the studies suggests
preferences for more equality-based reward allocations in collectivistic cultures (Bond et
al., 1992; Bond et al., 1982; Leung and Bond, 1984). Yoon (1996) argued that when
cultural values and social norms emphasize collective welfare and social harmony, they
bias fairness or justice principles in favor of equality norms endorsing procedural justice.
Markus and Kitayama (1991) observed that Westerners generally have an 'independent
view' of the self that emphasizes the separateness, uniqueness, and internal attributes of
individuals, whereas Asians hold an 'interdependent view' of the self that stresses
connectedness, social context, and relationships. In spite of the low priority that workers
tend to give to job content factors, however, making the job more interesting does
increase the workers' satisfaction with it (Hofstede, 1979a). If an increase in job
satisfaction is wanted, the humanizers' attempts at making jobs more interesting are
justified. Their problem becomes one of what is the best strategy to adopt in order to gain
the support of employees and unions, without which support the humanization revolution
is unlikely to succeed. Triandis (1995) observes that individualists form and move with
greater ease in and out of multiple, loosely affiliated groups and associations based on
individualists' particular needs and objectives; collectivists, however, are more likely to
form and stay in few, stable, and closely knit groups that satisfy members' multiple needs
and objectives. As a result, the collectivists' orientations, such as subordinating self-
interest, sense of duty, and relationship orientation, outlined above are confined to only
in-groups. In summary, collectivists have fewer problems with applying different sets of

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values and norms, depending on whether they are dealing with in-group or out-group
relationships (Earley, 1989; Leung & Bond, 1984), whereas individualists find it more
desirable to treat all individuals with a universal consistency (Waterman, 1988). The
collectivist's expressive motives center around dedication of self to the collective, which
has been referred to as "self-discipline," "self- restraint," "self-sacrifice," "loyalty,"
"solidarity," and "sociality" (Bond & Hwang, 1996; Erez & Earley, 1993; Gudykunst &
Ting-Toomey, 1988; Hsu, 1985; Hui, 1988; Hui & Villareal, 1989; Markus & Kitayama,
1991; Tu, 1985; Yang, 1986).
It is seen that distributive justice and collectivism has a relationship which shows us that
collectivist culture around the organization will result in equitable perception of justice
by employees. When employees are working in collectivist culture where there goals,
working process and action taken in the organization are interdependent on the other
employees, thus, distributive justice in organization results positively. The employee who
is living in collectivist culture as an employee as well as family earner, then, they think
not only about itself but for their family, who is mutually dependent upon him, however,
he can ensure equal outcomes distribution for family as well as for organization.
The above literature helps us to state the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1
Distributive justice is positively related to collectivism
Hypothesis 2
Increase in distributive justice leads to increase in collectivism
Relationship between Distributive justice and Job Satisfaction
Justice perceptions also have been linked to important outcome variables. Distributive
justice had a direct positive influence on job satisfaction and it played a more vital role in
employees' work-related outcomes. Alexander and Ruderman (1987) found that although
both distributive and procedural justice made a significant unique contribution to job
satisfaction, procedural fairness accounted for a larger portion of variance than did
distributive fairness. Contradictory results for the relative effects of procedural and
distributive justice on job satisfaction were reported in a study of bank employees by
McFarlin and Sweeney (1992); they found that distributive justice was a stronger
predictor of job satisfaction than procedural justice. It has also been theorized that

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distributive justice may be a more important predictor of personal outcomes, like job
satisfaction, than procedural justice perceptions (Lind & Tyler, 1988). Perceptions of
distributive justice were more strongly related to employee job satisfaction is more likely
to be related to distributive fairness than procedural justice (Konovsky & Cropanzano,
1991; Lind & Tyler, 1988). In general, findings in the extant justice literature indicate
that distributive justice is more strongly related to personal outcomes (e.g. job
satisfaction), while procedural justice is more strongly related to evaluation of institutions
and employee contributions (Lind and Tyler, 1988).
As job satisfaction is positive/negative attitude of employee towards his/her job. It is a
visible affect which is prevailing in every organization that allocation of goods or
services fairly leads to high job satisfaction in organization. For example, if a training is
given to 10 employees that is newly appointed in organization except two of them has not
given, then perception of distributive justice is low, low job satisfaction, that ultimately
results in turnover, low organizational commitment, negative attitude toward supervisor
and less trust in organization. Individuals' desire to maximize their own outcomes has
been shown to generate dissatisfaction due to the psychological processes which lead to
perceptions that outcomes are inequitable.
Hypothesis 3
Distributive justice perceptions will be more strongly related to the work out- comes of
job satisfaction high rather than low on individualism.
Hypothesis 4
Collectivism moderate the relationship between distributive justice and job satisfaction,
such as high collectivism leads to high job satisfaction, and, low collectivism leads to low
job satisfaction.
Results
Employees in organization are provided collectivist culture where every employee is
interdependent on each other for achieving multiple goals and objectives of the
organization in a collective way. In this collective organizational culture, when goods and
services are provided equally among all employees for achieving those goals and
objectives, thus, it leads positive relationship between distributive justice and
collectivism.

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When employee’s perception towards organization justice is positive, it leads to growth
in collective society and collectivist culture in organization build to make every employee
more committed to organization as well as with family.
It is necessary for every organization that it should provide such environment that leads
to positive work outcome in relation to justice perception in mind of employees. It is the
ultimate outcome that when justice in distribution of goods and services are equal among
employees leads to high job satisfaction in organization.
Discussion
The findings and limitations of this study suggest directions for future research. The most
fundamental limitation of this study is to reliance on qualitative research.
The primary purpose of this research was to explore the effects of distributive justice on
employee job satisfaction with relation to collectivism. so our result provide new insight
in to how distributive justice effect on job satisfaction and In any case, this study has
provided evidence that with respect to job satisfaction, organizational culture may play a
significant.
Future studies might include different culture dimensions in order to find out their
relation with job satisfaction and distributive justice. It is also recommended that future
research in this area continue to explore unique effect of distributive justice on other
work related attitude.

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