The affective commitment to the organization: the mediating role of perceived organizational support.

AuthorJadesadalug, Viroj
PositionReport
  1. INTRODUCTION

    Organizational scholars examine the relational ties among procedural justice, perceived organizational support and employee work outcomes (Moorman et al., 1998; Joseph and Winston, 2005; Dawley et al., 2008; Farndale et al., 2011). Previous research shows the relationship between high degree of procedural justice and perception of organizational support (Andrews and Kacmar, 2001), and affective commitment (Dawley et al., 2008). According to Rhoades et al., (2001), organizational support help explain employees' commitment to their organization, in order to meet socioemotional needs and to assess the organization's readiness to reward increased efforts, employees form general beliefs concerning how much the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being (i.e. perceived organizational support). Although extensive research exists relating each of these constructs to outcomes, no research exists which examines procedural justice, perceived organizational support, trust in management, and affective commitment simultaneously in Thailand context. The mediating role of perceived organizational support in the relationship of justice with commitment has received little attention in previous research. Therefore, this study suggests that trust in management and procedural justice may likely explain affective commitment of employees through perception of organizational support.

    In the light of the significance of employees' perceived organizational support, the purposes of this research are as follows: 1) to examine the relationship between procedural justice, trust in management, perceived organizational support, and affective commitment, 2) to examine the mediating effects of perceived organizational support on procedural justice- affective commitment, and trust in management-affective commitment relationships. The main research question in this research is how procedural justice and trust in management affect perceived organizational support and affective commitment.

  2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT

    Based on literature review, the current study seeks to address this gap in the literature by developing and empirically testing this model and employees' perception presented in Figure 1. The proposed model focuses on the procedural justice to cultivate conditions likely to generate perceptions of organizational support on behalf of their employees. As a result of these increased perceptions of organizational support, employees will develop greater affective commitment. Moreover, trust in management is an antecedent of perceptions of organizational support. That is, the perceived organizational support will mediate the effect of procedural justice and trust in management on affective commitment.

    2.1 Effect of Procedural Justice on Perceived Organizational Support

    Procedural justice in organizations is not a novel concept. Procedural justice refers to the perceived fairness of the procedures used to determine the allocation of resources (Greenberg, 1987). The concept of organizational justice is described as members' views of the fairness of the distribution of resources (Andrews and Kacmar, 2001). Organizations that consistently use fair procedures when determining the distribution of resources and recognize and reward employee efforts will be viewed as supportive. Thus, a positive relationship is expected between procedural justice and perceived organizational support. Furthermore, the literature reports a positive relationship between procedural justice and perceived organizational support (Moorman et al., 1998). Moreover, previous research found empirical support for the idea that justice perceptions act as an antecedent of perceived organizational support (Rhoades et al., 2001).Therefore, the hypothesis is proposed as follows:

    Hypothesis 1: The procedural justice will have a positive influence on perceived organizational support.

    2.2 Effect of Trust in Management on Perceived Organizational Support

    Mayer et al., (1995) asserted that trust is the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor. Similarly, trust in management is defined as an employee's belief that management will make sincere efforts to uphold their commitments; in other words, it is the employee's willingness to rely on management. Moreover, Schoorman et al., (2007) argue that trust is an aspect of relationships. Literature on trust and manager-employees relationships suggests that managers must be encouraged to make the first move and that the initiation of this process is the challenge of management (Whitener et al., 1998). However, when the decision is in favor of a close relation as opposed to a distant relation, the fairness of the decision is likely to be put in doubt, lowering trust in the decision maker (Chen et al., 2004).

    Furthermore, the previous study suggests that trust in management is related to perceived organizational support (Joseph and Winston, 2005). It implies that high levels of trust in management help maintain trust in the employment relationship because employees are focused on whether they feel they understand why a person is acting as they are, not just on whether they think that they can predict how a person will act in the future (Tyler, 2003). Therefore, employees who are unwilling to be vulnerable to management are less perception of their organizational support. The reasoning implies that trust in management affects on employee's perceived organizational support. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

    Hypothesis 2: The trust in management will have a positive influence on perceived organizational support.

    2.3 Perceived Organizational Support as...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT