An investigation of the role of justice in turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior in hospitality industry

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Abstract

The relationship of organizational justice perceptions of hotel employees in North Cyprus with various work-related variables was investigated. A total of 208 employees and their managers filled out questionnaires. It was found that distributive justice tended to be a stronger predictor of all of the study variables compared to procedural justice. Findings suggest that the fairness of personal outcomes that employees receive may have more impact on turnover intentions, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) than the perceived fairness of a firm's procedures. It was also found that even though improved job satisfaction seems to be related to OCB, organizational justice seems to be the key factor that has a strong effect on both OCB and job satisfaction.

Introduction

With increasing globalization and international competition, the importance of recruiting, retaining and managing resources that can help to increase competitiveness of organizations has become a crucial factor in the success of hospitality industry. Among these resources, human resources demand special attention. Human resources play a central role in the services sector. A primary reason for this is that the services are seen as inseparable from their provider. In this context, increasing employees’ job satisfaction, commitment to the organization and motivation will not only increase the extra-role behavior of the employees through organizational citizenship behavior, but it will also contribute to the increased competitiveness of hospitality sector organizations and lead to better future performance. Especially in the service industry, evidence suggests a strong linkage between job satisfaction and performance. Researchers found a significant positive relationship between employees’ job satisfaction and customer perceptions of service quality performance (Hartline and Keith, 1996, Yoon et al., 2001). It is expected that satisfied employees will engage in better service delivery (Schmit and Allscheid, 1995) and this will positively influence customer confidence and word-of-mouth and as well as contribute to achieve customer loyalty. So, having a loyal base of satisfied customers within such a competitive environment, increases revenues, decreases costs and builds market share. Organizational justice has been shown to be related to employee outcomes such as job satisfaction (Fields et al., 2000). Thus, the concept of organizational justice and its consequences need to be understood by managers in the services sector. Managers need to have a better understanding of the role of organizational justice and its consequences in the hospitality industry. This concept is especially important for organizations that hope to develop more institutionalized policies and procedures.

As a Mediterranean island, North Cyprus’ economy depends on tourism. In North Cyprus tourism is a significant contributor to the GDP. When we consider the scale disadvantage and the isolation that has been imposed on North Cyprus, the importance of the tourism sector can be seen clearly due to the unspoilt natural beauty and cultural heritage of North Cyprus where tourism remains a competitive sector. North Cyprus is considered to be an emerging new market for European tourists. In the wake of increasing competition and the dramatic changes occurring in the tourism industry in North Cyprus, there is a need for hotel managers and international investors to recognize the importance of service improvements in establishing a competitive advantage.

The aim of the current study is to examine the relationship of justice perceptions of hotel employees in North Cyprus with various work-related variables such as employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors, their intentions to leave the hotel and seek other employment, and their overall job satisfaction. Previous researchers have shown that overall perceptions of fairness will influence work-related attitudes of employees (James, 1993, Fulford, 2005). The current study looks at the perceptions of distributive, procedural and interactional justice to see if the impact that they have on work-related attitudes differs. The study analyzes whether procedural justice perceptions (about fairness of rules and procedures) can mainly influence organizational citizenship behaviors of the employees while distributive justice perceptions (about the outcomes that employees receive from the organization) may primarily influence turnover intentions. In addition we analyze how justice perceptions influence the relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior.

Section snippets

Organizational justice

Justice perceptions have long been considered as explanatory variables in organizational research (Adams, 1965, Deutsch, 1975, Leventhal, 1976). Organizational justice describes the individuals’ (or groups’) perception of the fairness of treatment received from an organization and their behavioral reaction to such perceptions (James, 1993). In the extant literature, justice has been conceptualized based on three dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice.

Hypotheses

The relationship of both forms of organizational justice with individual outcomes like job satisfaction and turnover intention has been proposed by various researchers, some suggesting more of those variables would be accounted for distributive justice (Folger and Konovsky, 1989) whereas some proposing the opposite (McFarlin and Sweeney, 1992, Cropanzano and Folger, 1991). For example, previous studies in the United States have revealed that employee perceptions about distributive and

Sample

The sample for this study was drawn from four 5 star hotels which are the most popular tourist establishments (Nadiri, 2003) in North Cyprus. All of these establishments were contacted and permissions to carry out the research were obtained. Using non-probabilistic sampling method, 300 questionnaires were distributed to the managers and employees that were willing to participate in the study. Two versions of questionnaires were used; one for employees and the other version for managers. Out of

Descriptive statistics

Among managers 90.4% are male and 9.6% are female. 65.4% are locals whereas 34.6% are from Turkey. Education levels of managers are 9.6% vocational school, 67.3% bachelor degree, and 23.1% graduate degree. The years of service among managers are 54.8% below 5 years, 15.4% 6–10 years, and 30.8% more than 10 years. Among employees 34.6% are female, while 63.5% are male. 82.7% of employees are between 21 and 30 years old. And 82% of employees are locals and 17.3% of the employees are from Turkey.

Discussion and managerial implications

The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship of organizational justice with various work-related variables, i.e. organizational citizenship behavior, turnover intention, and job satisfaction. Correlations between employees’ organizational justice perceptions were significantly related to organizational citizenship behavior, turnover intentions, and job satisfaction.

Limitations and opportunities for future research

The present findings have several implications for future research, some of which are related to the limitations of this study. In this study, only 5 star hotels in North Cyprus were investigated. Thus, the generalizability of our results is somewhat limited and findings could be specific to these types of establishments. Other limitations of this study are small sample size and representativeness of the sample where non-probabilistic sampling method and convenience sampling were used. Future

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