Unpacking the Relationship Between Customer (In)Justice and Employee Turnover Outcomes: Can Fair Supervisor Treatment Reduce Employees’ Emotional Turmoil?

Service employees can experience considerable resource demands from customers and supervisors in their day-to-day work. Guided by the conservation of resources (COR) perspective and organizational justice research, we explored the relationship between interpersonal injustice (e.g., being treated with low dignity and respect) by customers and employee turnover (e.g., voluntary turnover, turnover intentions). Specifically, we proposed that customer interpersonal injustice relates positively to employee turnover outcomes through a process first involving employee experiences of negative emotions, and second, employee emotional exhaustion. We also examined whether supervisor interpersonal justice mitigates this process by providing emotional resources that buffer the demands of customer interpersonal injustice. We evaluated these predictions in a programmatic series of three complementary field studies involving retail employees (Study 1, N = 263), restaurant employees (Study 2, N = 206), and contact center employees (Study 3, N = 317). The results showed that (a) customer interpersonal injustice relates positively to employees’ negative emotions, (b) employee negative emotions are positively associated with emotional exhaustion, and (c) emotional exhaustion relates to higher employee turnover outcomes. Our results also show that the indirect effect of customer interpersonal injustice on employee turnover intentions (Study 2) and voluntary turnover (Study 3) is weaker when employees perceive more (vs. less) supervisor interpersonal justice. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Differential Effects of Interpersonal Justice and Injustice on Computer Abuse

Insider employees have become one of the top security threats to organizations. In order to mitigate their detrimental security behaviors, it is important to understand the thought processes of these insider offenders. Recent security research has examined the role of perceptions of injustice in explaining employee security behaviors. However, there is a paucity of research investigating the differential effects of justice and injustice. Based on regulatory focus theory, this article examines the emotional and behavioral reactions to perceptions of interpersonal justice and injustice. The results show that perceptions of interpersonal injustice are more relevant to employee experiences of hostility than perceptions of interpersonal justice. In addition, the results show that promotion focus and prevention focus have asymmetric effects on the role of emotions in computer abuse. The results have important theoretical contributions to justice and security behavior research and provide critical guidance to organizational security management.

Do teachers misbehave? Aggression in school teams

Purpose – Despite growing research on school aggression, significant gaps remain in the authors’ knowledge of team aggression, since most studies have mainly explored aggression on the part of students. The purpose of this paper is to focus on understanding the phenomenon of workplace aggression in school teams. Specifically, the purpose of the study was to examine whether team affective conflict in school teams mediates the relationship between team injustice climate (distributive, procedural, and interpersonal injustice climate) and team aggression. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a survey of 43 school teams at different schools using questionnaires. Findings – Results showed that team affective conflict played a role in fully mediating the relationship of team procedural and interpersonal injustice climate to team aggression. Research limitations/implications – The present results empirically support the notion that workplace aggression can be considered not only an individual phenomenon but also a team phenomenon. Furthermore, it highlights the significance of organizational factors in predicting this phenomenon. The study should serve to encourage principals to reduce the level of team aggression and develop a supportive climate characterized by fair procedures and respect. Originality/value – A review of the literature also reveals that little investigative effort has been made by scholars to examine aggression on the part of teachers. Evidence for this can be seen in the scarcity of publications on this topic. The current literature’s call to address this issue in schools and at the team level (Fox and Stallworth, 2010) stimulated the present study by highlighting the importance of exploring the contextual factors, rather than the individual ones, responsible for school team aggression.