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Perceived organizational injustice
and counterproductive work
behaviours: mediated by
organizational identification,
moderated by discretionary human
resource practices
Dirk De Clercq
Goodman School of Business, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada
Yasir Mansoor Kundi and Shakir Sardar
IAE Aix-Marseille Graduate School of Management,
CERGAM, Aix-Marseille University, Aix-en-Provence, France, and
Subhan Shahid
Grenoble
Ecole de Management, Grenoble, France
Abstract
Purpose –This research unpacks the relationship between employees’perceptions of organizational injustice
and their counterproductive work behaviour, by detailing a mediating role of organizational identification and
a moderating role of discretionary human resource (HR) practices.
Design/methodology/approach –The hypotheses were tested with a sample of employees in Pakistan,
collected over three, time-lagged waves.
Findings –An important reason that beliefs about unfair organizational treatment lead to enhanced
counterproductive work behaviour is that employees identify less strongly with their employing organization.
This mediating role of organizational identification is less salient, however, to the extent that employees can
draw from high-quality, discretionary HR practices that promote their professional development and growth.
Practical implications –For management practitioners, this study pinpoints a key mechanism –the extent
to which employees personally identify with their employer –by which beliefs about organizational
favouritism can escalate into purposeful efforts to inflict harm on the organization and its members. It also
reveals how this risk can be subdued by discretionary practices that actively support employees’careers.
Originality/value –This study adds to previous research by detailing why and when employees’frustrations
about favouritism-based organizational decision making may backfire and elicit deviant responses that likely
compromise their own organizational standing.
Keywords Perceived organizational injustice, Organizational identification, Counterproductive work
behaviour, Discretionary human resource practices
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Employees’counterproductive or deviant work behaviours can undermine the competitive
positioning and success of their organizations. These behaviours aim to inflict harm on the
organization overall, other individual members, or both (Miao et al., 2020;Michel and Hargis,
2017;Zhang et al., 2018), such as by leaving work early without approval, taking longer
breaks than is acceptable, acting rudely towards colleagues or publicly embarrassing others
(Bennett and Robinson, 2000). Counterproductive work behaviours can harm the employer,
leading to reduced organizational success, and its constituents, including the professional
well-being of the targets of these behaviours (Berry et al., 2007;Cohen, 2016;Moore et al.,
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0048-3486.htm
Received 26 June 2020
Revised 11 November 2020
17 December 2020
Accepted 18 December 2020
Personnel Review
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-06-2020-0469
2012). But the employees who undertake these activities might be negatively affected too, to
the extent that their organizational standing suffers when their deviant behaviours are
revealed and penalized (Azeem et al., 2020;Hussain et al., 2016;Rotundo and Sackett, 2002).
Then why would employees engage in counterproductive work behaviours, despite the
harmful personal outcomes they might suffer as a result? Extant research identifies
various factors that might prompt employees to act in deviant ways, such as an
organizational climate that embraces Machiavellianism (Zheng et al.,2017), abusive
supervision (Zhang et al.,2019), broken organizational promises (Griep et al., 2020)or
unrealistic workloads (Balducci et al.,2011). Each of these drivers generates substantial
frustration in employees with respect to how their organization functions and makes
decisions. Yet another source of such frustration is a perception of organizational
injustice (Ambrose et al.,2002;Kelloway et al.,2010;Mingzheng et al.,2014). Consistent
with Hodson et al. (1994), we conceptualize these perceptions as the extent to which
employees believe they are treated unfairly by their employer, compared with how their
colleagues are treated. For example, perceived organizational injustice may manifest in
convictions that some organizational members receive favourable treatment because
they are friendly with the boss or receive credit for doing more than they actually do
(Hodson et al.,1994). Beliefs about organizational injustice are stressful for employees,
because the unfair treatment drains their resources and may compromise their job
functioning and career prospects (Dahling, 2017;Jahanzeb et al.,2020).
The overarching objective of this study is to investigate why and when perceived
organizational justice may escalate into negative behavioural responses, in the form of
counterproductive work behaviour. First, an important mechanism through which perceived
organizational injustice can spur such behaviour may be the extent to which employees
exhibit organizational identification, in that they perceive a close connection between their
individual identity and that of their organization (Kreiner and Ashforth, 2004;Zagenczyk
et al., 2020). Employees who exhibit limited organizational identification instead feel
indifferent about whether their organization thrives (Brammer et al., 2015). We propose that
beliefs about unfair organizational treatment may trigger employees to reject an individual
sense of identification with their employer (Choi et al., 2014), when then turns them towards
counterproductive work behaviour, as a way to express their frustrations and conserve their
self-esteem resources (Ciampa et al., 2019). Second, we postulate that the presence of
discretionary human resource (HR) practices “that reflect an organization’s investment in the
employees beyond administrative requirements”(Luu, 2018, p. 790) might buffer the
depletion of positive work energy in the presence of unfair organizational treatment (Dahling,
2017;Yang et al., 2009), with beneficial consequences for their organizational identification, as
well as their diminished likelihood to engage in counterproductive work behaviours.
COR theory
To ground our arguments about the relationship between perceived organizational injustice
and counterproductive work behaviours, and two pertinent factors that explain or influence
this relationship, we draw on conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2001;Hobfoll
et al., 2018). According to COR theory, employees’work attitudes and behaviours are driven
in important ways by their desire to protect their current resource reservoirs and avoid
resource losses, which sets the stage for two critical premises. First, the threat of resource
drainage due to challenging organizational circumstances tends to direct employees towards
feelings and behaviours that enable them to counter any such drainage (De Clercq et al., 2019;
Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000). Second, some organizational factors can subdue this process,
especially those that render it less probable that organizational adversity actually harms
employees’resources (Garcia et al., 2017;Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000).
PR
In COR theory, resources take a broad definition, spanning all “those objects, personal
characteristics, conditions, or energies that are valued in their own right, or that are valued
because they act as conduits to the achievement or protection of valued resources”(Hobfoll,
2001, p. 339). To establish arguments for our study context, we predict an important role of
employees’self-esteem resources, which they fiercely seek to protect, according to Hobfoll
(1989,2001). That is, employees’frustrations with unfair organizational treatment may
diminish their sense of organizational identification, then spur counterproductive work
behaviours, as tactics to protect their sense of self-worth (Bai et al., 2016;Cohen-Charash and
Mueller, 2007). Such treatment generates self-depreciating thoughts (Farmer and Meisel,
2010;Ferris et al., 2012) and hardships for employees, which they may seek to unleash on the
employing organization (Kelloway et al., 2010;Mingzheng et al., 2014). As Hobfoll et al. (2018,
p. 104) point out in their discussion of COR theory, employees exposed to resource-depleting
organizational circumstances tend to “enter a defensive mode to preserve the self that is often
aggressive and may become irrational.”In line with this argument, we propose that
diminished organizational identification and subsequent enhanced counterproductive work
behaviours are likely responses that employees adopt to protect their current resource bases
(i.e. sense of self-worth). These responses, as coping mechanisms, enable them to release their
irritations with the unfair organizational treatment they perceive that they are receiving
(Ekmekcioglu and Aydogan, 2019;Erkutlu and Chafra, 2018;Penney et al., 2003).
Also consistent with COR theory, this coping dynamic may be subdued to the extent that
employees can draw on supportive organizational resources that make negative responses
less necessary (Hobfoll et al., 2018). In particular, the likelihood that they express
disappointment with organizational injustice by becoming indifferent about the well-being
of their employer may be mitigated if these employees enjoy discretionary HR practices that
signal the organization’s concern with their professional development and growth (Gavino
et al., 2012;Luu, 2018). Discretionary HR practices include an organizational focus on hiring
the right person for the job, tying pay to performance, making extensive investments in
training and development or providing ample opportunities for personal advancement (Luu,
2018;Tordera et al., 2020). Such practices have the best interests of employees at heart and
provide active support for their careers (Frenkel et al., 2012;Luu, 2020), so they may serve as
protective shields against the irritations that employees experience in the presence of unfair
organizational treatment, with positive outcomes for both their organizational identification
and their diminished probability of engaging in counterproductive work behaviours.
Formally, discretionary HR practices might subdue the escalation of perceived organizational
injustice into enhanced counterproductive work behaviour, through a diminished sense of
organizational identification.
Contributions
We make several contributions with this study. First, we leverage COR theory (Hobfoll et al.,
2018) to propose and empirically demonstrate how perceived organizational injustice may
increase the probability that employees seek purposefully to cause harm to their organization
and its constituents. When irritated by their own unfavourable treatment, relative to
colleagues’, employees may seek to vent these frustrations and conserve their self-esteem
resources by separating their individual identity from that of their employing organization
(Choi et al., 2014;Ferris et al., 2012). As revealed in extant research, employees’perceptions of
unfairness translate into deviant work activities through the influence of mediating factors
such as anger (Khan et al., 2013), a desire for revenge (Jones, 2009), lower job-related affective
well-being (Yang and Diefendorff, 2009) or diminished intrinsic motivation (Michel and
Hargis, 2017). We extend such research by proposing organizational identification, and
particularly its lack, as a pertinent mechanism by which perceived organizational injustice
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
escalates into counterproductive work behaviours. We thus highlight how indifference about
the organization’s well-being, as a negative response, creates the risk of double detriments for
employees: They already feel frustrated about how they are treated, relative to colleagues,
and their response, in the form of counterproductive work behaviour, likely evokes negative
evaluations by leaders (Azeem et al., 2020;Martinko et al., 2002), thereby exacerbating their
precarious situation.
Second, we address calls to apply contingency perspectives to the study of the harmful
consequences of unfair organizational decision making (Kumar et al., 2019;Van Houwelingen
et al., 2017). In particular, we explicate how the probability of counterproductive work
behaviour, in response to perceived organizational injustice, through tarnished
organizational identification, is mitigated in the presence of discretionary HR practices
(Gavino et al., 2012;Luu, 2020). According to previous research, the extent to which perceived
unfairness generates negative work outcomes is contingent on personal factors, such as
employees’justice orientations (Holtz and Harold, 2013), agreeableness or neuroticism
(Khattak et al., 2019). To complement such research, we pinpoint how discretionary HR
practices that prioritize their professional enhancement and empowerment (Luu, 2018) may
limit the detrimental effects of employees’perceptions of unfair organizational treatment on
their organizational identification, which then diminishes the chances of counterproductive
work behaviours (Ciampa et al., 2019). We accordingly extend prior research that focuses on
the direct effects of discretionary HR practices on positive outcomes, such as personal well-
being (Luu, 2020), discretionary work efforts (Frenkel et al., 2012), proactivity (Luu, 2018)or
customer-oriented behaviour (Gavino et al., 2012). We pinpoint an indirect but no less
instrumental benefit of these practices: They protect employees against the hardships that
result from their beliefs of unfair organizational treatment.
The proposed framework, with a conceptual anchoring in COR theory, is in Figure 1.
Resource-depleting organizational injustice elicits a tarnished sense of organizational
identification, which spurs counterproductive work behaviours. Discretionary HR practices
function as buffers, so the conversion of perceived organizational injustice into deviant
behaviour, due to an indifference about how the organization fares, becomes less probable
when employees can rely on HR practices that actively support their career development.
Hypotheses
Mediating role of organizational identification
We hypothesize a negative link between employees’perceptions of resource-depleting
organizational injustice and their organizational identification. Consistent with COR theory
(Hobfoll et al., 2018), the disappointments that employees experience in the face of
organizational decision making that signals preferential treatment of colleagues may
generate self-depreciating thoughts to such an extent that they psychologically separate
Perceived
organizational
injustice
Organizational
identification
Counterproductive
work behaviour
Discretionary
human resource
practices
Figure 1.
Conceptual model
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themselves from their employing organization (Ekmekcioglu and Aydogan, 2019;Farmer
and Meisel, 2010). That is, rejecting an organizational identification serves as a coping
mechanism for employees (Liu and Berry, 2013). For example, if they believe colleagues
receive more credit for the same amount of work, they may conclude that their organization
does not value their diligent efforts (Ceylan and Sulu, 2010;Heslin and VandeWalle, 2011). To
avoid additional resource losses, such as tarnished self-esteem, they may vent their
frustration by becoming apathetic about their organization’s well-being (Farmer and Meisel,
2010;Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000). In the presence of unfair organizational treatment,
employees also may become angry and convinced that their employer does not deserve their
identification with it (Barclay and Kiefer, 2019). That is, they may interpret the partiality of
their organization as a purposeful strategy designed to impose selective control over their job
functioning, without respect for their individual well-being (De Clercq and Saridakis, 2015),
which provides a justification for why they should not psychologically identify with their
employer. We therefore hypothesize:
H1. Employees’perceptions of organizational injustice relate negatively to their
organizational identification.
Such diminished organizational identification in turn may steer employees towards
counterproductive work behaviours [1]. Deviant work activities represent pertinent
behavioural responses, through which employees with negative feelings about their
organization can unleash these feelings (Al-Atwi and Bakir, 2014;Qiuyun et al., 2020). In
particular, limited identification with their organization may spur deviant work activities
as a means to express disappointment about this missing psychological connection
(Ciampa et al., 2019;Erkutlu and Chafra, 2018;Penney and Spector, 2005). To the extent
that employees feel disillusioned about their current organizational membership,
purposeful efforts to inflict harm on their employer and its constituents seem justified
as a way to avoid self-depreciating thoughts and feel good about themselves (Brickson,
2013;Lane and Scott, 2007). Moreover, employees marked by low organizational
identification may engage in specific counterproductive work behaviours (e.g. arriving
late to work, leaving early, putting little effort into their work; Bennett and Robinson,
2000;Quinn et al.,2012) that help them conserve their valuable energy, consistent with
COR theory (Hobfoll et al.,2018). Instead of undertaking productive work activities, they
remain passive in their contributions to organizational success. In line with these
arguments, we hypothesize:
H2. Employees’organizational identification relates negatively to their engagement in
counterproductive work behaviour.
We also predict a critical mediating role of organizational identification: Perceived
organizational injustice leads to enhanced counterproductive work behaviours because
employees are uninterested in the well-being of their employer. If they are convinced their
colleagues receive favourable treatment, employees might seek to cause harm to the
organization, because they do not feel personally connected and avoid identifying with it
(Kreiner and Ashforth 2004;Liu and Berry, 2013). Prior studies also predict a mediating role
of organizational identification in linking other resource-depleting work conditions, such as
despotic leadership (Erkutlu and Chafra, 2018), role ambiguity (Showail et al., 2013)or
perceived contract breaches (Wei and Si, 2013), with negative work outcomes. We add to this
research stream by postulating:
H3. Employees’organizational identification mediates the relationship between their
perceptions of organizational injustice and their engagement in counterproductive
work behaviours.
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
Moderating role of discretionary HR practices
We predict a moderating effect of discretionary HR practices on the relationship between
perceived organizational injustice and organizational identification. According to COR
theory, the resource-draining effect of adverse, stressful organizational conditions is
mitigated to the extent that employees can draw from valuable organizational resources that
help them avoid or overcome the resource losses (De Clercq and Belausteguigoitia, 2020;
Hobfoll et al., 2018). If discretionary HR practices appear supportive and signal concern about
workers’professional well-being, employees should be better positioned to deal with the
hardships of unfair organizational treatment (Frenkel et al., 2012). Discretionary HR practices
refer to extraordinary efforts by organizations in key areas, such as selective staffing,
training and development and promotion opportunities (Gavino et al., 2012;Luu, 2018). When
supported by such practices, employees may have a better understanding of why
organizational leaders treat employees differently, such as to motivate them through
personalized incentives, for example (Luu, 2018;Tordera et al., 2020). These insights then
might enable employees to accept organizational decision making that appears unfair on the
surface (Frenkel et al.,2012). They feel less threatened by the resource-draining
organizational situation and are more likely to maintain some level of organizational
identification (Choi et al., 2014;Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000).
Employees who can count on discretionary HR practices, which support and stimulate
their career development, also tend to have more positive impressions of their professional
situation in general, because their employing organization appears responsive to their
individual needs (Luu, 2018,2020). These positive experiences likely counter the probability
that employees feel disheartened when their colleagues receive what appears to be favourable
organizational treatment, with beneficial consequences for the extent to which they identify
with their employer (He et al., 2014). The presence of discretionary HR practices even may
provide employees with deeper insights into how they can benefit from an organizational
environment in which employees do not receive the same organizational treatment, such as
when the treatment is based on performance-enhancing work contributions (Gavino et al.,
2012;Tordera et al., 2020). Then they could become more interested in the well-being of their
organization, rather than feeing indifferent. If employees can draw from discretionary HR
practices, they should be better positioned to handle their concerns about organizational
injustice, to the extent that they can leverage these practices to their advantage. Ultimately
then, they should be more concerned with how their organization performs and personally
identify with it (Luu, 2018). We accordingly hypothesize:
H4. The negative relationship between employees’perceptions of organizational
injustice and their organizational identification is moderated by discretionary HR
practices, such that the relationship is weaker when these practices are more
prevalent.
Together, these arguments suggest the presence of a moderated mediation process (Hayes
and Rockwood, 2020). Discretionary HR practices are pertinent contingency factors of the
indirect relationship between employees’perceived organizational injustice and
counterproductive work behaviour, through diminished organizational identification.
Among employees who can rely on supportive HR practices that focus on their personal
development and growth (Gavino et al., 2012;Luu, 2018), organizational identification has a
less powerful effect in connecting their beliefs about unfair organizational treatment to
deviant work activities. These organizational resources buffer the hardships sparked by
employees’perceptions about preferential decision making (Frenkel et al., 2012;Hobfoll et al.,
2018), which should reduce the likelihood that they adopt negative work activities in response
to feeling indifferent about their organization’s well-being (Ciampa et al., 2019). Conversely,
when employees cannot draw on discretionary HR practices, their lack of organizational
PR
identification is a more salient explanation for how their convictions about organizational
injustice escalate into purposeful efforts to cause harm to their organization and its members.
H5. The indirect relationship between employees’perceptions of organizational injustice
and their engagement in counterproductive work behaviour, through diminished
organizational identification, is moderated by discretionary HR practices, such that
this indirect relationship is weaker when these practices are more prevalent.
Method
Sample and data collection
We tested the research hypotheses with data collected among full-time employees in different
industry sectors in Pakistan. Our theoretical arguments are fundamentally country-neutral,
and the hypothesized relationships should apply to a broad cross-section of countries. Yet
two cultural features of Pakistan, collectivism and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede et al.,
2010), make it a particularly relevant study context. That is, its collectivistic nature increases
the chances that organizational decision makers grant favours to a small “in-group,”so
employees who do not belong to this group may sense unfair organizational treatment.
Moreover, because Pakistan scores high on uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede et al., 2010),
employees might experience unpredictable, unfair organizational decision making as
especially intrusive and respond vigorously. The presence of discretionary HR practices, in
turn, could have a particularly salient effect in mitigating the process in this setting (Hobfoll
et al., 2018). In light of these forces, Pakistan represents a pertinent setting for investigating
how employees’diminished organizational identification may function as a channel through
which frustration with unfair organizational treatment escalates into counterproductive
work behaviours.
To gain access to the research participants, we relied on our personal and professional
networks (e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook). With a convenience sampling technique –which is not
uncommon in survey-based studies of counterproductive work behaviour in Pakistan (e.g.
De Clercq et al., 2020;Javed et al., 2019)–we encouraged immediate contacts to disseminate
the survey links and standardized invitation statements among their colleagues. To limit the
potential for common method variance (Reio, 2010), we applied a time-lagged research design,
with two-week intervals between data collection waves. Specifically, we measured perceived
organizational injustice and discretionary HR practices at Time 1 (T1), organizational
identification at Time 2 (T2) and counterproductive work behaviour at Time 3 (T3). The
surveys were written in English, which is the formal language of business communication in
Pakistan (Kundi et al., 2020). We also took various measures to protect participants’rights.
The invitation statement that accompanied the surveys indicated that complete
confidentiality was guaranteed, that only aggregate and no individual data would be
reported in any research output and that the data would be accessible only to the research
team. The surveys also clarified that there were no right or wrong answers, that it was
expected that different participants may give different responses to the same questions and
that it was very important for the value of the study that they completed the surveys as
honestly as possible. These measures help diminish biases due to social desirability or
acquiescence (Spector, 2006).
By wave, we received 415 surveys in the first round, 349 in the second and 332 in the third
wave. After omitting incomplete surveys, we retained 327 surveys for the statistical analyses.
In this final sample, 49% of the respondents were women. The average age of the participants
was 33 years and 61% had a masters degree or higher. Their average organizational tenure
was 12 years. With regard to their job levels, 45% had non-managerial and 55% had
managerial responsibilities (35% low level, 14% middle level, 6% senior level). Finally, they
worked in banking (21%), telecom (51%) or educational (28%) industries [2].
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
Measures
The four constructs were assessed with measurement items drawn from previous studies.
The five-point Likert anchors ranged from 1 (“strongly disagree”)to5(“strongly agree”) for
the T1 and T2 constructs and from 1 (“never”)to5(“very often”) for the T3 construct.
Perceived organizational injustice (T1). We measured the extent to which employees
believe that organizational decision making is unfair and based on favouritism with a four-
item scale of organizational injustice (Hodson et al., 1994;Nasir and Bashir, 2012)[3]. For
example, employees indicated whether, “People at my workplace receive special treatment
because they are friendly with supervisors”and “People at my workplace sometimes get
credit for doing more than they actually do”(Cronbach’s alpha 50.95).
Discretionary HR practices (T1). We selected six HR practices that capture the six areas in
Luu’s (2018) measure of discretionary HR practices: selective staffing, decision making,
training and development, performance management, pay for performance and promotional
opportunities. To reduce the length of the survey and avoid response fatigue, we included one
practice per area. The items were “At my organization, great importance is placed on hiring
the right person,”“In my organization, we are encouraged to suggest improvements in the
way things are done,”“In my organization, extensive training programs are provided,”“I
have frequent discussions with my manager about my performance,”“In my organization,
pay is tied to performance,”and “In my organization, there is a good opportunity for
advancement”(Cronbach’s alpha 50.89).
Organizational identification (T2). To measure the extent to which employees strongly
identify with their employing organization, we used a three-item scale of organizational
identification (Zagenczyk et al., 2020). For example, participants indicated whether, “This
organization’s successes are my successes,”and “When someone criticizes my organization,
it feels like a personal insult”(Cronbach’s alpha 50.89).
Counterproductive work behaviour (T3). To measure employees’engagement in
counterproductive work behaviour, we used nine select items from Bennett and
Robinson’s (2000) original 21-item scale. That is, to limit respondent fatigue, we captured
deviant behaviour targeted at the organization with five items (e.g. “I leave work early
without permission,”“I put little effort into my work”) and behaviour targeted at individual
members with four items (e.g. “I act rudely toward someone at work,”“I make fun of someone
at work”) (Cronbach’s alpha 50.91).
Control variables. The statistical analyses accounted for the effects of gender (1 5female),
age (in years), education level (1 5high school, 2 5bachelor, 3 5regular master,
45advanced master, 5 5PhD), organizational tenure (in years), job level (1 5non-
managerial, 2 5low-level manager, 3 5middle-level manager, 4 5senior-level manager) and
industry (with three dummies for banking, telecom, and education and the latter as the base
category).
Construct validity. To evaluate the validity of the study’s four central constructs, we
performed a confirmatory factor analysis of a four-factor measurement model (Anderson and
Gerbing, 1988). The fit of this model was very good:
χ
2
(175) 5383.42, confirmatory fit
index 50.96, incremental fit index 50.96, Tucker–Lewis index 50.95, root mean squared
error of approximation 50.06 and standardized root mean residual 50.04. Evidence of the
presence of convergent validity for all four constructs came from the finding that each item
loaded very strongly (p< 0.001) on its respective construct (Gerbing and Anderson, 1988) and
that the values of the average variance extracted (AVE) exceeded 0.50 (ranging between 0.54
and 0.86; Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). We also found support for the presence of discriminant
validity, because each AVE value was higher than the squared correlation coefficients of the
associated construct pairs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). The fit of models that included
constrained construct pairs (in which the correlation between two constructs was fixed to 1)
also was significantly worse than the fit of the corresponding unconstrained models (in which
PR
the correlation between constructs was free to vary), for all six construct pairs (Δ
χ
2(1)
> 3.84,
p< 0.05; Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).
Statistical technique
The research hypotheses were tested with the Process macro (Hayes et al., 2017), which
generates estimates of individual paths together with a comprehensive evaluation of
mediation and moderated mediation effects. Studies that theorize and test moderated
mediation conceptual frameworks increasingly rely on this approach (e.g. Skiba and
Wildman, 2019;Wang et al., 2018). An important feature of this procedure, compared with the
traditional Sobel test, is that the Process macro does not make assumptions about whether
theorized (conditional) indirect effects follow a normal distribution. With a bootstrapping
procedure, it formally accounts for the possibility that the distributions of the effects are
asymmetric and not normal (MacKinnon et al., 2004).
To evaluate the mediation effect, we estimated the indirect relationship between perceived
organizational injustice and counterproductive work behaviour through organizational
identification, together with the corresponding confidence interval (CI), through the Process
macro’s Model 4. This first step also assessed the signs and significance levels of the
associated direct paths between perceived organizational injustice and organizational
identification and between organizational identification and counterproductive work
behaviour. In a next step, to check for moderated mediation, we estimated the conditional
indirect effects of perceived organizational injustice at distinct values of discretionary HR
practices. As determined by the Process macro, these three scenarios correspond with a
moderator that operates at one SD (SD) below its mean, at its mean and one SD above its
mean. Consistent with the proposed theoretical framework, the estimated model included the
moderating effect of discretionary HR practices on the relationship between perceived
organizational injustice and organizational identification but not between organizational
identification and counterproductive work behaviour (i.e. Model 7 in the Process macro). A
post hoc analysis affirmed that discretionary HR practices did not significantly moderate this
second path.
Results
Table 1 reports the correlation coefficients and descriptive statistics, and Table 2 presents the
mediation results obtained from the Process macro. Perceived organizational injustice
diminished organizational identification (β50.272, p< 0.001, Hypothesis 1), which spurred
counterproductive work behaviour (β50.156, p< 0.001, Hypothesis 2). The mediation test
indicated an effect size of 0.043 for the indirect relationship between perceived organizational
injustice and counterproductive work behaviour through organizational identification; the CI
did not include 0 [0.014, 0.075], which confirmed the presence of mediation (Hypothesis 3).
The results in Table 3 reveal a positive, significant effect of the perceived organizational
injustice 3discretionary HR practices interaction term (β50.174, p< 0.05, Hypothesis 4)in
predicting organizational identification. The Process macro findings similarly revealed that
the relationship between perceived organizational injustice and organizational identification
was weaker at higher levels of discretionary HR practices (0.464 at one SD below the mean,
0.261 at the mean, and 0.203 at one SD above the mean). In addition, the evaluation of the
presence of moderated mediation included a comparison of the strength of the conditional
indirect relationship between perceived organizational injustice and counterproductive work
behaviour through organizational identification at different levels of discretionary HR
practices. Table 3 shows diminishing effect sizes at higher levels of the moderator: from 0.072
at one SD below the mean, to 0.041 at the mean, to 0.032 at one SD above the mean. An explicit
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
1234567891011
1. Perceived organizational injustice
2. Discretionary human resource
practices
0.198**
3. Organizational identification 0.413** 0.382**
4. Counterproductive work behaviour 0.056 0.126* 0.220**
5. Gender 0.004 0.096 0.045 0.028
6. Age 0.152** 0.078 0.200** 0.032 0.163**
7. Education 0.009 0.039 0.001 0.028 0.235** 0.416**
8. Organizational tenure 0.150** 0.091 0.211** 0.040 0.148** 0.987** 0.419**
9. Job level 0.035 0.001 0.081 0.033 0.156** 0.793** 0.399** 0.787**
10. Industry: banking 0.164** 0.112* 0.337** 0.034 0.004 0.133* 0.180** 0.137* 0.058
11. Industry: telecom 0.188** 0.313** 0.411** 0.040 0.027 0.144** 0.215** 0.157** 0.092 0.527**
Mean 3.507 3.310 3.281 2.381 1.489 32.529 2.657 11.731 1.807 0.208 0.514
SD 1.267 0.830 1.234 0.790 0.501 6.860 0.700 6.355 0.895 0.406 0.501
Note(s):N5327
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01
Table 1.
Correlation table and
descriptive statistics
PR
Organizational identification
Counterproductive
work behaviour
Gender 0.022 0.014
Age 0.017 0.028
Education 0.217* 0.017
Organizational tenure 0.055 0.024
Job level 0.076 0.062
Industry: banking 0.475** 0.020
Industry: telecom 0.512*** 0.104
Perceived organizational injustice 0.272*** 0.023
Discretionary human resource practices 0.327*** 0.059
Organizational identification 0.156***
R
2
0.374 0.059
Effect size Bootstrap SE LLCI ULCI
Indirect effect 0.043 0.016 0.014 0.075
Note(s):n5327; SE 5standard error; LLCI 5lower limit confidence interval; ULCI 5upper limit confidence
interval
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Organizational
identification
Counterproductive work
behaviour
Gender 0.048 0.014
Age 0.015 0.028
Education 0.192* 0.017
Organizational tenure 0.052 0.024
Job level 0.078 0.062
Industry: Banking 0.508** 0.020
Industry: Telecom 0.471*** 0.104
Perceived organizational injustice 0.323*** 0.023
Discretionary human resource practices 0.301*** 0.059
Perceived organizational injustice 3discretionary
human resource practices
0.174*
Organizational identification 0.156***
R
2
0.386 0.059
Effect size Bootstrap SE LLCI ULCI
Conditional direct effect of perceived organizational injustice on organizational identification
1SD 0.464 0.090 0.642 0.286
Mean 0.261 0.045 0.350 0.172
þ1SD 0.203 0.053 0.308 0.099
Conditional indirect effect of perceived organizational injustice on counterproductive work behaviour
1 SD 0.072 0.028 0.021 0.132
Mean 0.041 0.015 0.013 0.072
þ1 SD 0.032 0.013 0.009 0.057
Index of moderated mediation 0.027 0.014 0.059 0.005
Note(s):n50.327; SD 5standard deviation; SE 5standard error; LLCI 5lower limit confidence interval;
UCLI 5upper limit confidence interval
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Table 2.
Mediation results
(Process macro)
Table 3.
Moderated mediation
results (Process macro)
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
test for the presence of moderated mediation assessed the index of moderated mediation and
its corresponding CI (Hayes, 2015). This index equalled 0.027, and its CI did not include
0([0.059, 0.005]). These findings confirmed that discretionary HR practices mitigated the
positive indirect relationship between perceived organizational injustice and
counterproductive work behaviour, through organizational identification, in support of
Hypothesis 5 and the general theoretical framework.
Discussion
Theoretical implications
This study contributes to previous investigations by pinpointing the risk that perceived
organizational injustice may escalate into counterproductive work behaviours, with
particular attention devoted to specific factors that inform this translation. We provide
novel insights into why employees’sense that their colleagues receive more favourable
treatment may direct them towards deviance, as well as how pertinent, discretionary HR-
related factors may make it less likely that this detrimental process materializes. We
specifically draw from COR theory (Hobfoll and Shirom, 2000) to postulate that (1) the
propensity to cause harm to the organization and its members, in response to frustrations
about unfair organizational treatment, increases because employees exhibit limited
identification with their employer (Zagencyk et al., 2020) and (2) discretionary HR practices
that stimulate career development and success can buffer this process (Luu, 2018). The
empirical results affirm these conceptual expectations.
In turn, a first theoretical implication of this study is that employees’perceptions about
favouritism-based organizational decisions lead them to engage in counterproductive work
behaviour because they stop caring about their organization’s well-being (Kreiner and
Ashforth, 2004). This study thus pinpoints a critical reason that frustrations about unfair
organizational treatment prompt employees to operate on the “dark side”: They weakly
identify with their organization. Consistent with COR theory, employees react to this
resource-draining organizational situation (Dahling, 2017;Taggar and Kuron, 2016) with
negative feelings and behaviours, in their attempt to avoid additional resource losses and self-
depreciating thoughts about their organizational functioning (Burton et al., 2005;Farmer and
Meisel, 2010). These reactions seem justified by organizational decision making that
seemingly endorses favouritism (Choi et al., 2014;Ekmekcioglu and Aydogan, 2019). The
perceived organizational injustice –organizational identification –CWB link that we identify
also implies the possibility of a negative spiral, in which one negative situation (unfair
treatment by organizational leaders) begets another (employee deviance), with negative
implications for how leaders likely view and treat the employees (Azeem et al., 2020).
A second key implication is that this negative spiral can be broken up in the presence of
discretionary HR practices. A lack of organizational identification functions as a less powerful
conduit for resource-draining organizational injustice to escalate into enhanced
counterproductive work behaviour when employees benefit from discretionary HR
practices that signal the organization’s desire to invest in their well-being and careers,
beyond any administrative requirements (Luu, 2018;Tordera et al., 2020). According to COR
theory, the depleting effect of unfair organizational treatment can be subdued to the extent
that employees have access to valuable resources that help them deal with the experienced
hardships and avoid self-depreciating thoughts (Hobfoll et al., 2018). In particular, the
probability that employees identify less with their organization and then are more likely to
undertake deviant work activities, to maintain their sense of self-worth even in the presence
of unfair organizational treatment (Brickson, 2013;Ferris et al., 2012;Frenkel et al., 2012),
diminishes when they can rely on devoted HR efforts (Luu, 2018). Open communication tends
to accompany discretionary HR practices, detailing how the organization motivates and
PR
rewards individual workers. These practices may offer employees more clarity about why
certain decisions that seem to favour some members are necessary, namely, as part of a
broader strategy to stimulate individual efforts and contributions (Gavino et al., 2012;Luu,
2020). In addition, the practices might provide employees with ideas for how to leverage
differential treatment to their advantage, so they should be less likely to react with negative
feelings and behaviours towards their employing organization (Luu, 2018). If employees are
less upset by seemingly unfair organizational treatment, they are more likely to experience
the organization’s well-being personally, which diminishes the risk that they engage in
counterproductive work behaviour.
Taken together, this study provides an expanded understanding of “dark”work
behaviours, as responses to how the organization treats its employee base. We have
leveraged COR theory to show that (1) employees’indifference about how their organization
fares serves as a critical mechanism that connects organization-invoked frustration (due to
injustice) to enhanced deviance and (2) the presence of discretionary HR practices contains
this detrimental process. The scope of the tested framework accordingly is somewhat narrow,
but our objective is to offer a deep, concise account of an important mechanism by which
favouritism-based organizational treatment can trigger dysfunctional work activities.
Moreover, and as mentioned in the Introduction, the study findings complement prior
investigations of the direct beneficial effect of discretionary HR practices on employee well-
being and positive work behaviours (Frenkel et al., 2012;Gavino et al., 2012;Luu, 2018,2020).
We establish the additional insight that the detrimental role of diminished organizational
identification, in reaction to perceived organizational injustice, can be mitigated by high-
quality HR practices that have employees’professional well-being at heart. This study
accordingly pinpoints critical HR-induced boundary conditions that diminish the risk of a
destructive spiral, in which perceived favouritism escalates into deviance.
Limitations and future research
Some shortcomings of this study set the stage for continued research. First, some care is
warranted with respect to the possibility of reverse causality. The satisfaction that comes
with inflicting harm might distance employees psychologically from their employer, which
could generate negative beliefs about their organizational treatment. We used two-week time
lags between the different surveys rounds, and our arguments were anchored in the well-
established COR framework, according to which resource-draining beliefs about unfair
organizational treatment evoke emotional and behavioural reactions to make employees feel
good about themselves and avoid self-depreciating thoughts (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Yet it still
might be valuable to measure each focal construct at different points in time, to estimate
cross-lagged effects and formally establish causality (Antonakis et al., 2010). In a similar vein,
our theorizing focused on employees’desire to maintain their self-esteem resources; continued
research could explicitly measure employees’sense of self-worth. Related research could also
compare the strength of the explanatory role of organizational identification, as examined
herein, with that of previously studied mediators of the organizational injustice –
counterproductive work behaviour link, such as anger or work motivation (Khan et al.,
2013;Michel and Hargis, 2017).
Second, our focus on discretionary HR practices, as contingency factors that mitigate the
indirect relationship between perceived organizational injustice and counterproductive work
behaviour through organizational identification, was informed by the instrumental roles of
these practices in helping employees understand and overcome the hardships evoked by
unfavourable organizational decision making (Luu, 2020). It would be interesting to
investigate the mitigating roles of other valuable contextual resources too, such as an
organizational climate that supports innovation and change (Liang et al., 2012), person–
Organizational
injustice and
deviance
organization fit (Ruiz-Palomino and Mart
ınez-Ca~
nas, 2014) or trust in top management
(Bouckenooghe, 2012). Their personal resources also might protect employees against the
hardships of perceived organizational justice, such as resilience (Ifeagwazi et al., 2015)or
political skill (Kacmar et al., 2013). It would be insightful to establish which contextual and
personal factors exert the most salient effects in helping employees deal with resource-
draining unfair organizational treatment, as well as how the buffering role of discretionary
HR practices might shift, taking these effects into account.
Third, the statistical analyses were based on a convenience sample, collected through the
authors’personal and professional networks, which increased the chances of participation
but also may limit the generalizability of the findings. Moreover, the empirical context
entailed one country, Pakistan. The arguments for the hypothesized relationships are not
country specific; we expect that the strength but not the nature of these relationships might
vary across countries. In this regard, and as mentioned in the Method section, the Pakistani
context is relevant, due to the significant hardships that employees likely experience in the
presence of uncertainty-invoking organizational favouritism, as well as the likely prevalence
of such favouritism in collectivistic cultures (Hofstede et al., 2010). Without formal tests, our
predictions about the reinforcing roles of uncertainty avoidance and collectivism are clearly
speculative. We accordingly recommend that researchers investigate the roles of these, or
other, relevant culture factors in cross-country, comparative studies. It would be interesting
to investigate the roles of employees’individual values in the mediated relationship between
perceived organizational injustice and counterproductive work behaviour too, such as their
own collectivistic orientation (Eby and Dobbins, 1997) or risk aversion (Loi and Ngo, 2010).
Practical implications
This study provides pertinent insights for organizational practice. The salience of unfair
decision making, predicated on favouritism, can be detrimental, for the victims of the unfair
decisions and the performance of the organization overall. Employees who are convinced that
other members receive more favourable treatment might ruminate about the quality of their
employment situation and weakly identify with their organization, which spurs their deviant
work activities. A further challenge is that some employees may be reluctant to voice their
perceptions of unfavourable treatment, for fear of being seen as weak, incompetent or overly
complaining (Rai and Agarwal, 2019). It is up to the organization to explain how it makes
decisions and take a proactive approach to avoid impressions that favouritism guides those
decisions. It also must remind decision makers across ranks that preferential treatments are
not acceptable. Open discussion forums, formal offsite training programs or structured on-the-
job training could communicate such messages (Ahadi and Jacobs, 2017;Wang and Noe, 2010).
Beyond this general recommendation to diminish unfair treatment, this study may be
particularly relevant for organizations for which this goal is unrealistic, such as those in
hypercompetitive markets that require versatility and flexible decision making (Akhter,
2003). If these organizations express their significant dedication to employees’career
development and success –such as by investing discretionary resources in employee-
oriented recruitment, reward and promotion policies (Tordera et al., 2020)–they can better
shield employees from the challenges of seemingly unfair decision-making processes. High-
quality, discretionary HR practices that stimulate and nurture professional development and
growth help alleviate employees’concerns about their organizational membership, even if
organizational decision making is predicated on some level of favouritism (Luu, 2020).
Employees then can retain more positive work energy to dedicate to productive instead of
dysfunctional work activities. The HR practices that organizations choose to adopt –in areas
such as staffing, training and development and performance management –must be
transparent too, in terms of how decisions are made. This policy can make it more evident that
PR
what might appear unfair actually involves active efforts to promote employee growth
(Frenkel et al., 2012). Another helpful option in this regard might be to combine discretionary
HR practices with imposed rotations of organizational decision makers across different
functional areas (Ortega, 2001). Such rotations might help them recognize that the
organizational collective is poorly served by favouritism-based decision making.
Ultimately, it might limit the risk that employees engage in deviant work activities, feeling
justified by organizational unfairness or “how things are done around here.”
Conclusion
With this study, we contribute to extant research by investigating the relationship between
employees’perceptions of organizational injustice and their counterproductive work
behaviour, with a particular focus on the roles of organizational identification and
discretionary HR practices in this relationship. The extent to which employees weakly
identify with their employing organization provides an informative explanation for why
beliefs about unfair, favouritism-based decision making direct employees towards deviant
work activities. The power of this explanatory mechanism is contingent on the efforts that
organizations put into discretionary HR practices that give priority to employees’
development and success. We hope this study can serve as a stepping stone for continued
investigations of how to avert the danger that employees resort to dysfunctional work
behaviours as a means to vent their frustrations about work conditions that seem unfair and
that make them indifferent about their own organizational membership.
Notes
1. Foundational organizational identification studies emphasize its beneficial role for stimulating
productive individual and collection action (e.g. Dutton and Dukerich, 1991;Dutton et al., 1994;Mael
and Ashforth, 1992); our focus instead is on how a lack of such identification may spur negative work
activities.
2. A one-way analysis of variance indicated that organizational identification differed with employee
age (p< 0.01) and industry (p< 0.001). In the regression models, we account for these effects.
3. We omitted one item (“The work in my department is often more difficult than it needs to be because
people in other departments do not do their jobs the best they could”), due to its low loading in a
confirmatory factor analysis.
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Corresponding author
Dirk De Clercq can be contacted at: ddeclercq@brocku.ca
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Organizational
injustice and
deviance
