Does Organizational Justice Matter in the Federal Workplace?

The theory of organizational justice has been supported by numerous empirical studies in the private sector. Although public administration scholars have investigated the fairness issue in pay and promotions, the main focus was confined to specific groups such as females and racial minorities. This research seeks to fill the gap by providing some generalizable findings. We investigate the justice issue by considering both individual- and organizational-level factors. By employing hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), the research examines whether the three dimensions of organizational justice-distributive, procedural, and informational justice-and several organizational-level factors affect four outcomes, including expectancy for career development, employee satisfaction, loyalty to senior leadership, and cooperation. The analysis confirms that the three dimensions of organizational justice are substantially associated with those employee attitudes, although organizational-level factors have little impact on them.