Psychological Reports: Human Resources & Marketing 2013, 112, 3, 818-834. © Psychological Reports 2013

EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE ON ORGANIZATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIORS: MEDIATING EFFECTS OF INSTITUTIONAL TRUST AND AFFECTIVE COMMITMENT1 WEI-YUAN GUH Nan Kai University of Technology National Yunlin University of Science and Technology SHANG-PING LIN National Yunlin University of Science and Technology CHWEI-JEN FAN Nan Kai University of Technology CHIN-FANG YANG Da-Yeh University Summary.—This study investigated the mediating role of institutional trust and affective commitment on the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. The study participants were 315 faculty members at 67 public/private universities of technology and vocational colleges in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the relationships between the variables and assess the goodness of fit of the overall model. Organizational justice was positively related to institutional trust and there was an indirect effect of organizational justice on affective commitment through institutional trust. In addition, the relation between institutional trust and affective commitment was positive and affective commitment was shown to have a positive relation to organizational citizenship behaviors. Institutional trust was found to indirectly affect organizational citizenship behaviors through affective commitment. Most importantly, this study suggested a mediating effect of institutional trust and affective commitment on the relation between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. Implications, limitations, and future research were also discussed.

Although the relation between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors, as well as the role of trust on organizational commitment in this relationship have been examined in recent years, research on the role of both trust and organizational commitment in this relationship was lacking. Konovsky and Pugh (1994) demonstrated the mediating role of trust in a supervisor in the relationship between procedural justice and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs); however, Address correspondence to Wei-Yuan Guh, Assistant Professor, Department of Information Management, Nan Kai University of Technology, 568, Chung Cheng Road, Tsao Tun, Nan Tou County, Taiwan, 542 or e-mail ([email protected]). 1

DOI 10.2466/01.21.PR0.112.3.818-834

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ISSN 0033-2941

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the fact that it only accounted for 9% of the variance in organizational citizenship behaviors indicated further research to better understand organizational citizenship behaviors through additional variables would be useful (Pillai, Schriesheim, & Williams, 1999). According to Morgan and Hunt (1994), trust considered as a type of psychological state in exchange relations does not necessarily equate to that of a behavioral state; on the other hand, commitment represents active and determined willingness to engage in exchange relationships. The presence of both trust and commitment leads to cooperative behaviors. Hence, the study proposed to examine the mediating role of both institutional trust and affective commitment in the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. Contributing positively to overall organizational effectiveness, and hence being highly sought after by organizations, organizational citizenship behaviors are self-motivated behavior (by employees) that exceeds required organizational standards. It has been defined as “those organizationally beneficial behaviors and gestures that can neither be enforced on the basis of formal role obligations nor elicited by contractual guarantees or recompense” (Organ, 1990, p. 46). Katz and Kahn (1978) indicated the following three behaviors, which are essential to maintaining effective organizational operations and enhancing organizational efficiency: (1) employees must retain their positions within the organization; (2) the behavior of employees must meet the specific role requirements established by the organization; (3) employees must take the initiative to engage in innovative activities that exceed their job requirements and expectations, such as collaborating with colleagues, protecting organizational systems, training to enhance personal abilities, and creating an external environment that is beneficial to the organization. Just as essential as the other two, the extra-role behavior in an organization described by the third behavior is most easily overlooked by managers and most difficult to measure. Smith, Organ, and Near (1983) termed it organizational citizenship behavior. Organ (1988) and Williams and Anderson (1991) developed methods of measuring organizational citizenship behaviors that are frequently applied today (LePine, Erez, & Johnson, 2002). Organ (1988) measured organizational citizenship behaviors through the dimensions of altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue. Based on whom the behaviors are directed toward, Williams and Anderson (1991) classified organizational citizenship behaviors into organizational citizenship behavior-organization (termed as OCBO) and organizational citizenship behavior-individuals (termed as OCBI). The former refers to behavior that is directed toward and beneficial to the organization, while the latter refers to employees

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taking the initiative to assist supervisors and colleagues, which indirectly benefits the organization. Organizational justice, which includes distributive justice (Folger & Konovsky, 1989), procedural justice (Folger & Konovsky, 1989), and interactional justice (Bies & Moag, 1986), refers to the subjective perception of an individual or group as to whether organizational resources are distributed fairly, and the reactions and behavior induced by this perception (Jeremy, Gillentine, & Barry, 2004). In the organizational behavior literature, organizational justice has been extensively studied (Farh, Podsakoff, & Organ, 1990; Moorman, 1991; Konovsky & Pugh, 1994). Farh, et al. (1990) was among the first to examine leader fairness and organizational citizenship behaviors, while Moorman (1991) demonstrated the relations between procedural justice and four of the five dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Other studies later verified the positive relation between perceived justice and organizational citizenship behaviors (Niehoff & Moorman, 1993; Skarlicki & Latham, 1996; Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998). Blau (1964), describing social exchange as individuals providing favors to others with an expectation of benefits in return, indicated that the nature of social exchange is founded on trust and goodwill. When employees expect that expressions of trust and goodwill will be reciprocated, a healthy relationship of mutual rights and obligations develops between the organization and its employees, founded on mutual benefit. This relationship may even exceed the defined range of contracted roles. Trust, defined by Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995), refers to a willingness to be vulnerable in the context of a human relationship, regardless of whether the actions and decisions related to the other party can be monitored or controlled, whereas this willingness to be exposed to circumstances in which one could easily be hurt represents a type of active, rather than passive, risk-taking. McCauley and Kuhnert (1992) indicated that trust is an important factor in maintaining the exchange relationship between superiors and subordinates. Employees who feel that the organization is fair and just are more trustful and willing to engage in behavior that is beneficial to the organization. Costigan, Ilter, and Berman (1998) also pointed out that relationships of trust not only form between individuals, but also between members and organizations. As contrasted to interpersonal trust, institutional trust refers to members’ endorsement of general organizational policy and strategy, and their willingness to place themselves in vulnerable situations regardless of whether they can monitor or control organizational conditions. Empirical evidence existed showing that there was a positive relationship between procedural justice and trust (Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Sapienza & Korsgaard, 1996), and trust is limited by members’ perception of organizational justice (Hui, Lee, & Rousseau,

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2004). Most research on trust and organizational citizenship behaviors have been focused on trust in leaders (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, & Fetter, 1990; McAllister, 1995); this study therefore aimed to examine the role of institutional trust in organizational citizenship behaviors. Another important concept in the research of organizational behavior is organizational commitment, which was referred by Porter, Steers, Mowday, and Boulian (1974) as the extent to which employees identify with and involve in the organization. Many empirical studies showed that procedural justice had a positive influence on organizational commitment (Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Sapienza & Korsgaard, 1996) and that employees with a large amount of trust were more committed to organizations (Nyhan, 1999). In the literature on organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors, organizational commitment has been considered a key antecedent to organizational citizenship behaviors by a number of empirical studies (Allen & Rush, 1998). Members with more organizational commitment are more willing to devote their time, skills, and effort into the organization (Angle & Perry, 1981). Evidence exists suggesting organizational commitment positively affects organizational citizenship behaviors (Wiener, 1982; Pearce, 1993; Van Dyne & Ang, 1998). Of the three dimensions of organizational commitment proposed by Meyer and Allen (1987) (i.e., affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment), the positive effect on organizational citizenship behaviors from affective commitment has received the most support by empirical research (Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993; Shore & Wayne, l993; Organ & Ryan, l995; Douglas, 1997). Furthermore, Allen and Rush (1998) posited that organizational commitment is an important mediating variable in the relations between antecedent variables and organizational citizenship behaviors. In summary, institutional trust and affective commitment are plausible mediating variables in the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. The literature on an overall framework linking both institutional trust and affective commitment to the relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors is scarce. Consequently, the objective of this study is to examine the mediating role of institutional trust and affective commitment on the relations between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. Specifically, the following four hypotheses were tested where Hypothesis 4 was a new hypothesis proposed in this study while Hypotheses 1–3, which had been supported in previous studies, were included in the study for completeness. Figure 1 shows the research framework of this study.

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FIG. 1. Research framework

Hypothesis 1. Organizational justice will be positively associated with (a) institutional trust, (b) affective commitment, (c) OCBO, and (d) OCBI. Hypothesis 2. Institutional trust will be positively associated with (a) affective commitment, (b) OCBO, and (c) OCBI. Hypothesis 3. Affective commitment will be positively associated with (a) OCBO and (b) OCBI. Hypothesis 4. Organizational justice will be associated with (a) OCBO through the mediating effects of institutional trust and affective commitment and (b) OCBI through the mediating effects of institutional trust and affective commitment. METHOD Study Setting In the past, research on school organizations has neglected the existence and contribution of organizational citizenship behaviors (Jurewicz, 2004; DiPaola & Hoy, 2005; Ertürk, 2007; Aslam & Sadaqat, 2011). Teaching is a complex activity that is difficult to regulate and requires the capacity for professional judgment (DiPaola & Hoy, 2005); Ertürk (2007) accentuated the importance of organizational citizenship behaviors of academician’s performance in universities. Over the last decade, development of technological university paradigms has been an important item in the mandate of higher education in Taiwan with the aim of technological and vocational higher education institutions generating practical features that differ from other types of universities/colleges. Teachers in these schools bear various responsibilities of teaching, research, service, counseling, and administration

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and often engage in behavior that exceeds organizational regulations and standard expectations regarding roles. Other than the examples of organizational citizenship behaviors of university faculty, such as serving on committees and helping colleagues by critiquing a colleague’s research given by Skarlicki and Latham (1995), updating practical industry knowledge, engaging in administrative work related to career placement of students are additional examples of extra-role behaviors of teachers working in those vocation-oriented schools. It seems reasonable to argue that teachers’ organizational citizenship behaviors can be even more vital in this setting and consequently, this study chose to test the proposed hypotheses with faculty members at universities of technology and vocational colleges in Taiwan. Participants Faculty members at public/private universities of technology and vocational colleges in Taiwan participated in this study. The development of the questionnaire involved review by two scholars in the academic field, a pre-test by seven teachers, and a pilot test with another 30 participants to enhance the accuracy and reliability of the questionnaire. The results from the pilot study suggested that the questionnaire was appropriate for further study. The final sample comprised one randomly chosen faculty member from every department from 67 schools. Those schools that had participated in the pre-test or pilot test and schools with specialization such as colleges of hospitality were excluded. A total of 831 questionnaires along with a pre-paid returned envelope were mailed out in May 2006 and 359 were returned, yielding a response rate of 43.2%. A total of 315 questionnaires were fully completed and analyzed in this study. Of the 315 respondents, 67.6% were men; 51% were between 36 to 45 years old and 28% were between 46 and 55, while about 10% were under 35 and another 10% were over 56 years old. About 21% had worked at the current organization for 16 years or longer, 60% under 10 years. In terms of professional title, 14.6% were full professors; 39.8% were associate professors; 22.0% were assistant professors and the rest 23.6% were lecturers. Measures The questionnaire included five sections, including organizational justice, institutional trust, affective commitment, organizational citizenship behaviors, and basic demographic information. Apart from basic demographic information, a 5-point Likert scale format was used, with anchors 1: Strongly disagree and 5: Strongly agree. In addition, the survey consisted of previously validated instruments to ensure the content validity had already been established. These were modified slightly by changing the words related to business contexts to the school context, e.g.,

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“organization” to “school.” More detailed information on the instruments chosen for this study is described next. Organizational justice.—The Justice Scale developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) was adapted to measure the three dimensions: distributive justice (4 items), procedural justice (3 items), and interactional justice (5 items). A sample item on distributive justice is: “My salary is a fair reflection of my workload.” An example of a question on procedural justice is: “Superiors in our school gather all comprehensive and accurate data needed before making decisions.” A sample item on interactional justice is “Superiors in our school are kind and understanding when making decisions that affect teachers.” Reliabilities measured by the Cronbach’s α coefficients in the present study ranged from .86 to .92. Institutional trust.—To measure institutional trust, the 6-item scale developed by Costigan, et al. (1998) was adapted. Some examples of item are “I feel that the school is sincere in its commitment to care for its employees”; “I believe that the school will support me when I face difficulties in my work”; and “I feel that the school will continue to do its utmost to support its employees, regardless of future circumstances.” The Cronbach’s α in this study was .92. Affective commitment.—The scale developed by Meyer, Allen, and Smith (1993) was adapted to measure affective commitment using 5 items. Some examples of item are: “I am happy to make my work in this school my lifelong career”; and “I do not feel that I am really a part of this school” (reverse scored). The reliability was .83. Organizational citizenship behaviors.—The Chinese Organizational Citizenship Behavior Scale by Farh, Earley, and Lin (1997) was adapted to measure the two dimensions: OCBO (6 items) and OCBI (4 items) proposed by Williams and Anderson (1991). Some example items on OCBO are: “I am willing to stand up to protect the reputation of the school”; “I make constructive suggestions that can improve the operation of the school”; and “I actively attend school meetings.” Some sample items on OCBI are “I am willing to assist new colleagues to adjust to the work environment” and “I am willing to help colleagues solve work-related problems.” Cronbach’s α coefficients for OCBO and OCBI in this study were .88 and .83, respectively. Analysis Based on the research objective, organizational justice in this study was viewed as a single dimension; therefore, the analysis started with a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using LISREL 8.7 to verify that organizational justice comprises the latent variables of distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice. Subsequently, structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyze, firstly, the measurement model

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and, secondly, estimate the structural model and test the proposed research hypotheses. In the confirmatory factor analysis for organizational justice, four models were evaluated: (1) a single-factor first-order confirmatory factor model, (2) a first-order confirmatory factor model of non-correlated latent variables, (3) a first-order confirmatory factor model of correlated latent variables, and (4) a second-order confirmatory factor model, comprising second-order factor organizational justice and its three first-order latent variables (Doll, Xia, & Torkzadeh, 1994; Doll, Raghunathan, Lim, & Gupta, 1995). Goodness of fit of each model was evaluated and compared with the suggested criteria by the ratio of chi-square to degrees of freedom (χ2/df), goodness-of-fit index (GFI), the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI), the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the comparative fit index (CFI). Once the confirmatory factor model of organizational justice was identified, its reliability and validity were evaluated using procedures recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) and Bagozzi and Yi (1988). Reliability of the individual item was assessed through the factor loading; internal consistency of the latent variable was tested by the composite reliability (CR; criteria: > .6; Fornell & Larcker, 1981) while convergent validity was examined through the variance extracted (VE) (criteria: > .5; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Next, the measurement model and the structural model were examined following the recommendation of Jöreskog and Sörbom (1992). The averaged sum of the scores of distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice was used as a single index. Similarly to the earlier analysis on the second-order confirmatory factor model, composite reliability, and convergent validity were examined. Additionally, discriminant validity was assessed by comparing the square root of VE values with the correlation coefficients of latent variables (criteria: < 1; Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Goodness of fit of the overall model was assessed using the previously discussed indices. Because all data including organizational citizenship behaviors were self-reported by the respondents, common method variance (CMV) was of potential concern. Therefore, before any hypothesis testing, Herman’s one-factor test was conducted to assess whether common method variance was a serious problem in this study (Scott & Bruce, 1994). The result showed that five factors together accounted for 65.8% of the total variance and the first factor did not account for a majority of the variance (22.7%). Thus, no general factor was apparent. Although the result from Herman’s one-factor test cannot preclude the possibility of common method variance, it suggested that common method variance was not a serious issue in this study and unlikely to confound the results.

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RESULTS The means, standard deviations, zero-order correlations, and reliabilities (Cronbach’s α) for the variables in the study are presented in Table 1. Reliabilities ranged from .83 to .92 and it suggested that the scales used to measure the individual variables had strong stability and internal consistency (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). TABLE 1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS, RELIABILITY, AND CORRELATION ANALYSES FOR STUDY VARIABLES (N = 315) Scale

1

1. Distributive justice

2

3

4

5

6

7

.92

2. Procedural justice

.33†

.86

3. Interactional justice

.33†

.72†

.92

4. Institutional trust

.40†

.66†

.74†

5. Affective commitment

.33†

.51†

.57†

.69†

.83

6. OCBO

.08

.28†

.34†

.39†

.48†

7. OCBI

–.02

.14*

.15†

.18†

.27†

M

3.35

3.09

3.29

.92

3.44

.88 .60†

3.59

.83

3.95

4.10

SD 0.89 0.81 0.80 0.75 0.66 0.57 0.47 Note.—Cronbach’s α reliability coefficients are reported on the diagonal. *p < .05; †p < .01.

Table 2 summarizes the goodness of fit of the confirmatory factor model for organizational justice. For the second-order confirmatory factor model (4), four out of the five indices met the suggested criterion: χ2/df = 3.63 (criteria: < 5; Chin & Todd, 1995); GFI = .91 (criteria: > .8; Baumgartner & Homburg, 1996); AGFI = .86 (criteria: > .8; Baumgartner & Homburg, 1996) and CFI = .97 (criteria: > .9; Bentler, 1992), while RMSEA (= .092) was higher than TABLE 2 GOODNESS-OF-FIT ANALYSIS OF MODELS OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE χ2(df)

χ2/df

GFI

0. Null model

1,716.97(65)

26.41

.52

.43

.284

.76

1. Single-factor first-order confirmatory factor model

Organizational Justice

AGFI RMSEA CFI

1,286.79(54)

23.83

.59

.41

.270

.78

2. First-order confirmatory factor model of non-correlated latent variables

399.83(54)

7.40

.82

.75

.143

.92

3. First-order confirmatory factor model of correlated latent variables

185.36(51)

3.63

.91

.86

.092

.97

185.36(51)

3.63

Smaller is better

.8

.86 > .8

.092 < .08

.97 > .9

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the suggested criteria of .08 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). These statistics suggested an adequate fit of this model. In terms of the reliability and validity of this model, the factor loadings of all measurement items for each latent variable of organizational justice ranging from .74 to .89 (criteria: > .5) which were statistically significant indicating high reliability (Hair, et al., 1998). As shown in Table 3, given that the CR value of each latent variable ranged from .86 to .92 and VE value ranged from .68 to .74, it suggested that the latent variables of organizational justice had strong internal consistence, reliability, and convergent validity and hence these variables were appropriate to be used in the measurement of organizational justice. TABLE 3 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF SECOND-ORDER CONFIRMATORY FACTOR MODEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE CR

VE

Distributive justice

Latent Variable

.92

.74

Procedural justice

.86

.68

Interactional justice

.92

.69

Results from the measurement model analysis were presented in Tables 4 and 5. The CR value of each latent variable ranged from .76 to .92, indicating strong composite reliability. The VE value of each latent variable ranged from .51 to .65, demonstrating strong convergent validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Four of the five ratios of the square root of VE values to the correlation coefficients of latent variables were above 1 (range: 1.03 to 1.25) with one (.99) being slightly below 1 and this suggested that the discriminant validity of each dimension in the overall model can be considered strong. TABLE 4 TEST OF COMPOSITE RELIABILITY AND CONVERGENT VALIDITY Variable

CR

VE

Organizational justice

.76

.53

Institutional trust

.92

.65

Affective commitment

.83

.51

OCBO

.89

.57

OCBI

.84

.57

Table 6 presents the estimated direct, indirect and total effects among the latent variables from the structural model analysis. Firstly, the results showed that organizational justice had a statistically significant positive direct effect on institutional trust (.87, t = 13.37) but not on affective commitment (.19, t = 1.54). However, there was an indirect effect of organizational

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W-Y. GUH, ET AL. TABLE 5 TEST OF DISCRIMINANT VALIDITY Variable

1

1. Organizational justice

.73

2

3

4

5

2. Institutional trust

.74†

.81

3. Affective commitment

.59†

.69†

.71

4. OCBO

.28†

.39†

.48†

.75

5. OCBI

.11

.18†

.27†

.60†

.75

.74

.74

.69

.60

.60

Max correlation

(√VE)/max correlation .99 1.09 1.03 1.25 1.25 Note.—Diagonals represent the square root of the variance extracted. Other entries represent the inter-correlations of the constructs. †p < .01.

justice on affective commitment through institutional trust (.56). Secondly, the relation between institutional trust and affective commitment was significant and positive (.64, t = 5.07), while neither the direct effect of institutional trust on OCBO (–.09, t = –0.53) or that on OCBI (–.18, t = –0.95) were statistically significant. Affective commitment, on the other hand, was shown to have a statistically significant positive relation to both OCBO (.77, t = 6.09 and OCBI (.63, t = 4.85). Institutional trust was therefore found to indirectly influence OCBO (.49) and OCBI (.40) through affective commitment. TABLE 6 RESULTS OF STRUCTURAL MODEL ANALYSIS Dependent Variable Institutional trust Affective commitment

Independent Variable Organizational justice

OCBO OCBI Affective commitment

Institutional trust

Direct Effect

Indirect Effect

Total Effect

Std. Coeff.

t

.87

13.37†

.19

1.54

.56

.56

–.14

–0.97

.43

.43

–.18

–1.05

.35

.64

.87

.35

5.07†

.64

OCBO

–.09

–0.53

.49

.49

OCBI

–.18

–0.95

.40

.40

OCBO OCBI χ2

Affective commitment 603.41 (df = 243)

.77

6.09†

.63

4.85†

RMSEA

.77 .63 .069

χ2/df

2.48

NFI

.95

GFI

.86

NNFI

.97

AGFI .83 CFI .97 Note.—Direct effects represent standardized coefficient (std. coeff.) and t value; indirect effects and total effects represent standardized coefficients, respectively. *p < .05; †p < .01.

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According to the research framework, organizational justice could affect the two dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors through the following four paths: (1) organizational justice → OCBs; (2) organizational justice → institutional trust → OCBs; (3) organizational justice → affective commitment → OCBs; (4) organizational justice → institutional trust → affective commitment → OCBs. As described earlier, there was no statistically significant direct effect between: organizational justice on OCBO and OCBI (path 1), institutional trust on OCBO and OCBI (path 2), or organizational justice on affective commitment (path 3); only path 4 was supported. The standardized coefficient of the indirect (and total) effect of organizational justice on OCBO and OCBI were found to be .43 and .35, respectively. With respect to model fit, having the chi-square to degrees of freedom (χ2/df = 2.48) being in the standard range of values (between 2 to 3; Chin & Todd, 1995) as well as the other indices of the overall model (GFI: .86; AGFI: .83; RMSEA: .069; NFI: .95; NNFI: .97; CFI: .97) meeting the criterion suggested that the model fit the data satisfactorily. DISCUSSION Previous studies of organizational citizenship behaviors have often examined organizational justice, trust, and organizational commitment as antecedents to organizational citizenship behaviors; however, an overall framework of the relationships among all these variables appeared lacking. This study showed the mediating effects of institutional trust and affective commitment on the relationship between organizational justice comprising distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice and organizational citizenship behaviors of faculty members from universities of technology and vocational colleges in Taiwan. The findings suggested that organizational justice promoted teachers’ institutional trust and teachers would develop more emotional attachment to the school and would, in turn, perform organizational citizenship behaviors to reciprocate the fairness offered by the school. Results showed that organizational justice influences institutional trust and institutional trust was positively related to affective commitment. The findings suggested that when teaching staff in universities and colleges felt that their organizations exercised distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice, they would have higher trust in the institution. Moreover, when teachers expressed more trust in their schools, their psychological and emotional attachment to the organization was enhanced. These findings were congruent with previous studies such as Konovsky and Pugh (1994) and Hui, et al. (2004), which they found a positive effect of organizational justice on trust, and of Nyhan (1999) where trust was shown to be positively related to affective commitment.

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While several previous studies reported a direct effect of organizational justice on affective commitment (Kim & Mauborgne, 1993; Sapienza & Korsgaard, 1996), this relation was not statistically significant in the current study. Nonetheless, organizational justice still indirectly influenced affective commitment through institutional trust. In addition, affective commitment had a positive relation with organizational citizenship behaviors. This finding implies that greater psychological and emotional attachment to their schools would encourage teachers to engage in more organizational citizenship behaviors. Unlike previous studies (Podsakoff, et al., 1990; McAllister, 1995), the direct effect of institutional trust on organizational citizenship behaviors was not statistically significant; instead, institutional trust indirectly influenced organizational citizenship behaviors through affective commitment. This suggests the importance of affective commitment in the relation between institutional trust and organizational citizenship behaviors, congruent with Morgan and Hunt’s (1994) suggestion that trust is a psychological state in exchange relations and does not necessarily equate to behaviors, whereas commitment represents a willingness to engage in an exchange relationship. Lavelle, Brockner, Konovsky, Price, Henley, Taneja, et al., (2009) also concluded that organizational commitment plays an intermediary role in the relationship between trust and organizational citizenship behaviors. This study also provides some practical implications that are particularly relevant to the higher education environment in Taiwan, given changes that have occurred over the last decade. Both systematic external evaluations by educational authorities and a decrease in the number of applicants (as a consequence of declining birthrate over the last two decades) have put tremendous pressure on institutions of higher education in Taiwan to unveil new measures to overcome the challenges. One of them is the establishment of assessment systems for teachers, based on student quotas, the number of research projects being funded within a given year, and other criteria. Institutions often link this performance appraisal with salary and continued employment, which has put great pressure on teachers. Teachers’ perception of fairness of their schools is particularly of great importance as it influences teachers’ overall trust in and affective commitment to the schools, subsequently affecting teachers’ engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors. The observed mean scores on organizational justice (ranging from 3.09 to 3.35 on a 5-point Likerttype scale) in this study indicated that teachers only slightly agreed with organizational justice. It implied that while making policy or implementing rules and regulations, school authorities should pay more attention to enhancing organizational justice practices so that teachers’ perception of organizational justice could be improved.

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A number of limitations of this study should be noted. Firstly, unlike most studies where employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors were evaluated by supervisors or mangers, they were self-reported by the respondents in this study, as it was practically difficult to have others to evaluate the organizational citizenship behaviors of faculty members of universities/colleges. While common method variance could be of a potential concern, a number of studies indicated self-evaluation was still a theoretically feasible approach (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1986; Scott & Bruce, 1994; Moorman & Blakely, 1995). The assessment on common method variance also indicated that common method variance was not problematic. Secondly, the study was conducted in 2006 and could be considered relatively old. Nonetheless, given the quality of the data and relevance in time with respect to changes in higher education climate in Taiwan, the study could still provide some value and insights. Future studies could improve the limitation of self-evaluation by arranging external parties to evaluate the organizational citizenship behaviors of research subjects. Qualitative research methods to conduct in-depth analysis of specific schools could also be considered, as suggested by other studies dealing with these issues. Smith, et al. (1983) indicated that organizational citizenship behaviors improved organizational effectiveness. However, in a study among university faculty members in North America, Skarlicki and Latham (1995) found that OCBI was positively related to a faculty member’s number of publications while OCBO was negatively correlated with the number of publications. A possible explanation could be that the number of publications was more indicative toward individual effectiveness. Effectiveness was not considered in this study and future research may include various measures on effectiveness and examine the relation of OCBO and OCBI on organizational effectiveness. REFERENCES

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