The synergistic effects of LMX and procedural justice climate on employee motivation and customer loyalty in a retail service context

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to test how leader–member exchange (LMX) interacts with procedural justice climate to influence three types of employee motivation (i.e. achievement striving motivation, status striving motivation and communion striving motivation). Furthermore, this study empirically examines the indirect effects of LMX on customer loyalty through employee motivation and service orientation.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a matched sample of 188 retail service employees and 376 customers from a large shopping mall in South Korea to test the empirical model. Structural equation modeling (SEM) and bootstrapping method were employed to test a series of proposed hypotheses.FindingsThe results show that LMX significantly enhances customer loyalty through two motivational dimensions and service orientation. In particular, this study shows that achievement and status striving motivation are directly related to service orientation, but communion striving motivation does not affect customer-focused service attitude. In addition, procedural justice climate serves as a critical moderator and synergistically interacts with LMX to influence achievement and status striving motivation.Research limitations/implicationsThis study offers new insight regarding how managers' roles in both individual (leader–member exchange) and organizational (procedural justice climate) level affect different forms of retail service employee motivation and service orientation, which in turn, result in customer loyalty.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that when retail service employees perceive procedural fairness at retail stores, they are more motivated to work hard to complete their assignments and achieve their sales goals in conjunction with leader support. Therefore, managers must provide a clear guideline and procedure regarding salary raises and performance evaluations or engage in thorough discourse on such matters with employees prior to announcements of such decisions. Moreover, as retail service employees interact with customers in the frontline, and how they serve customers plays a key role in creating customer loyalty. Managers should encourage retail service employees to engage in service-oriented behaviors.Originality/valueThe results suggest that LMX facilitates more formal task-related motivation to achieve either tasks or status while it is less related to relationship-building motivation, which is a unique contribution of this study. The results offer better understating of how LMX differentially leads to specific types of employee motivation in the existing literature.

The Interactive Effect of Organizational Identification and Organizational Climate on Employees’ Taking Charge Behavior: A Complexity Perspective

In the view of complexity theory, the emergency behavior of individual is nonlinear and influenced not only by individual variables but also by many other environmental variables. Based on complexity perspective, this article explored why employees’ taking charge behavior occurs in organizations from a multilevel approach. Specifically, this study has explored the cross-level interactive effect of organization-level factor (organizational justice climate and psychological safety climate) and individual-level factor (organizational identification) on employees’ taking charge behavior. Using a total of 806 valid matching questionnaires from 91 firms in China, this study found that first, organizational identification is positively related with employees’ taking charge behavior. Second, distributive justice climate positively moderates the influence of organizational identification on employees’ taking charge behavior. Third, psychological safety climate negatively moderates the influence of organizational identification on employees’ taking charge behavior. According to our results, organizational policies and practices should be made to foster employees’ identification with the organization, to construct a fair environment within the organization, and to convince employees that taking charge behavior will not entail political risks, especially for those employees with low organizational identification.

Task interdependence and Moqi in virtual teams in China: the mediating role of virtual collaboration and the moderating role of distributive justice climate

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of task interdependence on team members’ Moqi in virtual teams in China. The authors also aim to identify virtual collaboration as a mediator and distributive justice climate as a moderator in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected from a sample of 87 virtual teams (including 349 individuals) from various Chinese companies through a three-wave survey. Hierarchical regression analysis, path analysis, bootstrapping method and multiple validity tests were used to examine the research model. Findings In virtual teams in China, task interdependence has a significantly positive influence on team members’ Moqi; Virtual collaboration mediates the relationship between task interdependence and team members’ Moqi; The distributive justice climate positively moderates the relationship between task interdependence and virtual collaboration, as well as the indirect effect of virtual collaboration on the relationship between task interdependence and team members’ Moqi. Practical implications In virtual teams, leaders can facilitate team members’ Moqi by designing highly interdependent tasks, encouraging team members to engage in virtual collaboration and cultivating a climate of high attention distributive justice. Originality/value This is one of the first studies to pay to the Moqi among team members rather than supervisor-subordinate relationships and further examine how team members’ Moqi is predicted by task interdependence via the mediation of virtual collaboration with the distributive justice climate playing a moderating role.

Does procedural justice climate increase the identification and engagement of migrant workers? A group engagement model perspective

PurposeMigrant workers often suffer from social exclusion in the workplace and therefore identify less with their organization and engage less with their work. To address this issue, the authors integrate research on migrant workers with research on the group engagement model to create a model for understanding and enhancing migrant worker engagement. This allows us to provide insight into how organizations can design their human resource management systems and practices to increase the work engagement of migrant workers.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a survey study with over 4,000 employees from more than 500 workplaces in Australia to test the model.FindingsThe results of the multilevel analysis indicate that a procedurally fair work environment increases organizational identification, which in turn is associated with higher work engagement. The results also indicate that procedural justice climate is more important for migrant workers and increases their organizational identification and engagement.Originality/valueTo increase work engagement of migrant workers, organizations can establish a procedurally fair work environment in which cultural minorities experience unbiased policies and procedures, are able to express their opinions and participate in decision-making.

Work-Family Conflict and Depressive Symptoms Among Chinese Employees: Cross-Level Interaction of Organizational Justice Climate and Family Flexibility

This study aims to examine how organizational and family factors protect employees from depressive symptoms induced by work-family conflict. With a cross-sectional design, a total of 2184 Chinese employees from 76 departments completed measures of work-family conflict, organizational justice, family flexibility, and depressive symptoms. The results showed that work-family conflict including work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict was positively associated with depressive symptoms. In cross-level analysis, organizational justice climate weakened the adverse effect of work-family conflict on depressive symptoms and the buffering effects of procedural and distributive justice climate in the association between work-family conflict and depressive symptoms depended on family flexibility. Specifically, compared with employees with high family flexibility, procedural and distributive justice climate had a stronger buffering effect for employees with low family flexibility. These results indicate that organization and family could compensate each other to mitigate the effect of work-family conflict on employees’ depressive symptoms. Cultivating justice climate in organization and enhancing family flexibility might be an effective way to reduce employees’ depressive symptoms.