Organizational justice as a determinant of affective commitment and silence of employees

As we progressed in the 21st century, increasing global competition, rapid developments in the field of information technologies and the redesign of old business processes have deeply affected the way people are managed in the workplaces. Organizational structures have become more horizontal and management intervention has been reduced. Hence, employees are given more responsibilities for decision-making and managing their day-to-day activities. In addition to the increased responsibilities, individuals are expected to be more committed to the goals and values of the organizations they work for and more willing to speak up about their opinions and suggestions which are related to organizational issues. However, building affectively committed workforce and breaking silence by encouraging employees to speak up about critical issues have emerged as crucial management challenges of today's organizations. Numerous theoretical and empirical studies have revealed that attitudinal and behavioral reactions of individuals toward their organizations are mainly influenced by their fairness perceptions. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of perceived organizational justice with employee silence and affective commitment. Study was conducted on a total of 200 white collar employees working in a private sector company. Results indicated that distributive justice has no significant contribution on employee silence and affective commitment. Also, it was revealed that procedural justice has significant positive contribution on acquiescent silence and defensive silence. Finally, it was found that interactional justice is a good determinant of employee silence and affective commitment.