The effect of organizational justice perceptions of street level bureaucrats working in land registry offices on their organizational commitment: A field study in İzmir province

This thesis aims to investigate the effect of organizational justice perceptions of land registry officers, which are typical examples of "being in face-to-face contact with citizens" and "using discretion," which are characteristic of street- level bureaucrats, on their organizational commitment. To do this, we conducted a quantitative study and tested our model and hypotheses. We delivered a questionnaire to civil servants working in 11 Land Registry Directorates in İzmir and collected data from 170 volunteer participants. The data are analyzed by using the SPSS 20.0 program. As a result of the analysis, it is found that the land registry officers had a high perception of interactional justice, a medium perception of procedural justice, and low perception of distributive justice. It is also revealed that the participants had low levels of organizational commitment. The result of the regression analysis also shows that land registry officers' perceptions of distributive justice, in particular, affected all three dimensions of organizational commitment positively and significantly, while their procedural justice perceptions affected only affective and normative commitment. Based on these results, it can be suggested that public managers should carefully identify the factors affecting the perception of justice of the land registry officers and make necessary improvements, thus increasing their commitment to their institutions. Such initiatives are vital in increasing the efficiency and performance of street-level bureaucrats and public institutions. This study, which is considered to be unique in terms of examining the relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment, is expected to contribute to the public administration literature. The study is also unique in focusing civil servants of land registry offices as typical street level bureaucrats in Turkish case. With the suggestions developed at the end of the dissertation, it is hoped to guide public administrators by presenting the relationship between organizational justice and organizational commitment from a public perspective. Keywords: Street Level Bureaucrats, Land Registrars, Organizational Justice, Organizational Commitment.