Integrating Justice and Job Embeddedness: An Empirical Analysis to Unlock the Differential Effects of Justice Dimensions on Job Embeddedness and the Associated Boundary Condition

Despite the availability of extant literature on organizational justice and job embeddedness, these constructs have not been studied together at the overall level even though scholars have recognized the importance of studying overall justice beyond the individual justice dimensions (Ambrose & Schminke, 2009). Deriving from fairness heuristic theory and the multiple needs model, the study looks at the impact of overall justice perceptions on job embeddedness. Adopting social exchange theory, I argue that overall justice translates into higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions through embedding an employee in the organization. Based on uncertainty management theory, I examine the extent to which risk aversion would intensify or diminish this aforementioned relationship. Lastly, I use the principles of agent-system model and conservation of resources theory to argue that there exist differential effects between the individual dimensions of these broad constructs. The proposed model was tested through self-reported survey data collected over one month at two time points from TurkPrime using Mechanical Turk workers. While the direct, mediation and moderation effects were tested using structural equation modeling, the differential effects were tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The results showed support for relationships proposed between these overall constructs. Although the study did find support for equivalent relationship of each of the individual justice facets with the sacrifice dimension, it did not find support for differential effects of individual justice facets on the links dimension and the fit dimension. Overall, the results suggest that each justice facet has an equivalent impact on each dimension of job embeddedness. Taken together, these findings shed light on enhancing our understanding of depth of relationships between these two constructs. Recommendations for future research, limitations, and theoretical as well as applied implications are discussed.