THE ROLE OF JUSTICE JUDGMENTS IN EXPLAINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN JOB-SATISFACTION AND ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT

The organizational literature includes a number of studies examining t he relationship between satisfaction and commitment. In all, the discr epant findings characteristic of this research seem to be a function o f both the range of independent variables used by researchers to model the satisfaction-commitment relationship and the choice of satisfacti on-commitment measures. We argue generally that justice judgments am c entral to the development of satisfaction and commitment. Specifically , the literature suggests that procedural justice is closely related t o ''global'' evaluations of systems, leaders, and institutions (e.g., commitment); whereas distributive justice is closely linked to evaluat ions of ''specific'' personally relevant outcomes (e.g., facet satisfa ction). Four competing models linking distributive and procedural just ice to employee satisfaction and commitment were tested using confirma tory analytic techniques. Results suggest that, when considering the r ole of justice judgments, satisfaction and commitment are causally ind ependent implications for both managerial practice and further researc h are discussed.