Abstract:

Research interest in relationship between affect/affectivity and organizational justice has grown substantially in recently years. The affect’s role in perception of organizational justice has received much attention. From an organizational psychology perspective, affect is conceptualized as two bipolar dimensions (i.e., factors), namely positive and negative affects. The trait affect is expressed by the tendency to see things in positive or negative ways. People with high positive affectivity tend to perceive things through “pink lens” while people with high negative affectivity tend to perceive things with “black lens”. As an important perception in organizations, would organizational justice be influenced by person’s affectivity? This study explored the direct and indirect influences of affectivity on organizational justice and overall justice. According to Affect Infusion Model, affectively loaded information exerted an influence on and becomes incorporated into the judgmental process, entering into the judge's deliberations and eventually coloring the judgmental outcome. Furthermore, as Affective Events Theory expressed, one’s emotion and mood influence job performance and job satisfaction. Three hypotheses were put forward based on the affect infusion model and affective events theory. H1: Trait positive affect will have a significant positive effect on justice judgment. H2: Trait negative affect will have a significant negative effect on justice judgment. H3: Trait affect and job characteristic will have a significant interactive effect on justice judgment. Among the major measures, four scales were used including the 20-items PANA scale designed by Wason & Tellegen (1988),organizational justice scale from Colquitt (2001), perceived overall justice scale from Maureen & Marshall（2009）and job content questionnaire adopted from Karasek et.al (1998). In total, 260 employees in 9 organizations from a big city in eastern China were sampled. Most of the participants were coming from public sectors with a mean tenure of 9.8 years. Correlation analysis and moderated multiple regression were employed to analyze the data. Results show that (1) trait affect showed significant main effects on organizational justice and perceived overall justice after controlling job requirement and job demands. (2) when we introduced the interaction terms of job characteristic and trait positive affect into the regression, the explanation of the equation was not been enhanced. (3) but the interaction effect of job characteristic and trait negative affect on perceived overall justice was significant. In sum, the study explored the role of trait affect on organizational justice and perceived overall justice. Results obtained from analyses indicated that positive trait affect and negative trait affect might have the different functions on organizational justice and perceived overall justice. Positive trait affect leads to organizational justice more directly, but people with negative trait affect tend to consider the work environment more carefully when making justice judgment. This study also had some implications for organizations and the society. For instance, managers should not only carry out emotional management, but also make great efforts to set up a transparent and unbiased environment.

摘要：

摘要：情绪和公正感之间的关系一直以来颇受研究者的关注。本研究通过对260名组织员工的取样调查，探讨了情绪特质对各层面组织公正感的影响。相关分析及多元调节回归分析结果表明：积极情绪特质（TPA） 对公正感存在显著的主效应，消极情绪特质（TNA）则与工作环境特征形成交互作用，共同影响对组织（或主管）实体的公正感。文章也讨论了这一研究结论对现实管理的意义。关键词：积极情绪特质 消极情绪特质 组织公正感