Leadership justice, negative organizational behaviours, and the mediating effect of affective commitment

According to social identity theory, unfair treatment from superiors may arouse negative identification, which in turn leads to employees’ negative behaviors in organizations. In this study the relationships between leadership justice and two negative organizational behaviors − employee silence and organizational retaliatory behavior − were explored in a Chinese context. The study was conducted through a questionnaire-based field investigation, which sampled 361 employees from 17 Chinese state-owned enterprises. The results showed that leadership justice was negatively related to employee silence and organizational retaliatory behavior, and that affective commitment partially mediated these relationships. The implications of the findings are discussed and suggestions made for future studies.