Justice Theory & Intention to Quit: The Case of IT/ITES & BFSI Employees

The debate of fair treatment and justice originates from the notion of social justice. Even though fair treatment may be implemented in the organizations, the employees may perceive that they are not being treated fairly by their employers. This paper analyzes the impact of perceptions of distributive and procedural justice on intention to quit among employees from IT/ITES and BFSI sector. Primary data was collected from 401 employees by using a mailed questionnaire for data collection. The results indicate that both procedural and distributive justice have significant effect on employee's intention to quit. Introduction Many researchers have explored the linkage between justice perceptions and intention to leave. As per Justice Theory, treatment fairness can be conceptualized in terms of distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice refers to individual's perceptions of the fairness of outcomes they receive relative to the contributions they make to the employing organization (Adams, 1965). These outcomes include, for instance, pay, promotions, and special awards. Procedural justice represents individual's perceptions of the fairness of the process used to make decisions affecting them, such as those relating to pay, promotions and punishment (Thibaut & Walker, 1975). Intention to leave is one of the strongest predictors and immediate precursor of employee turnover (Dick et. al., 2004). There are not many studies on highly skilled workers such as information technology (IT/ITES) professionals or engineers, even though retention of these resources is often referred to as the most critical (Ang, Slaughter& Ng, 2002). Hence understanding the factors contributing to intention to quit will enable the organizations plan better HR interventions to retain highly qualified skilled force in Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) and IT/ITES space. Literature Review Organizational justice as a term was coined by Greenberg (1987) and is defined as an individual's perception of and reactions to fairness in an organization. Researchers typically divide organizational justice into two categories: distributive justice and procedural justice. Distributive justice refers to the fairness of the outcomes an employee receives; and procedural justice describes the fairness of the procedures used to determine those outcomes (Folger & Greenberg, 1985). Another perspective of procedural justice was suggested by Bies and Moag (1986), who illustrated concerns about the fairness of decision maker's behavior during the enactment of procedures called interactional justice. Interactional justice refers to both what is said to individuals during the decision process and how it is said (Tyler & Bies, 1990). The existing literature shows mixed results on linkage between justice perceptions and intention to quit. Some studies suggested that in response to low distributive justice employees chose to quit their job in order to end the inequity (Hendrix, Robbins, Miller& Summers, 1998). Others reported that procedural justice was negatively related to turnover beyond any specific outcomes since procedural justice reflected organizational norms of decision making (Dailey & Kirk, 1992). Coulson and Chonko (1999) found that distributive justice variables have higher impact on turnover intent than that of procedural justice variables. Distributive Justice & Intention to Quit Neihoff and Moorman (1993) developed a five item subscale to describe the extent to which an employee believes that his or her work outcomes are fair. These include pay level, work schedule, work load and job responsibilities. Other variables which impact justice perceptions resulting in turnover intention are reward allocation (Price, 2001), promotions (Gould, 1979), training (Owens, 2006), voice (Withey & Cooper, 1989). Hence, we hypothesize that: H1: Higher justice perceived in work schedule will lead to lesser intention to quit. …