Direct supervisor recognition and the impact of fairness perceptions on
job engagement and organization engagement
Master thesis, MSc, specialization Human Resource Management
June 06, 2011 SARAH BOLLMANN Student Number: 1951572 Finkenweg 10 32609 Huellhorst Tel.: +49 (0)1709670290 e-mail: sarah.bollmann@web.de Supervisor/ University: Prof. dr. G. J. van der Vegt Co-assessor: drs. Hanneke Grutterink
Supervisor/ field of study:
J. Rodrigues, Henry Schein Halas Australia
Acknowledgement:
ABSTRACT
The present study focuses on the relationship between recognition and employee engagement and the moderating role of organizational justice. In advance, it was expected that employees’ perceptions of direct supervisor recognition will be positively related to employee-reported organization engagement. Further, we expected that employees’ perceptions of interactional justice moderate the relationship between recognition and job engagement. We collected data by means of a questionnaire among 102 employees of an Australian dental supply company. The results support the study hypotheses that recognition does positively affect organization engagement, and that the relationship with job engagement is moderated by interactional justice.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ... 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 3
1. INTRODUCTION SECTION ... 4
2. THEORY SECTION ... 7
2.1 Recognition and Employee Engagement ... 7
2.2 Organizational Justice...12
2.3 The Moderating Effect of Interactional Justice ...13
3. METHOD SECTION ...15
3.1 Respondents and procedure ...15
3.2 Organizational information ...16
3.3 Measurements ...17
3.4 Data analysis ...18
4. RESULTS SECTION ...19
4.1 Correlations and descriptive statistics...19
4.2 Hypotheses testing ...20
5. DISCUSSION SECTION ...24
5.1 Findings ...24
5.2 Theoretical implications ...25
5.3 Practical implications ...26
5.4 Limitations and Future Research ...26
1. INTRODUCTION SECTION
A recent engagement survey from Blessing White (2011) across 837 employees in different functions within Australia and New Zealand has found that 64% of employees in the workforce are lacking any real engagement. Also, more than half of the sampled workforce agrees that their manager does not recognize their achievements (Blessing White, 2011).
In recent years, the focus of organizational behavior has shifted from the prevention of deficits such as absenteeism, low motivation and a disengaged workforce to more positive aspects of organizational constructs such as ways to foster employee engagement, retain individuals in the company and enrich jobs to induce job satisfaction (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2003; Maslach, Schaufeli and Leiter, 2001). In this regard, employee motivation and especially engagement have become widely discussed concepts applied by business consultancies, HR practitioners, and theorists (Inceoglu and Fleck, 2010:74). Despite its popularity, there is still a gap in the engagement literature with little empirical research and widely varying definitions of the concept (Saks, 2006).
In order for organizations and employees to realize the above mentioned benefits, it is important to deepen the understanding about relevant predictors of engagement. In this study, we aim to increase our understanding of the antecedents of engagement by focusing on the role of recognition. Recognition is defined as acknowledgement of “effort and contributions made by individuals” given by the direct supervisor (Chew and Chan, 2007: 504). Although supervisor recognition is regarded as one of the top engagement levers by employees (Corporate Leadership Council, 2005), a review of recent literature shows that there is still ambiguity about the conditions under which recognition influences employee engagement (Rich, LePine and Crawford, 2010). The present study will address this issue by investigating two possible explanations: firstly, we will look at a comparatively new definition of engagement and secondly, we will look at moderators that may influence the strength and direction of the recognition-engagement relationship.
It appears that interactional justice has important implications for the reaction of employees towards recognition from the direct supervisor. Employees who receive recognition view the acknowledgement as a symbolic way of the manager about the value that he or she attributes to employees in the organization. Thus, in order to be meaningful, recognition needs to be based on fairness rather than arbitrary acts (Yukl, 2002). Without this type of justice, the motivating and symbolic character of recognition is expected to be undermined and weakened. Taking this into consideration, when employees perceive injustice from their supervisor, it will influence perceptions about recognition from the supervisor negatively and it seems unlikely that recognition will increase the level of engagement significantly (Rich et al., 2010). In the current study, research is performed and presented that will investigate this field of research. By examining the role of organizational justice, this study aims to increase our understanding of the conditions under which recognition positively influences engagement.
Netherlands and Germany (Firth and Britton, 1989; Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma and Bakker 2002; Bakker, Schaufeli and Demerouti, 2003; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner and Schaufeli 2001; Saks, 2006). For Australian organizations, however, there has been a substantial lack of empirical research on HR practices and leadership characteristics which may influence the engagement and commitment of employees (Chew and Chan, 2007). Third, the engagement definition used is relatively new and has not been tested thoroughly (Saks, 2006). The aim of this research is, therefore, to further knowledge about the concept of engagement in order to be able to investigate important antecedents. And fourth, it becomes increasingly vital to better understand the interpersonal relationship and motivational rationales of the employer-employee relationship. Therefore, it is important to consider the effect of interactional justice as a moderator on the relation between recognition and engagement.
2. THEORY SECTION
2.1Recognition and Employee Engagement
While present academic research about engagement is mostly focused on the job role, various authors emphasize that it is similarly important to study employees’ engagement towards the organization (Masson et al., 2008 cited in Meyer, Gagne, Parfyonova, 2010: 57). Also Kahn (1990) and Rothbard (2001) argue that it is relevant to take a ‘role-related’ approach towards engagement. Individuals are psychologically present in multiple organizational roles of which the two most prevalent roles are the job role and the role as an organizational member (May, Gilson and Harter, 2004; Saks, 2006). Thus, more recently, Saks (2006) expanded the definition of engagement to two separate measures: job and organization engagement.
Job Engagement is the “job or task-related side” of the engagement dimension and involves two critical elements: Absorption and Energy (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010: 36).
Absorption defines the extent to which individuals are immersed in their work and how
intensely they focus on a role. Individuals who are absorbed in their job are so
“cognitively involved” that they may lose track of time (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010: 37; Rothbard, 2001; Kahn, 1990). Energy refers to the affective state in which individuals feel dynamic and energized by in the accomplishment of their work. Employees with a strong feeling of energy at work concentrate their motivation on their actual performance instead of other secondary tasks (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
Organization Engagement also involves two elements: Alignment and Identification. Alignment refers to the extent to which an employee’s beliefs about organizational future goals and directions are in line with the actual organization’s aspirations. Thus, employees who strongly agree with the decisions of the company also believe that their perceptions of the organization’s direction are in line with the actual organizational direction and vice versa. An employee’s sense of alignment is related to his or her feelings of satisfaction with the organization (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
Identification describes the emotional involvement and bond of an employee towards the
and Inceoglu, 2010: 38). Employees with high levels of identification are characterized by strong feelings of belongingness to the organization (Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010).
Table 1 displays the definitions of the two engagement constructs classified by cognitive and affective approaches. This definition explicitly considers that individuals perform in multiple organizational roles while also acknowledging that job and organization engagement are related but independent constructs (Saks, 2006).
TABLE 1
Facets of state engagement (Adapted from Fleck and Inceoglu, 2010)
The role of leader recognition
The role of leaders in fostering engagement was emphasized by various researchers (Crawford, LePine and Rich, 2010; Kahn, 1990). Particularly Crawford et al. (2010) stress the importance of acknowledging the achievement of employees and rewarding them appropriately.
subordinate’s level of engagement, mainly because he or she is the “representative of the organization through which work, resources, support and communication flows” (Wiley, Kowske and Herman, 2010: 355).
Being in direct contact with subordinates, a critical element of a manager’s job is to give recognition for a job well done. In doing so, a supervisor can either give praise and recognition based on a “positive achievement motivation behavior” or use punishment and criticism based on autocratic behavior (Chowdhury, 2007: 238). The use of one of these behaviors influences the extent to which employees become engaged or disengaged. Deeprose (1994) claims that good leaders reward and recognize employees by showing actions and behavior that acknowledge their work accomplishments.
Recognition and Organization Engagement
employees decide to which degree they will engage themselves contingent upon the amount of resources they receive (Saks, 2006).
A corresponding theory that supports the expected relationship is organizational
support theory which assumes that individuals create general ideas about how the
organization values their efforts and cares about them, also known as perceived organizational support (POS) (Rhoades, Eisenberger and Armeli, 2001). According to the theory, recognition will increase POS because it signifies that the organization values an employee’s contributions (Rhoades et al., 2001). Levinson (1965: 376) identified that in the interaction with other people, employees often “act as agents of the organization”. Therefore, employees attribute actions by organizational agents to the intention of the organization rather than simply to the intentions of that individual (Rhoades et al., 2001). This means that employees “personify the organization” and therefore evaluate its actions as an indicator of the organization’s attitude towards them (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchison and Sowa, 1986: 504; Rhoades et al., 2001). In other words, when employees receive recognition from the direct supervisor, they will assess it as a favorable treatment from the organization.
Hypothesis 1: Perceived recognition from the direct supervisor is positively related to employee organization engagement. The more recognition an employee gets, the more engaged he or she will be in the organizational role.
Recognition and Job Engagement
While the positive relationship between organization engagement and recognition is supported by recent research, there are inconsistencies in the empirical findings regarding the relationship between recognition and job engagement. Reviewing the literature about this relationship, we found that some researchers report a negative relationship between recognition and job engagement (Kralovensky, 2006), while other researchers report a positive relationship between recognition and job engagement (Deeprose, 1994; Brun and Dugas, 2008).
Martin (1994) stated that recognition may sometimes lead to rivalry and a competitive environment which are both detrimental to healthy work relationships (Kohn, 1993; Kralovensky, 2006). Recognition was found to induce a sense of unfairness and may lead to accusations of favoritism (Long and Shields, 2010; Brun and Dugas, 2008). More drastically, when given impersonally, ingenuinely or used in an unfair way, recognition will diminish an individual’s “intrinsic interest for doing something” and is thus counterproductive to job engagement (Martin, 1994: 2; Kohn, 1993; Clemmer, 2003).
However, other researchers found that recognition is ultimately related to more engagement in the job. Deeprose (1994) acknowledged that direct supervisor recognition will lead to increased employee motivation, job satisfaction and a favorable working environment (Usman and Danish, 2010). Likewise, other researchers regard recognition as a desirable positive reinforcer which is “universally applicable” to every human being and a generally valuable trigger of engagement (Luthans and Stajkovic, 2000: 2). Also, Brun and Dugas (2008) emphasize recognition as a vital contributor to work engagement as it was found to be a basic human need which indicates that others notice one’s efforts and consider one’s needs.
oversimplified and do not reflect a realistic picture. It signifies the importance of including moderator variables that influence the direction of the relationship. In this study, I focus on the possible moderating role of organizational justice.
2.2Organizational Justice
The concept of organizational justice has continually received attention and interest in the workplace. It is perceived as vital because it affects various aspects of the working environment and gives important implications for the quality of the workplace (Strom, 2010). In this study, the terms ‘fairness’ and ‘justice’ are treated as equal concepts and used interchangeably.
Organizational justice consists of three distinct components, namely distributive, procedural and interactional justice. Distributive justice is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive outcomes received from the organization as fair such as pay distribution and promotion decisions (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001). It is considered to be the basic principle of employment contracts because fair outcomes determine the basis of a contractual agreement (McLean Parks and Kidder, 1994). Procedural justice is defined as the perceived fairness of the organization’s “formal rules and policies related to how decisions are made” (Blader and Tyler, 2003: 749; Greenberg, 1990).
Interactional Justice focuses on interpersonal aspects of organizational actions,
particularly the interpersonal treatment which an employee receives while explaining or enforcing a procedure (Niehoff and Moorman, 1993; Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; Bies and Shapiro, 1987). In other words, it relates to the behavior of the supervisor towards the “recipient of justice” and concerns aspects such as dignity and respect from the superior as well as appropriate explanations of decision-making (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001: 281; Tyler and Bies, 1990).
Although all three justice components have important implications for business outcomes, the focus of this study will be on interactional justice perceptions as a moderating variable. One major reason for concentrating on this justice component is that the treatment which people receive at work and in organizations has tremendous effects on overall perceived justice. We found that perceived interactional justice may lead to higher perceptions of procedural and distributive justice and may even offset negative outcomes from perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice while eliciting strong reactions from employees (Aquino, Lewis and Bradfield, 1999; Randall, Schuler and Jackson, 1999; Bakker, Demerouti and Schaufeli, 2003; Colquitt et al., 2001). Further, the concept of interactional justice includes every individual’s need to be treated with courtesy and respect and to be included in decision making as it influences feelings of self-worth and social belongingness (Tyler and Smith, 1999; De Cremer, van Knippenberg, van Dijke and Bos, 2004).
The present study will concentrate on the moderating effect of interactional justice regarding one of the engagement measures - job engagement. This approach builds upon the previously described ambiguities in the literature which show that recognition appears to be differentially related to job engagement.
While interactional justice is the focus in the present analysis, the two other components of organizational justice – distributive and procedural justice – will also be controlled for in the analysis.
2.3 The Moderating Effect of Interactional Justice
Human needs literature provides the first argument for the hypothesized
two-way interaction between recognition and interactional justice. The basic assumption of this approach is that “employees need some form of acknowledgment for their accomplishments” and that rewards influence human behavior by motivating and reinforcing desired outcomes (Appelbaum and Kamal, 2000: 736; Kralovenksy, 2006). Human needs literature is supported by content theories of motivation such as Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs. Maslow (1958) identified five needs which are desirable for every
the model, recognition is classified as a higher-order ‘esteem need’ which the direct supervisor can satisfy by showing appreciation for employees’ work (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). However, Maslow (1958) states that recognition is only motivating when previous social needs such as an interactionally fair relationship with one’s supervisor are satisfied. This means that only when employees feel fairly treated, recognition is likely to be motivating for employees.
A closely related theory is Herzberg’s two-factor theory which concentrates more specifically on the influence and conditions of individual motivation (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007). Herzberg divides factors influencing employee (dis)satisfaction into two groups, motivators and hygiene factors. ‘Motivators’ are “intrinsic to the work itself” and relate to factors such as recognition and achievement (Bobbit and Behling, 1972: 24). They satisfy employees’ “needs for meaning and personal growth at work” and therefore create satisfaction (Sokan, 2006: 9). ‘Hygiene factors’ are extrinsic to the work and include factors like interpersonal relations at work and general work conditions (Bobbit and Behling, 1972). Many researchers regard recognition as a motivating factor as it has an intrinsic motivational role through generating feelings of self-worth and belonging. Interactional justice is extrinsic to the work and is expected to be a hygiene factor that determines the direction in which the motivator recognition influences engagement.
Taken together, Maslow’s and Herzberg’s model both suggest that interactional justice, as a lower-level need and hygiene factor, moderates the relationship between recognition and job engagement; higher-order needs can only become motivators when lower-order justice needs are satisfied. Thus, the following hypothesis is put forward:
H2: The relationship between recognition and job engagement is expected to be moderated by interactional justice; the relation between recognition and job engagement will only be positive under conditions of high interactional justice.
FIGURE 1
Conceptual model of the relationship between recognition, engagement and interactional justice
3. METHOD SECTION
3.1Respondents and procedure
The hypotheses were tested by sending an online questionnaire to the members of the Equipment department of an Australian dental supplier. From the 168 department members, 102 employees completed and returned the questionnaire. This equals a response rate of 60.7%. The sample of participants consisted of equipment staff from five locations of Henry Schein Halas, Australia; namely Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. The locations were not indicated on the questionnaire because of privacy concerns.
Of the 102 respondents, 87 were male (85.3%) and 15 were female (14.7%), while 61.8% were under the age of 40 and 38.2% were over 40 years old. On average, most of the respondents had tenures of less than 5 years (52%). 48% had over 5 years of tenures in the job (dummy variables were used). Participants were employed in diverse job types within the equipment department namely: Sales (25.5%), Customer Service (18.6%), Service mechanics (39.2%) and Management (16.7%).
The questionnaire was divided into four parts and consisted of statements about the research variables: In the first part, respondents answered questions about job and
organization engagement. The next part comprised of statements about the recognition from the direct supervisor. The third part entailed questions about employees’ perceived fairness within the organization and in the final part, respondents provided information about their age, gender and job tenure.
Anonymity and confidentiality were assured because respondents filled in the questionnaire online with an individual link. Before employees could access the questionnaire, an information sheet was displayed which explained the research objectives and informed participants about the anonymity of the survey. The online tool that was used, did not allow for any missing answers which is the reason for the complete data.
3.2 Organizational information
Henry Schein Halas (HSH) is the largest dental supply company in Australia, providing dental practitioners and laboratories with everything dental such as new technologies, consumables, equipment, and services. The company is a subsidiary of Henry Schein Inc, the world’s “leading distributor of healthcare products and services” (Henry Schein Halas, 2011a). HSH operates in four business units, namely medical, dental, technology and international. It serves customers such as laboratories, dental practices, veterinarian clinics as well as governments and other institutions (Henry Schein Corporate, 2011).
Henry Schein Halas was founded in 2006, following a merger of Halas Dental Ltd and Henry Schein Regional Ltd, which are two of Australia’s most successful dental businesses with extensive experience in the profession since 79 years (Henry Schein Corporate, 2011; Henry Schein Halas, 2011a). With its main office in Waterloo, Sydney, HSH operates in five states within Australia with a workforce of 342 staff (Henry Schein Halas, 2010).
consultants who deliver end to end service, including installations, repairs, preventive maintenance and ensuring accompanying after sales service. The equipment portfolio consists of dental chairs, microscopes, intra oral cameras, digital x-ray systems, sterilization units, handpieces, and a comprehensive range of small equipment (Henry Schein Halas, 2011b).
3.3Measurements Independent variable
Employee recognition from direct supervisor was measured with five items using
the scale of Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman and Fetter (1990). The items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree”. Example questions are: “My direct supervisor gives me special recognition when my work is very good”, and “My direct supervisor personally compliments me when I do outstanding work”. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .929.
Dependent variable
Employee engagement was divided into job and organization engagement and
was measured with 11 items from Saks (2006). Both items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”.
Job Engagement was measured using five items. Example questions are:
“Sometimes I am so into my job that I lose track of time” and “I am highly engaged in this job”. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .866.
Organization Engagement was measured using six items. Example questions are:
“Being a member of this organization is very captivating” and “I am highly engaged in this organization”. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .737.
Moderator
Interactional Justice was measured with seven items using the scale of Aquino et
Control variables
Past research has demonstrated that gender, age and job tenure may influence employee work attitudes and behavior, such as engagement (Hui and Tan, 1996).
Gender was coded with 1 = male and 2 = female. Prior research showed that
women were more engaged with work than men (Mauno, Kinnunen, Mäkikangas and Nätti, 2005). Age was dummy-coded with 1= under 40 years old; 2= over 40 years old. Other researchers acknowledged that engagement levels are higher among older workers (Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte and Lens, 2008; Blessing White, 2011). Job
tenure was dummy-coded 1= under 5 years; 2= over 5 years. Job tenure was found to be
positively related to engagement as engagement increases with tenure (Blessing White, 2011). Because of the potential effects of these demographic variables, the controls have been added to the analysis.
Furthermore, distributive and procedural justice measures were included as control variables using the scales of Niehoff and Moorman (1993).
Distributive Justice (five items) was rated on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from
1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree”. Sample items are, “My work schedule is fair” and “I feel that my job responsibilities are fair”. Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .842.
Procedural Justice (seven items) was measured on a 7-point Likert scale, ranging
from 1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree”. Sample items are, “My general manager clarifies decisions and provides additional information when requested by employees”, and “My direct supervisor makes sure that all employee concerns are heard before job decisions are made.” Cronbach’s alpha for the organizational justice measure was .911.
3.4Data analysis
Before testing the hypotheses, the Cronbach’s alpha scores of all dependent and independent variables were calculated in order to determine the reliability of the components. All values were above the highly satisfactory alpha level of .70 which acknowledges that the measures used are statistically reliable (Nunnally, 1978).
consisted of three steps. In the first step, the control variables gender, age and job tenure were entered. In the second step, the independent variable recognition and the moderating variable interactional justice as well as the two controlling variables distributive and procedural justice were entered to measure the main effect first with job engagement and thereafter with organization engagement. In the final step, the interaction term of recognition multiplied by interactional justice perceptions was added in order to determine the moderation effect with job engagement (Aiken and West, 1991).
In addition, a simple slope test was conducted in order to test whether the slopes differ from zero and are therefore significant. In order to avoid multicollinearity and to interpret the contribution of the variables under study on a common scale, all independent variables were standardized before the interaction term was computed (Aiken and West, 1991; Preacher, 2003).
4. RESULTS SECTION
4.1Correlations and descriptive statistics
The means, standard deviations, and Pearson correlations among all variables in this study are presented in Table 2 below. The demographic variables gender, age and job tenure were expected to have an influence on the study variables and were therefore investigated as control variables. As shown in Table 2, two out of the three variables, age and job tenure, were significantly correlated with various study variables. Gender had no significant effect on the variables under research.
As expected, recognition correlates significantly with job engagement (r= .63,
p<.01) as well as with organization engagement (r= .71, p<.01). Further, all three
measures of justice have a significant correlation with job engagement (Distributive Justice r= .56, p<.01; Procedural Justice r= .58, p<.01; Interactional Justice r= .58,
p<.01). Similarly, for organization engagement, all justice measures are significantly
related to the independent variable (Distributive Justice r= .64, p<.01; Procedural Justice
It is also worth noting that job and organization engagement are significantly correlated (r= .58, p<.01). In order to see whether the engagement constructs are significantly different, a paired samples t-test was conducted which showed that while the two constructs are related, they are still distinct measures (t(101)= 3.23, p<.01). Also, participants indicated a higher score for job engagement (mean= 3.63) than for organization engagement (mean= 3.19).
TABLE 2
Means, Standard Deviations (SD) and Pearson correlations of the variables
4.2 Hypotheses testing
For the prediction of employee organization engagement (Table 4), the same control variables were used which contributed significantly to the prediction of organization engagement (∆R²= .09, ∆F= 3.46, p<0.05). The control variable job tenure (b= .95, t= 1.81, p<0.10) showed slightly significant contributions to organization engagement. The relationship between gender (b= .86, t= 1.26, ns), age (b= .87, t= 1.62, ns) and organization engagement was not significant.
The second step shows to what extent the main effects of recognition, distributive, procedural and interactional justice predicted organization engagement. As displayed in the results, the factors together explained 52% of the variance (∆R²= .52, ∆F= 31.89,
p<0.01). As predicted, the regression coefficients show that recognition was positively
related to organization engagement (b= .15, t= 4.56, p<0.01). This suggests that, the more recognition employees receive, the more engaged they are in the organization, thus supporting Hypothesis 1. Similarly, the factors were tested with job engagement and recognition as well as all three justice factors, which significantly predicted the dependent variable (∆R²= .46, ∆F= 22.71, p<0.01).
Unexpectedly, the regression coefficient of recognition shows a significant positive relation with job engagement (b= .20, t= 3.50, p<0.01), thus indicating a direct positive main effect of recognition on job engagement. Surprisingly, also a significant direct relationship was found between interactional justice and job engagement (b= .19,
t= 2.55, p<0.01). This means, if employees receive interactional justice or recognition
Results of the regression equation
Results of the regression equation
TABLE 3
Results of the regression equation for job engagement (N=102)
TABLE 4
Results of the regression equation for organization engagement (N=102)
In the third step, the two-way interaction variable contributed significantly to the prediction of job engagement (∆R²= .02, ∆F= 6.05, p<.05). As anticipated, a significant relationship was found for the moderating effect of interactional justice on the relationship between recognition and job engagement (b= .74, t= 2.46, p<.05). This means, that hypothesis 2 is supported. For organization engagement, the two-way relationships between recognition and interactional justice did not contribute significantly to the prediction of organization engagement (∆R²= .00, ∆F= .35, ns).
In order to interpret the significant interaction, a simple slope analysis was conducted for interactional justice at one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean. Simple slope analysis aims to predict whether recognition is positively related to job engagement for both low and high levels of interactional justice (Aiken and West, 1991). The two-way interaction between recognition, interactional justice and job engagement is graphically shown in figure 2.
FIGURE 2
Simple slope analysis for high and low levels of interactional justice
5. DISCUSSION SECTION
5.1Findings
The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the relationship between recognition and employee engagement and to test the moderating role of organizational justice. It was expected that recognition from the direct supervisor would increase employee-reported organization engagement. Moreover, interactional justice was expected to moderate the relationship between recognition and job engagement. The results generally confirmed the study hypotheses although some additional interesting findings surfaced that are discussed below.
Moreover, we found a positive direct effect of recognition on job engagement. This is consistent with the social exchange related mechanisms that were put forward as an explanation for the effects of recognition on organization engagement. When leaders recognize subordinates’ achievements, employees will reciprocate acknowledgement of efforts by positive job behaviors and increased job performance which will cause higher levels of job engagement.
Finally, we also found a positive relationship between procedural justice and organization engagement. As the organization is perceived as the source of fair processes, positive reactions towards these processes are directed towards the whole organization rather than at a single person or outcome (Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001).
Taken together, these findings have several important implications for both theory and practice which will be outlined in the following.
5.2Theoretical implications
An important theoretical implication of this study is that it adds two new predicting variables to the engagement literature, specifically organizational justice and recognition. While prior research mainly focused on the relationship between recognition and job satisfaction or organizational commitment (Luthans and Stajkovic, 2000; Brun and Dugas, 2008; Saks, 2006), this study introduced the relationship between recognition and engagement and the moderating role of organizational justice. The results confirm the hypothesized relationship while the study also provides new ground for further research.
We investigated the role of a new moderating variable, organizational justice, in the relation between recognition and engagement and showed that under conditions of high interactional justice, recognition will have significant positive effects on job engagement. This finding helps to explain the inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between recognition and job engagement by showing that the development of job engagement is conditional upon the perception of interactional justice as a moderating variable when receiving recognition.
are highly correlated, we found significantly different effects such as the positive relationship between interactional justice and job engagement, and the positive effects of procedural justice on organization engagement. These findings suggest the usefulness of the distinction between two separate engagement measures and show that further research should be conducted with the studied engagement constructs.
5.3Practical implications
The findings in the current study also offer important implications for management practitioners and organizations, particularly in an Australian business context. The study indicates that leaders have the potential to influence subordinates’ levels of engagement by treating them interactionally fair and giving appropriate recognition. Both recognition and fairness are under the control of the direct supervisors while interacting with subordinates. Therefore, management trainings may create awareness of the effects of supervisor behavior on the engagement of employees and thus, improve interpersonal relations.
Our results suggest that organizations should pay more attention to the predictors of engagement that were found in this study because an engaged workforce is related to many positive work outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment and reduced intentions to leave the organization (Saks, 2006). However, the study also showed that managers need to keep in mind that employees only appreciate meaningful recognition that is combined with respectful treatment. When both, justice and recognition are given, employees will experience the highest levels of engagement.
5.4Limitations and Future Research
assessed, but is rather due to the measurement method, leading to systematic error variance (Cascio and Aguinis, 2005). And secondly, social desirability bias might influence the results because respondents might adjust responses in order for them and the organization to appear in a more beneficial light. To reduce this bias, we guaranteed respondent anonymity and made participants less prone to edit responses according to the expectations of the researcher. Future research should consider this limitation and collect data from multiple sources such as self-report questionnaires accompanied by additional supervisor ratings.
The second limitation concerns the cross-sectional form of the data. This means that as the data was not tested over time, causal statements cannot be drawn about the strength of the relationships. Future research could take a longitudinal research approach in order to understand how the relationship between recognition, engagement and organizational justice develops over time.
The final limitation is that we used a single-company approach which consequently limits the generalizability of the study. Although the respondents form a heterogeneous group with employees from five states and different age groups, they are all working at the same dental supply company in Australia. The organizational type and culture could have significantly influenced the results received, therefore future research should be composed of a more diverse sample that is generalizable across countries.
Future studies should further investigate the distinction between job and organization engagement, as today much is still unknown about the concept of engagement. The influence of leaders in eliciting an engaged workforce is indisputable and worth further research to better understand the effects of leader behavior on employee attitudes. It is also of further interest to repeat this study with a larger sample, to see whether the results are still consistent.
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