Work Alienation as a Mediator of the Relationship of Procedural Injustice to Job Stress

Procedural justice, which refers to the perceived fairness of decision-making procedures, is accepted as an important antecedent of several job attitudes and behaviors such as turnover intention, organizational commitment, trust, and stress in organizational justice literature. This study examined the relationship of procedural injustice to job stress, and whether work alienation, which has not been referred to in justice literature before, serves as a mediator in this relationship. Two dimensions of work alienation (powerlessness and social isolation) were addressed for this study. It was hypothesized that procedural injustice causes job stress, and work alienation serves as a mediator in this relationship. These relationships were tested in a sample of 383 health care professionals (doctors and nurses) from public and private hospitals in Istanbul. The results revealed that procedural injustice was associated with job stress and each of the work alienation dimensions partially mediated this relationship. The theoretical and practical implications of this results are discussed below.