Why does organizational justice matter? Uncertainty management among law enforcement officers

Purpose: Law enforcement officers who believe their supervisors are organizationally fair are more satisfied with their jobs, more confident in their authority, and more likely to use procedural justice. The problem, however, is that we have little understanding concerning why officers care about being treated fairly. We address this issue by drawing on fairness heuristic and uncertainty management theories. Methods: We used survey data from a sample of Border Patrol agents (N = 868) to help advance our understanding of the association between organizational justice and job satisfaction. Regression analyses and Stata's margins command were used to visualize the interaction effects. Results: We found that agents facing uncertainty focused more attention on fair supervisor treatment than their counterparts when considering how satisfied they were with their jobs. Both general workplace uncertainty and uncertainty stemming from recent negative publicity moderated the relationship between organizational justice and job satisfaction. Conclusions: Organizational justice appears to be more salient to agents facing uncertainty because supervisor fairness provides cues that the agency has their best interests in mind and will support them in the future.