What happens to others will happen to me! Examining the cross-lagged relationship between perceived overall justice and job insecurity

PurposeConsidering the adverse outcomes that job insecurity might have on employees and organizations (De Witte et al., 2016), this study aims to test the role of perceived justice in preventing job insecurity from occurring. Relying on social information processing theory (Salancik and Pfeffer, 1978) and fairness heuristic theory (Lind, 2001), the authors analyze both an assessment of the extent to which the person is treated fairly by the organization (i.e. self-focused justice) and an individual's evaluation of the extent to which the person's co-workers are treated fairly (i.e. other-focused justice). The authors expect other-focused and self-focused justice to be negatively related to job insecurity.Design/methodology/approachThe hypotheses were tested using cross-lagged structural equation modelling based on two-wave data from 126 employees working in a public sector organization undergoing structural changes.FindingsThe study results revealed that other-focused overall justice but not self-focused overall justice predicted lower job insecurity one year later. Moreover, other-focused overall justice did have a cross-lagged effect on self-focused overall justice.Originality/valueBy investigating the relationship between other- and self-focused overall justice and job insecurity over time, this study provides solid evidence into so far neglected longitudinal relationships between justice and insecurity. The results show that in the context of organizational changes, other-focused overall justice predicted lower job insecurity as well as higher self-focused overall justice one year later.