The Effect of Perceived Organizational Justice on Organizational Commitment: Evidence from the Construction Sector in Egypt

Author(s)

Doaa Mohamed Abdel Gaber ,

Download Full PDF Pages: 18-30 | Views: 6 | Downloads: 2 | DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.22112635

Volume 15 - August 2026 (08)

Abstract

Purpose: The construction sector is one of the key contributors to Egypt's economic development and depends heavily on the commitment of its professional workforce to achieve organizational effectiveness and project success. Because work in the sector is competitive and organized around time-bound projects, firms struggle both to retain committed staff and to keep their internal practices visibly fair. This study examines how employees' perceptions of fairness in reward distribution, organizational procedures, and interpersonal treatment relate to their commitment, testing each of the three dimensions of perceived organizational justice — distributive, procedural, and interactional — against each of the three dimensions of organizational commitment — affective, continuance, and normative — among white-collar non-managerial employees in the Egyptian construction sector.

 Design/methodology/approach: A quantitative, cross-sectional design was used, with a structured, bilingual (English/Arabic), self-administered questionnaire distributed to white-collar non-managerial employees in Egyptian construction firms via convenience sampling. The instrument incorporated Moorman's (1991) organizational justice scale and Meyer et al.'s (1993) organizational commitment scale. Of 384 valid responses collected, all met the study's screening criteria. Data were analyzed in IBM SPSS Statistics (v.29) and AMOS. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability established internal consistency, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) established convergent and discriminant validity, and nine simple linear regressions tested the hypothesized relationships between the dimensions of organizational justice and organizational commitment.

Findings: Perceived organizational justice is a significant predictor of organizational commitment among white-collar non-managerial employees in the Egyptian construction sector. Each of the three justice dimensions positively and significantly predicted affective and normative commitment, though to differing degrees; none had a statistically significant effect on continuance commitment. Interactional justice was the strongest predictor of both affective commitment (β = 0.862, R² = 0.743) and normative commitment (β = 0.839, R² = 0.703), underlining the weight employees place on respectful treatment and clear communication. Distributive justice followed (R² = 0.652 and 0.680, respectively), with procedural justice the weakest of the three on both outcomes (R² = 0.568 and 0.553). Fair procedure therefore mattered, but less than fair outcomes and, above all, less than fair interpersonal treatment.

Practical Implications: The results offer construction firms a basis for building commitment through fairer human resource practices. Managers should ensure equitable distribution of organizational rewards, implement transparent and consistent organizational procedures, and promote respectful and supportive interactions between supervisors and employees. Establishing a culture of fairness can enhance employees' emotional attachment, strengthen their loyalty to the organization, and encourage long-term organizational commitment, thereby improving employee retention and organizational performance in the Egyptian construction sector.

Originality: This study fills a significant contextual gap by examining, at the dimension level, the interplay between three facets of organizational justice and three facets of organizational commitment specifically among white-collar non-managerial employees in the Egyptian construction sector — a project-based, developing-economy setting that has received little empirical attention to date.

Paper type: Research paper.

Keywords

Organizational justice; distributive justice; procedural justice; interactional justice; organizational commitment; affective commitment; continuance commitment; normative commitment; construction sector; Egypt.

References

·         Abbasi, A. S., & Alvi, A. K. (2012). Impact of organizational justice on employee engagement in banking sector of Pakistan. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 12(5), 643–649.

·         Abubakar, A. M., Chauhan, A., Kura, K. M., & Rahman, M. (2020). The impact of organizational justice on employee engagement: The mediating role of organizational trust. Management Research Review, 43(3), 296–312.

·         Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267–299). Academic Press.

·         Al Halbusi, H., Williams, K. A., Ramayah, T., & Aldieri, L. (2022). Organizational justice and employee outcomes in the Middle East: The mediating role of trust. Employee Relations, 44(5), 1123–1140.

·         Becker, H. S. (1960). Notes on the concept of commitment. American Journal of Sociology, 66(1), 32–40.

·         Bies, R. J., & Moag, J. S. (1986). Interactional communication criteria of fairness. In R. J. Lewicki, B. H. Sheppard, & M. H. Bazerman (Eds.), Research on negotiation in organizations (Vol. 1, pp. 43–55). JAI Press.

·         Blau, P. M. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. Wiley.

·     Boateng, F. D., & Hsieh, M. L. (2019). Explaining job satisfaction and commitment among prison officers: The role of organizational justice. The Prison Journal, 99(2), 172–193.

·         Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics [CAPMAS]. (2025, April 30). Egypt's annual unemployment rate drops to 6.6% in 2024. https://sis.gov.eg/en/media-center/news/capmas-egypt-s-annual-unemployment-rate-drops-to-66-percent-in-2024/

·         Cohen-Charash, Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organizations: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86(2), 278–321.

·  Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 386–400.

·         Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425–445.

·     Colquitt, J. A., Zipay, K. P., Lynch, J. W., & Outlaw, R. (2021). Bringing the millennium into the 2020s: A review of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(11), 1625–1654.

·         Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2023). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches (7th ed.). Sage.

·      Cropanzano, R., & Mitchell, M. S. (2005). Social exchange theory: An interdisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 31(6), 874–900.

·     Egyptian Center for Economic Studies. (2023). Positioning of Egypt's labor market: Dynamics, sectoral analysis and future prospects (Working Paper No. 225). https://eces.org.eg

·    Folger, R., & Konovsky, M. A. (1989). Effects of procedural and distributive justice on reactions to pay raise decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 32(1), 115–130.

·      Fortin, M. (2008). Perspectives on organizational justice: Concept clarification, social context integration, time and links with morality. International Journal of Management Reviews, 10(2), 93–126.

·      Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25(2), 161–178.

·      Greenberg, J. (1990). Organizational justice: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Journal of Management, 16(2), 399–432.

·      Greenberg, J. (1993). The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice. In R. Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the workplace (pp. 79–103). Lawrence Erlbaum.

·         Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2023). Multivariate data analysis (9th ed.). Cengage Learning.

·     Khan, N. A., Khan, A. N., & Soomro, M. A. (2023). Organizational justice and employee behavior in developing countries. Sustainability, 15(4), 1–15.

·         Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 30(3), 607–610.

·    Lambert, E. G., Hogan, N. L., & Griffin, M. L. (2007). Impact of distributive and procedural justice on organizational commitment. Journal of Criminal Justice, 35(6), 644–656.

·    Lamprakis, A., Alamani, K., Malliari, A., & Grivas, I. (2018). Organizational justice as a HR practice and its impact on engagement. Scientific Annals of Economics and Business, 65(1), 65–79.

·     Lavelle, J. J., Rupp, D. E., & Brockner, J. (2007). Taking a multifoci approach to the study of justice, social exchange, and citizenship behavior. Journal of Management, 33(6), 841–866.

·      Meyer, J. P., & Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1(1), 61–89.

·    Meyer, J. P., Allen, N. J., & Smith, C. A. (1993). Commitment to organizations and occupations: Extension and test of a three-component conceptualization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(4), 538–551.

·   Meyer, J. P., Stanley, D. J., Herscovitch, L., & Topolnytsky, L. (2002). Affective, continuance, and normative commitment to the organization: A meta-analysis of antecedents, correlates, and consequences. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61(1), 20–52.

·         Moorman, R. H. (1991). Relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors: Do fairness perceptions influence employee citizenship? Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(6), 845–855.

·         Mowday, R. T., Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1979). The measurement of organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14(2), 224–247.

·    Mubashar, T., Musharraf, S., Khan, S., & Butt, T. A. (2022). Impact of organizational justice on employee engagement. Cogent Psychology, 9(1), 1–15.

·         Mukherjee, K., & Bhattacharya, R. (2013). Mediating effect of organizational trust between justice and commitment. Management and Labour Studies, 38(1–2), 63–79.

·         Nakra, R. (2014). Impact of organizational justice on commitment and job stay. Vision, 18(3), 185–194.

·   Park, Y., Song, J. H., & Lim, D. H. (2016). Organizational justice and work engagement. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 37(6), 711–729.

·      Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879

·         Saunders, M., Lewis, P., & Thornhill, A. (2023). Research methods for business students (9th ed.). Pearson.

·         Sekaran, U., & Bougie, R. (2020). Research methods for business: A skill-building approach (8th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

·   Shah, S. Z. A., Javed, M., & Abbas, M. (2021). Organizational justice in construction projects. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 28(5), 1500–1515.

·         Thibaut, J. W., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Erlbaum.

Cite this Article: