Affective Commitment and Job Satisfaction among Non-family Employees: Investigating the Roles of Justice Perceptions and Psychological Ownership

Due to numerous characteristics often attributed to family firms, they constitute a unique context for non-family employees’ justice perceptions. These are linked to non-family employees’ pro-organizational attitudes and behaviors, which are essential for family firms’ success. Even though scholarly interest in non-family employees’ justice perceptions has increased, more research is still needed, also because the mechanism connecting justice perceptions and favorable outcomes is not fully understood yet. We address this gap by explicitly investigating non-family employees’ justice perceptions and by introducing psychological ownership as a mediator in the relationships between justice perceptions (distributive and procedural) and common work attitudes (affective commitment and job satisfaction). Our analysis of a sample of 310 non-family employees from Germany and German-speaking Switzerland reveals that psychological ownership mediates the relationships between distributive justice and affective commitment as well as job satisfaction. This represents valuable contributions to family business research, organizational justice and psychological ownership literature, and to practice.

Psychological Ownership of Employees as a Mediator in the Justice - Affective Commitment Relationship

Numerous scholars have accumulated evidence on the positive effects that employees’ organizational justice perceptions exert on work-related outcomes such as affective commitment. However, research still lacks understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two constructs. In this article we aim to narrow this gap by examining the concept of psychological ownership as a possible mediator between organizational justice perceptions and affective commitment. Investigating a sample of 619 employees, we find distributive justice to be positively related to psychological ownership, and observe psychological ownership as a full mediator of the distributive justice and affective commitment relationship. These insights offer a new explanation in understanding the justice-commitment connection, contributing to both organizational justice and psychological ownership literature and opening up ways for promising future research.

A paper commitment : equal employment opportunity in the Kentucky Bureau of State Police.

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The health consequences of involuntary exposure to tobacco smoke : a report of the Surgeon General : executive summary.

Shipping list no.: 2006-0270-P.

NATO : a time for renewed commitment : report of the Delegation to Northern NATO and the Nordic Region of the Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, Ninety-eighth Congress, second session.

Mode of access: Internet.

A commitment/incentive program to increase safety belt use on a university campus. Final report.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.

A Culture of caring : America's commitment to children and families.

Mode of access: Internet.

Smart partnerships : a shared commitment to improve technology /

"Publication No. FHWA-SA-97-054"--P. [4] of cover.

Slavery, or involuntary servitude : does it legally exist in the state of New York? Points on argument in Court of appeals. Opinions in Court of appeals.

Mode of access: Internet.

Civil commitment and social policy : an evaluation of the Massachusetts Mental Health Reform Act of 1970 /

Mode of access: Internet.

South Korea commitment to buy U.S. rice [microform] : hearings before the Subcommittee on Cotton, Rice, and Sugar of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives, Ninety-seventh Congress, second session, March 11 and 16, 1982.

"Serial no. 97-BBB."

An essay on the vital and other involuntary motions of animals /

Mode of access: Internet.

A Commitment to environmental excellence.

Mode of access: Internet.

Dependent and neglected children under commitment to the Department of Public Welfare as of December 31, 1952.

"April 1953."