The Impact of Organizational Justice on Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Mediating Role of Employee Happiness and Moderating Effect of Perception of Fairness

Abstract

This is a research that examines the effects of Organizational Justice (OJ) on Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) among the employees in the education sector in Pakistan. It also analyses Employee Happiness (EH) as a mediator and Perception of Fairness (PF) is a moderator under the Social Exchange Theory (SET). It was a quantitative and cross-sectional study. Convenience sampling was applied in collecting data on 220 employees in educational institutions in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Validated scales measured OJ, EH, OCB and PF. The analysis of data was performed on SPSS and SmartPLS (SEM) that comprised reliability assessment, correlation analysis, mediation, and moderation testing. Findings indicate that OJ is an effective boost to EH and OCB. EH mediates OJ-OCB relationship which suggests that the fair treatment leads to positive emotions that promotes discretionary behavior. PF plays a significant moderating role between EH and OCB whereby the influence of happiness on citizenship behavior is enhanced by high perceptions of fairness. The research contributes to the development of SET by including emotional (happiness) and cognitive (fairness perception) processes in justice-behavior correlations. In practice, it emphasizes the values of equitable policies, open-minded decision-making, and enabling leadership in enhancing good employee behaviors and effectiveness in improving institutions within the education sector. There is the risk of biased responses represented by self-reported data. The cross-sectional design makes the study causally interpretable and the sample size, which is based on two cities and one sector, makes the study less generalized. Future research ought to be longitudinal design with multi-source. To enhance theoretical and contextual knowledge, additional antecedents (leadership style, empowerment, job autonomy), novel moderators (cultural values, digital work conditions), and more comparisons of the sector broadly should be implemented in Pakistan.