Editorial summary. This is our text summary of an article published by frontiers. Charts, figures, and the author’s full voice are at the original — read it there .
Editorial verdict
Methodologically competent cross-cultural study with a well-specified PLS-SEM model, but the convenience sampling from one metropolitan area, self-reported data, and the authors' own acknowledgment of generalizability limits mean the findings warrant replication before broader application.
Executive summary
This study examines how organizational justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional dimensions) influences turnover intention among employees in foreign-invested enterprises in South Korea, using organizational conflict and job satisfaction as mediating variables. The authors argue that fairness perceptions reduce turnover intention both directly and indirectly through lower conflict and higher satisfaction. Using non-probability convenience sampling, 775 valid responses were collected from employees in the Seoul metropolitan area and analyzed via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). All three justice dimensions were significantly and negatively associated with organizational conflict and turnover intention, while positively associated with job satisfaction. Both mediators partially mediated the justice–turnover intention relationship. Multi-group analysis (MGA) comparing Korean and non-Korean employees found that most structural relationships were statistically equivalent across groups, with one notable exception: the negative effect of interactional justice on organizational conflict was significantly stronger among Korean employees than non-Korean employees. The authors conclude that fairness perceptions function as a critical lever for employee retention in multicultural organizational settings in South Korea, and that culturally differentiated HR strategies may be warranted for specific justice dimensions.
Key insights
- 1All three dimensions of organizational justice (distributive, procedural, interactional) negatively predicted turnover intention and organizational conflict while positively predicting job satisfaction, with distributive justice and interactional justice showing the strongest effects on turnover intention (β = −0.230 and β = −0.332, respectively).
- 2Organizational conflict and job satisfaction each partially mediated the relationship between all three justice dimensions and turnover intention, indicating that fairness perceptions affect retention both directly and through employee attitudinal and relational outcomes.
- 3Multi-group analysis revealed that Korean and non-Korean employees responded similarly to most justice–outcome relationships, but differed significantly on the interactional justice–organizational conflict path (Korean: β = −0.338; non-Korean: β = −0.212; p = 0.028), suggesting Korean employees may be more sensitive to interpersonal treatment quality in reducing workplace conflict.
Practical takeaways
- Organizations operating in multicultural South Korean workplaces may find that managing perceived fairness in outcomes (distributive justice) has the largest direct effect on reducing turnover intention, and that investing in respectful interpersonal communication (interactional justice) may be particularly effective for reducing conflict among Korean employees.
- The dual mediation through both organizational conflict and job satisfaction suggests that retention-focused HR interventions targeting fairness perceptions may be most effective when they simultaneously address conflict reduction mechanisms and satisfaction-enhancing conditions.
Frameworks mentioned
Equity Theory
Adams' (1965) theoretical foundation underpinning organizational justice, positing that employees assess fairness by comparing their input-outcome ratios to those of others.
References
- Journal of Applied Psychology (2001).Justice at the millennium: a meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research.
- Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2001).The role of justice in organizations: a meta-analysis.
- Academy of Management Journal (1993).Justice as a mediator of the relationship between methods of monitoring and organizational citizenship behavior.
- Center for American Progress (2012).There are Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees.
- Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (2015).A new criterion for assessing discriminant validity in variance-based structural equation modeling.
- BMC Psychology (2020).Perceived organizational justice and turnover intention among hospital healthcare workers.
- Journal of Family Business Management (2025).Organizational justice, turnover intentions and resilience in family and non-family businesses in the Portuguese hotel industry.
- SAGE Publications (2014).A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).
Source & Provenance
frontiers
Insook Cho, Sung Jun Jo, My Hanh Bui, et al.
January 15, 2026
Research Study
Asia-Pacific
Original source metadata is preserved. AI analysis is generated separately.
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