When fairness breaks down at work: a conceptual model of organisational injustice, work values and employee contextual performance

Editorial verdict

Theoretically coherent but entirely unvalidated — this conceptual paper proposes a plausible mediating role for work values in the injustice–performance relationship, but offers no empirical evidence; treat the model as a research agenda, not actionable guidance.

Executive summary

This paper addresses the question of why perceived organizational injustice leads to reduced contextual performance — the discretionary, extra-role behaviors that sustain organizational social and psychological functioning. The authors argue that the relationship is not direct but is mediated by work values, specifically work centrality: the degree to which work is central to an individual's identity and life priorities. Drawing on Organizational Justice Theory and Social Exchange Theory, the paper proposes that all three dimensions of injustice — distributive, procedural, and interactional — progressively erode the salience and behavioral enactment of employees' work values, which in turn reduces their willingness to engage in voluntary contextual behaviors such as helping colleagues, mentoring, and organizational citizenship. The paper employs an integrative conceptual review methodology, synthesizing 49 sources spanning 1964–2025, and advances four sets of testable propositions linking injustice dimensions to work value centrality, work value centrality to contextual performance, and work value centrality as a mediator. The authors acknowledge the model is wholly theoretical, requires empirical validation across occupational and cultural contexts, and does not account for all psychological or organizational variables that may moderate these relationships.

Frameworks mentioned

References

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