Procedural justice, interactional justice, and task performance: The mediating role of intrinsic motivation

Abstract

This manuscript reports the results of two studies, one in the laboratory and one in the field, both of which examined intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the relationship between justice and task performance. Using fairness theory, we argued that procedural justice and interpersonal justice would have significant, independent effects on intrinsic motivation. In general, the results showed that procedural justice predicted both self-reported and free-choice based measures of intrinsic motivation. Procedural justice also predicted task performance, a relationship that was partially mediated by intrinsic motivation. In contrast, interpersonal justice was not significantly related to either intrinsic motivation or task performance. We discuss the implications of these results for the continued integration of the justice and motivation literatures.