Does financial attachment encourage employees going to the extra miles? From distributive justice to organizational citizenship behavior

Abstract

Purpose. This study aims to resolve the debated relationship between distributive justice and organizational citizenship behavior by proposing and testing a sequential mediation model. It investigates the roles of pay satisfaction and continuance commitment as mediating variables that explain how perceptions of fairness translate into discretionary workplace behaviors. Study designe. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with a sample of 224 public and private sector employees in Indonesia. The hypothesized sequential mediation model was analyzed using structural equation modeling to test the direct and indirect effects between the variables. Findings. The results confirmed the mediating pathways. Distributive justice directly affected pay satisfaction, which in turn influenced continuance commitment, which subsequently predicted organizational citizenship behavior. Crucially, no direct effect was found between distributive justice and organizational citizenship behavior. Instead, pay satisfaction and continuance commitment fully and sequentially mediated this relationship, revealing a calculative “financial attachment” pathway to organizational citizenship behavior. Research implications. The study’s cross-sectional design precludes definitive causal conclusions. Future research should employ longitudinal designs to confirm the causal chain. The findings imply that managers cannot rely on fairness perceptions alone to foster organizational citizenship behavior. Organizations should develop holistic strategies that ensure distributive justice and actively manage pay satisfaction and understand the calculative commitments that financially bind employees to the organization, thereby encouraging extra-role contributions. Originality. This research provides original value by identifying a novel sequential mediation model that clarifies the mixed findings in the literature. It introduces the under-explored “financial attachment” pathway — where pay satisfaction and continuance commitment act as crucial bridging mechanisms — offering a more nuanced understanding of how distributive justice, through calculative rather than purely affective means, influences organizational citizenship behavior.