پژوهشهای مدیریت عمومی (Feb 2020)
An Investigation of Effects Exchange Relationships on Social loafing by Emphasis on the Mediating Role of Perceived Organizational Justice
Abstract
Extended Abstract Abstract In the past few years, duo to positive organizational behaviors, deviant behaviors such as social loafing have been the focus of attention of researchers in organizational studies. social loafing refers to the person's desire to deliberately reduce his mental and physical effort during activity. Considering the importance of the role of these behaviors in the performance of the organization and the provision of services to the client, this research examines the two organizational factors that affect social loafing in the public hospitals of Ahwaz. The population of the study consisted of 822 medical staff, that 265 were selected by stratified sampling method. Tools used to collectthe data organizational justic questionnaire of Nijouff and Morman(1993), leader-member exchange questionnaire of Liden & Maslyn(1998), team-member questionnaire of Seers(1989) and social loafing questionnaire of George(1992) that content validity structures and reliability of their approval reached. The results of the research indicated that the exchange relations had a significant effect on the perception of distributive and interactional justice and social loafing. But merely distributive justice can substantially mediate the impact of the leader-member relationship on social loafing. This indicates that members are involved in exchange relationships if they feel they are less financially and economically profitable than most other members, they involve in social loafing. Introduction Social loafing (SL) is a counterintuitive phenomenon that describes a decrease of efficiency observed in both small groups and large organizations. Research over the past century has increased our understanding of SL and identified antecedent factors that appear to reduce or exacerbate its effect. The term “social loafing” was coined for the discovery that participants working in groups exert less effort than participants working individually. This phenomenon has many negative consequences, including decreasing performance (Mefoh and Nwanosike,2012), satisfaction and trust (Mortazavi et.al,2009), interpersonal interactions, individual and group effectiveness and, as a result, reducing the effectiveness of organizations (Liden et.al,2004). The results of previous studies indicate that one of the factors affecting social loafing is organizational justice (Luo et.al,2013; Nadiri & Tanova,2010; Piezon & Ferree, 2008; Liden et al., 2004). Based on these studies, from the point of view of the individual, social loafing may be a reasonable behavior towards the inequality of the group, or an individual's reaction to a situation in which his efforts are rarely taken into consideration) Wallace,2014. ( In addition, previous studies indicate that the exchange relationships between team members and team leader influence on their perception of organizational justice and can lead to certain behaviors, including social loafing( Murphy et.al,2003; Masterson et.al,2000(. In therapeutic environments such as hospitals, group working is an important element of health care for providing and guaranteeing the health of patients, while reducing individual mistakes, increases the quality of care services. As noted social loafing is one of the pests of group working that the lack of attention to its roots can undermine the effectiveness of the group. Hence, the need for research that examines this phenomenon in therapeutic environments is inevitable This study examines the impact of exchange relationships (exchanges with leaders and colleagues) on social loafing through the mediating role of organizational justice in real work groups. Case study the population of the study consisted of 822 medical staff of public hospitals of ahwaz, among whom 265 were selected by stratified sampling method Materials and Methods This study is an applied research in terms of its objective, is descriptive in nature, and is of survey type in terms of its data collection and method. the required information was collected using questionnaires. To test the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling has been used. Discussion and Results Among the hypotheses of the research, five hypotheses were confirmed, but the hypotheses concerning the impact of interactional justice on exchange relations, including the relationship between the leader-member and the team-member, and its impact on social loafing, were not confirmed at 95% confidence level. The results of the research indicated that the exchange relations had a significant effect on the perception of distributive and interactional justice and social loafing. But merely distributive justice can substantially mediate the impact of the leader-member relationship on social loafing. Conclusion The present study was based on the argument that the quality of the relationship between the leader-member has a positive effect on their perception of distributive and interactional justice. The findings of this study confirm these relationships in the framework of the hypotheses (1) and (2). Previous empirical research, such as Manogran et al. (1994), Podsakoff et al. (1990) and Whitchu et al. (1986), also showed that in the process of exchange of leader-member, since individuals within a group receive positive action behaviors (trust and confidence) from their superior, as a result, they have more positive judgments to leader, and perceive more justice at the organization level. The findings also indicate that exchange relationships have a negative impact on social loafing. In other words, individuals respond to low-quality exchanges with their leaders. Individuals may not be motivated to exert full effort when they have a low-quality relationship with their leader because the task performance of individuals and groups contributes to the leader’s performance. Similarly, individuals who are in a high quality exchange with their leader may attempt to reciprocate to their leader by not engaging in social loafing. in addition, when individuals form high-quality relationships with their team members, they may be less likely to withhold effort, and will contribute fully to the group. However, this study did not confirm the role of interactional justice in reducing social loafing (hypotheses 7 and 9). The lack of a significant relationship between interactional justice and social loafing may be due to the fact that employee in the studied organizations have the most sensitivity to how organizational rewards are delivered and the interactions with managers and supervisors are in the next step.
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