Distributive justice and organizational commitment revisited: Moderation by layoff in the case of Korean employees

Research supports the conclusion that organizational commitment is affected more by procedural justice than by distributive justice, and this is especially true in collectivistic societies. The present research examines the effects of distributive justice on organizational commitment levels of Korean employees under layoff situations. It focuses on the moderating effects of two layoff variables: layoff experience and layoff perception. Data were collected front HR managers from 14 companies and 411 employees. It was found that layoff perception significantly moderated the effect of distributive justice on organizational commitment, while there was no significant effect found in the case of layoff experience. Additional analyses show that employees perceive a high level of distributive justice even in the case of layoffs when training on the appraisal methods are provided, Implications of these findings are included in the discussion. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.