Organizational justice, recognition and intrinsic motivation at work: empirical study results
Issues of justice and fairness in management are a major preoccupation for employees (Ambrose and Schminke, 2003). However, in human resources management, the influence of organizational justice on intrinsic motivation at work, received very little research (Grenier et al., 2010). This paper proposes in this regard, to analyze the differential effect of the four dimensions of organizational justice on this form of motivation at work. It also proposes to highlight the role of recognition from supervisors in studying intrinsic motivation, but also to analyze the relationship between justice and recognition. Thereby, the theoretical framework mobilized in this research is based on the contributions of self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan, 1985), the contributions of organizational justice theory (Greenberg, 1987) and the literature on recognition at work (Brun and Dugas, 2002). To do this, we first outlined the theoretical foundations to establish the relationship between these variables, in order to show how organizational justice and recognition from supervisors can promote intrinsic motivation at work. Next, multiple regression analyzes were used to present the results of our empirical study, realized on 787 employees from various sectors in France. Therefore, based only on a questionnaire survey, this study analyzed the links could be made between these three concepts. It appears that organizational justice perceptions—especially in the distribution of the organization resources, in the relationships and in the information provided—can have a positive influence on intrinsic motivation at work. The impact of organizational justice on intrinsic motivation at work can also be greatly and significantly enhanced by the recognition from superiors.