Psychology, 2010, 1, 300-304
doi:10.4236/psych.2010.14039 Published Online October 2010 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/psych)
The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice between
Participation in Decision-Making and
Organizational Citizenship Behavior:
An Empirical Study about Skeleton
Government Civilian in China*
Guangjin Zhang1, Gabriel Lee2, Xiehua Zou1
1Politics and Law school, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China; 2College of Business, City University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, China.
Received May 14th, 2010; revised June 21st, 2010; accepted July 26th, 2010.
ABSTRACT
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is very important for organization to adapt changing external conditions.
Numerous researches have found that the stable relationship between participation in decision-making (PD) and pro-
cedural justice (PJ), between PJ and OCB. This study examined the mediating effect of PJ on the relationship between
PD and OCB. Data collected from 288 civilian from skeleton government in Hubei province of China indicated that:
procedural justice perception mediates the relationship between participation in decision-making and one of two or-
ganizational citizenship behavior dimensions.
Keywords: Participation in Decision-making, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Procedural Justice, Mediating
Effect
1. Introduction
Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) represents
work-related activities that are discretionary, not directly
or explicitly organized by the formal job description and
formal reward system, and it improves efficiency and
effectiveness of organization [1]. OCB includes such
beneficial actions for organization as helping others who
have been absent, taking a personal interest in other em-
ployees, attendance and punctuality beyond acceptable
norms, and following the informal rules to maintain or-
der.
Prior researches in this area had identified two main
types of OCB: on one hand, OCBO-behaviors that
benefit the organization in general (e.g., conserves and
protects organizational property, gives advance notice
when unable to come to work), on the other hand,
OCBI-behaviors that immediately benefit specific in
dividuals and indirectly through this means contribute
to the organization (e.g., voluntarily help new employ-
ees, shares knowledge with co-workers privately) [2].
OCB contributes efficiency and effectiveness for
organization by strengthening its innovativeness and
adaptability. Interest in OCB is increasing as global
competition highlights the importance of innovation,
flexibility, productivity, and responsiveness to chang-
ing external conditions [1].
In a meta-analysis review of 55 studies, Organ and
Ryan found that job satisfaction, perceived fairness,
organizational commitment, and leader supportiveness
were robust predictors of OCB [3]. As for the relation-
ship between participation in decision-making and or-
ganizational citizenship behavior, Van Yperen, Berg,
and Willering found that participation in decision-
making enhanced employees’ sense of supervisor sup-
port, which made employees more likely to reciprocate
*This research was supported by the Primary Research Foundation o
f
University belonging to Education Ministry of China under Grant
CUGW090211, the Research Project of S&T of Hubei province unde
r
Grant B20080402, and the Humanity Social Science Foundation o
f
Hubei province under Grant 2008y054.

The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice between Participation in Decision-Making and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study about Skeleton Government Civilian in China
301
by exhibiting OCB [4].
The purpose of this study is to examine the mediat-
ing role of procedural justice between participation in
decision-making and OCB. The study suggests that
participation in decision making is positively related to
procedural justice which in turn mediates its relation-
ship to OCB.
2. Literature Review and Hypothesis
2.1. Participation in Decision-Making and Per-
ception of Procedural Justice
Procedural justice refers to justice of the processes that
lead to decision outcome, it Focuses on discussion about
legal procedures, Thibaut and Walker advanced two cri-
teria for procedural justice: 1) the ability to voice one's
views and arguments during a procedure (process con-
trol), 2) the ability to influence the actual outcome itself
(decision control) [5]. These procedural justice criteria
based on control have received robust support in the ex-
isted literature [6].
Early studies about the practice of performance ap-
praisals had demonstrated that giving employees the op-
portunity to express their views and feelings (process
control) was strongly related to perceived fairness of the
performance appraisal procedures. Organizational justice
researches had consistently shown that voice effect
(process control) enhanced individual’s evaluations of
procedural fairness. More recently, the study by Dule-
bohn & Ferris found a positive association between the
use of supervisor-focused tactics (voice effect) and pro-
cedural justice evaluations [7]. In line with these findings,
Zhou Hao found the opportunity to present information
to the authority to be one of the most influential factors
generating procedural justice [8]. Therefore, it is reason-
able to suggest that greater allowing employees to voice
their views in the process of decision-making, greater
Perception of the fairness of those procedures.
Hypothesis 1: Degree of participation in decision-
making will be positively related to Perception of proce-
dural justice.
2.2. Perception of Procedural Justice and OCB
Lind and Barley suggested that independent relationship
between procedural justice and OCB can be explained by
group value model [6]. The group value model suggests
that an employee regards procedures as fair to the extent
lying on how they were respected and valued member of
a work group. Giving employees many opportunities
during the procedures increases Perception of the proce-
dures fairness not only because of employees' voice may
influence the fairness of rewards distribution, but also
because they have the opportunity to express their opin-
ions and feelings, which demonstrated that the group
considered their input is of value. OCB occurs in organi-
zations when there is a strong emphasis on group con-
cerns and cognitions, such an emphasis often motivates
employees to maximize group rather than individual re-
wards. Employees may therefore use OCB to support and
maintain the group and seek ways to improve its health
and welfare [6].
A variety of studies have found a robust relationship
between Perception of procedural justice and OCB. For
example, Fahr, Podsakoff, and Organ found that proce-
dural justice accounted for unique variance with respect
to altruism dimension of OCB [9]. Parallel results were
obtained by Liu Ya who found a positive relationship
between procedural justice and four OCB dimensions
[10].
Hypothesis 2: Perception of procedural justice will be
positively related to OCB.
2.3. Participation in Decision-making, Perception
of Procedural Justice, and OCB
Social exchange theory provides an explanation of why
procedural justice mediates the relationship between par-
ticipation in decision-making and OCB. Social exchange
theory based on reciprocity norm, it refers to the rela-
tionship that entails unspecified future obligations, and
this kind of relationship presumes the other partners of
the exchange will fairly discharge their obligations in the
long run [11].
Participation in decision-making may be related to
OCB because opportunity to participate in decision-
making contributes to the enhancement of employees'
Perception of the procedures fairness, this perception of
fairness leads to employee citizenship behavior because
of social exchange relationship developed between em-
ployees and their organizations. Based on the norm of
reciprocity, when employees perceived their organization
treated them fairly, social exchange relationship dictated
reciprocity to employees, and Organ suggested that OCB
likely was one avenue for employees’ reciprocation [12].
Hypothesis 3: Perception of procedural justice will
mediate the relationship between participation in deci-
sion making and OCB.
3. Method
3.1. Data and Procedures
Data were gathered from subordinates and their supervi-
sors of skeleton government in HuBei province. To en-
sure respondents’ objectivity, the surveys were anony-
mous. A random code was assigned to each survey ques-

The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice between Participation in Decision-Making and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study about Skeleton Government Civilian in China
302
tionnaire for follow-up purposes. Firstly, the researcher
contacted some supervisors and asked them to enumerate
their subordinates, and then the codes were assigned
based on the subordinates’ list, specifically, every subor-
dinate has a unique code printed on his questionnaire,
and also presented in his supervisor’s, obviously, if a
supervisor has more than one subordinate, he has more
than one questionnaires been printed different codes, the
code list only be knew by the supervisor, and the subor-
dinates didn’t know about the supervisor assesses their
OCB. Finally, all the questionnaires sent and reclaimed
by the researcher self.
A total number of 500 subordinates were contacted
and 334 returned completed questionnaires for a response
rate of 66.8%. At the same time, their supervisors were
asked to rate subordinates’ organizational citizenship
behavior. Of the 357 surveys returned, and for a response
rate of 71.4%. Matching surveys (a subordinate and his
supervisor all returned the survey) were 288, and for a
response rate of 57.6%, in total the 288 subordinates
have 96 supervisors. The demographic characteristics of
subordinates and supervisors showed in Table 1.
3.2. Measures
All the questionnaires were translated into Chinese by a
PhD candidate whose major in business administration.
In order to check consistency between the English and
Chinese versions, the process of back-translation was
used by another PhD candidate. When the items of the
original English version questionnaire and the back-
translation one are different, the two PhD candidates
translated them into Chinese together.
Organizational citizenship behavior variable was
measured by using supervisors assessed citizenship be-
havior with two dimensions scale developed by Williams
and Anderson, response options ranged from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree)[2].The two dimensions of
organizational citizenship behavior, each with six items,
were organizational citizenship behaviors that have a
specific individual as the target (OCBI), and organiza-
tional citizenship behaviors that on primarily benefiting
the organization (OCBO). The explore factor analysis
indicated that the variable including two dimensions, and
the items loaded on the two factors are consistent with
original English version, the Cronbach alpha for OCBI
and OCBO were 0.82, 0.85 respectively, and the overall
Cronbach alpha for this variable was 0.85.
Procedural justice scale developed from Niehoff and
Moorman [13]. The explore factor analysis showed that
the variable was one dimension, and the Cronbach alpha
for this six items scale was 0.81.
Participation in decision-making was measured by us-
ing Van Veldhoven and Meijman six items scale [14].
The explore factor analysis showed that the variable was
one dimension, and the Cronbach alpha for this six items
scale was 0.90.
4. Analysis and Results
T test, ANOVA, descriptive statistics, correlation analy-
sis, and hierarch linear regression with SPSS 12.0, struc-
tural equation model with Lisrel 8.5 to analyze the data
in this study.
In order to analyze the impact of supervisors’ demo-
graphic characteristics on their assessment of OCB, in-
dependent T test and ANOVA were used to compare the
difference of OCB under the different supervisors’
demographic characteristics; the results showed that
there wasn’t significant difference.
The values of means, standard deviations, and correlation
of the variables reported in Table 2.
Table 2 presented correlations coefficients, the results
indicated that participation in decision-making (PDM)
was significantly associated with procedural justice (PJ)
and OCB. Results also showed that procedural justice
was significantly associated with both OCBI and OCBO.
Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation
model to construct path analysis. Results of path analysis
presented in Table 3, it indicated that there was a sig-
nificant association between participation in decision-
making and procedural justice, which confirmed hy-
pothesis 1. Hypothesis 2 suggested that there was a posi-
tive relationship between procedural justice and organ-
izational citizenship behavior. Results in Table 3 con-
firmed the positive relationship between procedural jus-
tice and organizational citizenship behaviors that benefit
the organization in general (OCBO), the significant rela-
tionship between procedural justice and organizational
citizenship behaviors that benefit specific individuals
(OCBI) wasn’t found.
To test the hypothesis 3, we assessed the conditions
for mediation with hierarch linear regression in Table 4
Results in Table 4 showed the mediating effect of pro-
cedural justice between participation in decision-making
and organizational citizenship behavior that benefit the
organization (OCBO), the demographic characteristics of
subordinates didn’t have significant impact on PJ and
OCBO. The final column of table 4 showed the VIF and
the Durbin-Watson in the fourth step, the biggest VIF
was the variable procedure justice (2.20), which indi-
cated that the predicators haven’t serious multiple col-
linearity, the D-W was 2.134(2), it indicated that the
error items in the fourth step were independent.
Results in Table 4 showed the mediating effect of pro-
cedural justice between participation in decision-making

The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice between Participation in Decision-Making and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study about Skeleton Government Civilian in China
303
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the sample.
The sample Item Type Frequency Percent
Male 75 26.0%
Gender Female 213 74.0%
=<3 36 12.5%
>3 and =<10 193 67.0%Tenure
>10 59 20.5%
Section
member 225 78.1%
Subordinates
Position
Section chief 63 21.9%
Male 74 77.1%
Gender Female 22 22.9%
=<3 2 2.1%
>3 and =<10 68 70.1%Tenure
>10 26 27.8%
Section chief 81 84.4%
Supervisors
Position Director 15 15.6%
Table 2. Descriptive statistics, spearman's correlations coef-
ficients.
Mean Std dev PJ OCBO OCBI
PDM 11.25 3.92 0.577** 0.428** 0.216**
PJ 21.46 5.18 0.752** 0.271**
OCBO 37.12 4.71 0.276**
OCBI 32.31 4.93
Table 3. Path coefficients and significance.
Parameters Estimates Standard
error T-value P-value
PDM PJ 0.30 0.07 4.45 <0.001
PJ OCBO 0.28 0.07 3.98 <0.001
PJ OCBI –0.15 0.07 –2.29 0.988
and organizational citizenship behavior that benefit the
organization (OCBO), the demographic characteristics of
subordinates didn’t have significant impact on PJ and
OCBO. The final column of table 4 showed the VIF and
the Durbin-Watson in the fourth step, the biggest VIF
was the variable procedure justice (2.20), which indi-
cated that the predicators haven’t serious multiple col-
linearity, the D-W was 2.134(2), it indicated that the
error items in the fourth step were independent.
5. Conclusions and Discussions
The purpose of this study examined the relationship
among participation in decision-making, procedural jus-
tice, and organizational citizenship behavior. More spe-
cifically, it examined whether or not participation in de-
cision-making was related to OCB via the mediating
variable procedural justice. Results offered support for
the role of procedural justice as mediator of the relation-
ship between participation in decision-making and one of
the two types of OCB (OCBO).
Evidence indicated that the employees participated in
decision-making more; they perceived their work proce-
dures to be fair more, which in turn prompted them to
reciprocate with organizational citizenship behaviors that
directly benefit the organization (OCBO). The relation-
ship between procedural justice and organizational citi-
zenship behaviors that benefit specific individuals (OCBI)
was found to be insignificant. There are some reasons for
which that it is often regarded as organizational institu-
tional tactic to let employees participate in decision
making, consequently, employee reciprocate activity
with OCBO other than OCBI. As for OCBI, since it
benefits specific individuals, therefore the attitude and
affective cognitive among individuals maybe have direct
influence on it, for example, the dimension co-worker
relationship of job satisfaction, and interpersonal trust
within organization might be the predictors for OCBI.
The results of this study consisted with the findings of
Van Yperen et al., who proved the existence of positive
relationship between participation in decision-making
and OCB. However, Van Yperen and colleagues sug-
gested that perceived supervisor support mediated the
relationship between participation in decision-making
Table 4. Hierarch linear regression to assess the conditions for mediation.
Dependents PJ OCBO OCBO OCBO
Independents The first step The second step The third step The fourth step VIF
Gender Female 0.03 0.11 0.09 0.05 1.72
>3 and =<10 –0.05 –0.08 –0.11 –0.09 2.13
Tenure >10 –0.10 –0.10 –0.13 –0.11 1.47
Control
variable
Position Section chief 0.07 0.12 0.11 0.10 1.15
PDM 0.56*** 0.41*** —— 0.14(p=0.68) 1.62
PJ —— 0.73*** 0.74*** 2.20
F 145.46*** 73.21*** 385.12*** 278.76***
Adj.R2 0.32 0.17 0.55 0.59
D-W
2.134
N = 288. *** P < 0.001.

The Mediating Role of Procedural Justice between Participation in Decision-Making and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study about Skeleton Government Civilian in China
304
and OCB. They argued that respecting the rights and a
full status of individual employees, giving the opportu-
nity to participate in decision-making enhanced employ-
ees' perception of supervisor support which was accom-
panied by OCB [4]. The findings of this study suggested
that participation in decision-making is associated with
perceived procedural justice, because allowing employ-
ees to participate in decision-making is giving them the
opportunity to express their views to the authority, which
is considered as one of the most influential factors to
generate procedural justice perception. Consequently, the
perception of procedural justice prompts employees to
reciprocate by exhibiting OCB. The contribution of this
study is that it sheds more light on the mediating role of
procedural justice between participation in decision-
making and OCB, which was not addressed in the litera-
ture.
Overall, this research has two primary limitations. Fir-
st, all data were collected at the same time, and results
derived from cross-sectional study may presume, but not
confirm causality. Second, except the OCB data, all data
were collected via self-report surveys of employees,
which may create social desirability.
This study has valuable practical implication. Super-
visors who desire to create an organizational atmosphere
that foster citizenship behavior must make sure that the
procedures used to allocate organizational rewards were
perceived as fair; supervisors can do so by giving em-
ployees the opportunity to participate in decision making.
6. Acknowledgements
Thanks for Mr. Wen, X S’ help, he provided a great deal
of convenience to send and reclaim questionnaires.
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