Organizational Justice and Employee Voluntary Absenteeism in Public Sector Organizations: Disentangling the Moderating Roles of Work Motivation

Although the relationships between fair treatment by the organization and work-related outcomes are contingent on motivational traits, little scholarly attention has been paid to how extrinsic and intrinsic work motivation shape the influence of organizational justice on employee voluntary absence in the field of public management. In this context, our study aims to explore the direct effect of organizational justice on voluntary absence based on social exchange theory, as well as the moderating roles of extrinsic and intrinsic work motivation in the relationship, building on the equity sensitivity theory. Using National Administrative Studies Project–III (NASP III) survey data from a sample of 709 public employees from two state governments (i.e., Georgia and Illinois) in the U.S. and negative binomial regression models, we found that organizational justice is positively associated with employee voluntary absence. Further analysis showed that while extrinsic work motivation mitigates the positive relationship between organizational justice and voluntary absence, intrinsic work motivation enhances the positive relationship between organizational justice and voluntary absence. Accordingly, our study offers meaningful implications that are essential for public management scholars and organizations to consider in order to develop effective managerial practices based on the fitness between organizational justice and employees’ motivational traits, thus reducing employee voluntary absence and improving organizational performance and sustainability.