Organizational Justice As an Overlooked Job Resource: Extending the Job Demands–Resources Model

Background and Purpose

The Job Resources-Demands (JD-R) model has been widely used in health and human service sectors to enhance workforce health and engagement. This model has identified various demands and resources at multiple levels that address workforce outcomes, including workers’ burnout and organizational commitment. However, organizational justice has received little attention as an important job resource, particularly among child welfare workers. Existing studies rarely examine how different dimensions of organizational justice function differently across workforce outcomes or which dimensions matter most. This study advances the JD-R model by (1) examining the effects of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice on burnout and organizational commitment among child welfare workers and (2) comparing their relative importance across the outcomes.

Methods

We analyzed survey data collected from 333 child welfare workers in Florida in 2024. Organizational commitment was measured using 15 items assessing workers’ attachment to their current organizations. Burnout was measured using 10 items assessing workers’ feelings of hopelessness and difficulties in doing their jobs. Organizational justice was assessed with a valid scale including: (1) distributive justice (equitable distribution of work-related outcomes; 4 items), (2) procedural justice (fair and democratic decision-making; 7 items), and (3) interactional justice (respectful treatment and transparent communication from supervisors; 9 items). We first conducted multiple regression analysis to examine the effects of organizational justice on organizational commitment and burnout, after controlling for demographic and job characteristics. Next, we performed dominance analysis to determine the relative importance of each dimension of justice.

Results

Multiple regression analysis showed that distributive (B = .11, p < .05), procedural (B = .27, p < .001), and interactional (B = .16, p < .05) were positively associated with organizational commitment. Dominance analysis showed that procedural justice had the strongest relative importance, followed by interactional and distributive justice. On the other hand, different patterns emerged for burnout. Interactional justice was the only significant factor associated with lower burnout (B = -.13, p < .05); distributive and procedural justice were not statistically significant. Dominance analysis was consistent with this pattern, confirming interactional justice as the strongest factor, followed by distributive and procedural justice, although these two variables were not significant in the regression analysis.

Conclusions and Implications

This study advances the JD-R model by demonstrating that organizational justice is a significant job resource. Therefore, child welfare organizations should integrate organizational justice into their structures, processes, and human relationships to enhance workers’ organizational commitment and prevent their burnout. More importantly, our study suggests that organizational justice does not operate uniformly across outcomes. Procedural justice was relatively more important in enhancing organizational commitment, whereas interactional justice was the only significant and strongest predictor for reducing burnout. These findings suggest that justice-focused interventions should be tailored to target specific outcomes rather than treating organizational justice as a uniform construct. It is also important to examine the dynamic and complex relationships among different dimensions of organizational justice, given that they often coexist, interact with, and influence one another.