Impact of organisational justice in an expatriate work environment

Purpose This study analyses the impact of organisational justice as encompassed by three components, distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice on self assessed performance and job satisfaction of employees in an expatriate environment. The study investigates the impact of these justice measures on expatriates and United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationals. Design/methodology/approach The organisational justice measures developed by Niehoff and Moorman were used to test their impact on employee performance and job satisfaction amongst the two groups; expatriates who work in the UAE, and UAE nationals. Data were collected from employees working in the UAE. Descriptive statistics, inter correlations and regression analyses was used to examine the data. Findings For the UAE nationals group, distributive and interactional justice has a significant impact on both satisfaction and performance. All justice constructs had an impact on satisfaction for the expatriate group, but surprisingly none of these components of organizational justice had an impact on self‐perceived performance of expatriates. The effects of gender, age and salary levels were also explored. Research limitations/implications Self‐perceived performance is used to measure performance which is a limitation and it would be of value to try to independently measure performance. Practical implications Given the large expatriate workforce in the UAE, the study highlights the need for companies to train and educate their managers as to the impact of the perceived lack of justice on the motivation and commitment of their employees. Originality/value This study is the first of its kind in the UAE and was conducted in a highly diverse work environment.