Organisational justice and managing workplace innovation: How important are formal procedures?

Few studies examine organisational justice and innovation simultaneously within workplace settings. Thus, the purpose of our study was to investigate the impact of organisational justice on workplace innovation. We tested the three dimensions of organisational justice (distributive, procedural and interactional) and the four dimensions of workplace innovation (individual, team, organisational and overall climate for innovation) across multiple industry contexts. The sample comprised 282 individuals employed in a variety of industries based in the United States. The Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analysis identified a significant finding where organisational justice formal procedures promoted all four dimensions of workplace innovation and thus was important in managing workplace innovation. Distributive justice only had an impact on organisational innovation, while interactional procedures justice only had an impact on innovation climate and thus were less important. The study results provide new contributions to the innovation literature.