Secondary Public School Teachers' Perceptions about Organizational Justice

Abstract The purpose of the present study is to determine secondary public school teachers' perceptions about organizational justice and whether these perceptions differ across gender, age, seniority, branch, educational background, the number of students and the number of teachers. The participants of the study consisted of 222 secondary public school teachers selected from Kutahya province. The data were gathered through using the Organizational Justice Scale. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, t test and one way-ANOVA were used. According to the findings obtained from the study, the participants have positive perceptions about organizational justice at secondary schools. Their perceptions on differed according to age, seniority, and the number of students, whereas they did not across gender, branch, educational background, and the number of teachers. Key Words Organizational Justice, Public Secondary Schools, Teachers. Justice is one of the most important principles in organizational and social life. The principles of justice in a society help people identify their mutual and social responsibilities and rights and define who and why their society will reward (Stevens & Wood, 1995). The term justice generally includes treating the equal equally. For an organization, justice means giving employees their rights to the extent they contribute to their organizations and punishments to the extent they act contrary to rules (Basaran, 1985). According to the Adams' (1965) equity theory, individuals compare their own efforts and rewards that they earn with employees on a similar footing (Cited in: Greenberg, 1990, 1993; Paterson, Green & Cary, 2002; Roch & Shanock, 2006). If an individual perceives that the ratio of his own efforts to his benefits is the same as that of the like, he believes the requirement of justice or equality is met. If he thinks the ratio of his own efforts to his benefits is more or less than that of the like, he considers the case injustice (Yucel & Gulveren, 2007). If employees decide or perceive injustice, they could change their effort level, as well as developing different ways of behavior. The changes of effort levels generally cause them to display negative jobrelated behaviors, because their perceptions about organizational justice affect their job-related attitudes and organizational behaviors (Tansky, 1993; isbasi, 2000). In this context, organizational justice is the main factor which affects job satisfaction and organizational performance (Aydin & Karaman-Kepenekci, 2008). Organizational justice studies, particularly over the last two decades, have shown that perceived justice at workplace affects employees' attitudes and behaviors (isbasi, 2000). Organizational justice is not something new but organizational justice studies in schools and in the field of education management are ignored and are very few in number (Hoy & Tarter, 2004). Organizational Justice Justice is an ethical and legal principle (Calislar, 1983 Cited in: Pehlivan- Aydin, 2002; Demirtas & Gunes, 2002). The term organizational justice concerns the way employees perceive decisions and practices of managers (Witt, 1993) and their organizational justice perceptions or their job-related attitudes and behaviors (Eskew, 1993). Greenberg (1996) defined organizational justice as a term which expresses employees' perceptions about how equally they are treated in the organization and the way such perceptions affect results like organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The organizational justice theory relates to employees' points of view about justice in job-related matters (Greenberg, 1990). In this sense, organizational justice deals with what factors play a role in creating employees' job-related conclusion of justice/injustice and future results of such a conclusion (Sahin, 2007). In other words, organizational justice is concerned with the rules developed to distribute or to take decisions on distribution of acquisitions such as tasks, goods, services, rewards, punishments, wages, organizational positions, opportunities and roles among employees and societal norms that constitute the basis for these rules (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998). …