Unpacking the Effect of Employees’ Perceived Fairness in Sport Organizations on Job Satisfaction: A Moderated Mediation Approach Using Equity Exchange Model

Although justice perceptions’ effect in sport organizations on job satisfaction has been well confirmed, scant attention has been paid to disentangling this relationship. This research attempted to deepen the theoretical understanding of justice perceptions’ effect on job satisfaction by conceiving this effect as both indirect and conditional, underpinned by the equity exchange model. Specifically, we presented a moderated mediation model predicting perceived mobility moderates the mediating effects of organizational involvement between justice perceptions and job satisfaction. In the data collection stage, the paid employees ( n = 509) of the athletic departments of National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I universities successfully completed our survey, including the items of focal and other relevant variables. The analysis results of this data displayed organizational involvement mediates procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice’s effects on job satisfaction. These mediation effects were more intense for employees with high (vs. low) perceived mobility. Our results advance the literature by newly (a) detecting and justifying the nonsignificant total effects of procedural and distributive justice in collegiate sport contexts, (b) establishing organizational involvement as an underlying mechanism connecting justice perceptions and job satisfaction, and (c) identifying the intervening role of perceived mobility in the aforementioned mediating effects of organizational involvement. This work also provides collegiate sport organizations with insights into efficiently managing their staff.