Perceived Organizational Justice as a Predictor of Organizational Trust in Medical Education Organizations

Background and Objectives: Motivated employees are probably the most valuable resource of the contemporary organizations. Evidence shows the significant impact of perceived organizational justice on the attitudes of employees, including their trust. To further investigate the issue in the context of health organizations, this study aimed to explore the relationship between perceived organizational justice and employees’ trust among the staff of Kerman University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), Iran. Methods: Overall, 285 employees were selected to participate in the study based on stratified sampling and Cochran formula. Organizational justice was measured by Niehoff and Moorman questionnaire in three dimensions of distributive, interactional, procedural justice. The trust in managers was measured in the dimensions of competence, benevolence and reliability, and institutional trust was quantified based on situational normality, vision, strategy, communication, and structural assurance using the corresponding inventories developed by Elonen et al. The reliability of the study tools was confirmed by Cronbach’s alpha of 89% for organizational justice and 86% for trust in managers and institution. Data were summarized using descriptive methods and analyzed by Pearson’s correlation coefficient, t-test and multiple regressions analysis. Findings: A significant positive relationship was identified between the perceived organizational justice and trust in managers and institution. Among the three dimensions of organizational justice, procedural justice showed the strongest relationship with trust in managers and institution compared with distributive and interactional justice. Perceived organizational justice and trust were not significantly different between the sex, age, job tenure, employment status, and educational level groups. Conclusions: The research results provide evidence that organizational justice is a predictor of employees’ trust in their managers and institution. Given the importance of employees’ trust in their organizational commitment, this study recommends improvement of organizational justice as a pathway towards enhanced human resources productivity in the medical education organizations.