The link between perceptions of fairness, job training opportunity and at-will employees’ work attitudes

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between three organizational practices (distributive justice, procedural justice and potential growth opportunity) and at-will employees’ work attitudes (job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment). Design/methodology/approach: The data for the analysis are derived from the 2000 GeorgiaGain Survey. Multinomial logit model is used to examine the relationship of three organizational practices to reduce job insecurity and to promote at-will employees’ work attitudes. Findings: This study demonstrated that at-will employees responded positively with job satisfaction or affective organizational commitment if they perceived a strong perception of organizational practices fairly and properly, in the form of providing distributive justice (affective organizational commitment), procedural justice (job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment) and offering career development opportunity (affective organizational commitment). Originality/value: By using a unique data set of US public employees who felt limited job security protection through at-will employment policy reform, this study has enhanced our understanding of how at-will employee group in US state government would respond to different organizational practices which is currently limited.