When fairness breaks down at work: a conceptual model of organisational injustice, work values and employee contextual performance

While there is strong evidence that perceived injustice is related to employee work outcomes, less is known about the human value-based processes that underlie this relationship in the workplace. This conceptual paper advances an integrative model that proposes work values as a mediating process between the relationship between perceived organizational injustice and contextual performance. Based on Organizational Justice Theory and Social Exchange Theory, the paper argues that distributive, procedural, and interactional injustice are not just expected to lead to direct counterproductive or adverse work behavior, but may progressively weaken the salience and enactment of work values, particularly work centrality, by reducing employees’ identification with work, perceived reciprocity, and willingness to invest discretionary effort. This disruption makes voluntary, extra-role behavior, proxy in this study as “contextual performance” less effective in promoting social and psychological functioning in organizations. The paper draws on existing literature in the fields of organizational injustice, organizational work values, and contextual performance to contribute four testable propositions for advancing theory in this field through an integrative approach. Methodologically, the paper adopts an integrative conceptual review and theory-building approach to synthesize classic and contemporary literature on justice perceptions, work values, and contextual performance. The proposed model contributes to organizational behavior theory by repositioning work values as an explanatory mechanism in the injustice performance relationship. It also offers a testable framework for future empirical research and practical insight for organizations seeking to preserve positive discretionary behavior through fair, value-sensitive management systems.