Supervisor interactional injustice and employee counterproductive work behaviour and organisational citizenship behaviours: the mediating role of distrust

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to draw on the agent-system model of (in)justice and negative norm of reciprocity of social exchange theory to examine the indirect impact of supervisory interactional injustice (i.e. interpersonal and informational) on employees’ target-specific extra-role work behaviours [counterproductive work behaviour directed at supervisor (CWB-S) and organisational citizenship behaviour directed at supervisor (OCB-S)] via distrust in supervisor. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a two-wave study, and participants ( n = 401) were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk using a survey methodology. Bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) constructed in 20,000 bootstrap samples were used to test the mediation effects. Findings The findings indicated that interpersonal and informational injustice are positively related to employees’ distrust in supervisor. Furthermore, interpersonal and informational injustice indirectly affected CWB-S and OCB-S via distrust in supervisor. Research limitations/implications Several limitations and future research should be discussed. First, the cross-sectional nature of this study prevented us from establishing the causal direction implied by the mediation models in this research. Second, the authors cannot rule out the potential for common method variance. These limitations can be addressed by collecting data from multiple sources (e.g. supervisor and coworkers) at different points in time or by experimental study design. Lastly, the authors did not consider contextual variables (e.g. formal policies, practices, ethical rules and cultural climate) that may influence the proposed relationships’ strengths and directions. Practical implications Even though perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice can affect employee deviant behaviours targeted at the organisation and organisational members, the present findings suggest that practitioners should be aware that perceptions of supervisory interactional injustice (i.e. interpersonal and informational) are likely be requited with employees’ extra-role work behaviours targeted at the supervisor. The present findings suggest that, via distrust in supervisor, employees are likely to engage in more CWB-S and fewer OCB-S as a result of supervisory interactional injustice. Considering the costs associated with high CWB-S and low OCB-S, supervisors should be trained in adhering to interactional justice rules. Additionally, supervisors should be mindful and practice caution when interacting with subordinates, to ensure that interactional justice norms are not violated. Lastly, supervisors can seek feedback from subordinates regarding their perceptions of supervisory interactional injustice, as these assessments will allow the supervisors to adapt their behaviours to impede subordinates’ deviant behaviours aimed towards them. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on organisational injustice and workplace behaviour. First, most injustice research assumes that injustice is the opposite of justice; this study examines the effect of interactional injustice. Second, the authors develop a target-specific model focusing on the interactions between two key organisational stakeholders (i.e. supervisors and employees). The authors suggest that supervisor’s disrespect and untruthfulness towards the employee will eventually result in employee revenge (i.e. CWB-S) and lack of cooperation (i.e. OCB-S) towards supervisor. Finally, the authors examine the mechanism (i.e. distrust in supervisor) through which supervisory interactional injustice may ensue in employee extra-role behaviours directed at the supervisor.