Organizational justice perception and employees’ social loafing in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic: the mediating role of organizational commitment

The COVID-19 pandemic severely impeded socio-economic development and posed significant challenges to enterprise survival and growth. Effective resource allocation, especially the mobilization of employees, is critical. A key managerial issue is social loafing—reduced individual effort in group settings—which threatens team performance and organizational resilience. In the pandemic era, unemployment pressures, new work modes (e.g., remote work), and elevated uncertainty reshaped employees’ job security perceptions, adaptability, cooperation, and motivation, creating new challenges for HR management. The central questions are how to mobilize employees’ enthusiasm, sustain high performance, and inhibit social loafing. Prior research links social loafing to breakdowns in interaction processes and loss of individual motivation in collective tasks. Inadequate evaluation/feedback mechanisms or lack of challenging work can reduce motivation and increase loafing, whereas fair evaluation and rewards preserve motivation and deter loafing. Thus, perceptions of organizational justice are expected to curb social loafing. Social exchange theory posits a reciprocal relationship: employees contribute abilities while organizations provide fair rules and compensation; employees’ fairness perceptions shape their attitudes, behaviors, and commitment, which in turn affect diligence versus laxity and contributions to enterprise development. Organizational commitment—employees’ emotional attachment, identification with values/culture, and willingness to invest—may serve as a psychological mechanism linking justice perceptions to behavior, especially amid pandemic-induced instability (e.g., layoffs). Following a cognition–attitude–behavior paradigm and social exchange theory, this study explores how fairness perceptions influence intrinsic motivation and social loafing, and tests whether organizational commitment mediates this relationship. Practically, firms should create fair institutional environments and supportive cultures to reduce insecurity and negative states, fostering harmonious employee–organization relations that sustain development.

Theoretical analysis and hypotheses: - Organizational justice and social loafing: Organizational justice encompasses procedural, distributive, and interactional justice. In groups, uncertainty about others’ effort and inequitable evaluations can reduce effort via fairness-related cognitions. Perceived unfair treatment triggers negative reactions—reduced commitment, heightened social loafing, and even turnover—especially in turbulent environments with compromised psychological security. Conversely, fair decision-making, evaluation, and rewards sustain initiative and reduce free-riding. Hypothesis H1: Organizational justice negatively impacts employees’ social loafing. - Organizational justice and organizational commitment: Organizational commitment is influenced by individual, work, and organizational factors; justice is a key antecedent. Perceived fairness strengthens identification, belonging, motivation, retention intention, and loyalty, while unfairness reduces dedication and engagement and may elicit aggressive or slack behavior. Empirical studies across cultures show justice predicts multiple commitment dimensions. Hypothesis H2: Organizational justice positively impacts employees’ organizational commitment. - Organizational commitment and social loafing: High commitment reflects allegiance and willingness to engage in organizational activities, aligning personal and organizational goals and improving performance. Although direct links between commitment and social loafing are less examined, evidence shows team goal commitment negatively relates to loafing; by analogy, organizational commitment should reduce loafing by enhancing identification, cohesion, job satisfaction, and subjective initiative, discouraging opportunistic behavior when individual contributions are less identifiable. Hypothesis H3: Organizational commitment negatively impacts social loafing. - Mediating role of organizational commitment: Justice represents the organization’s stance toward employees, whereas commitment reflects employees’ stance toward the organization. Justice enhances satisfaction and commitment; lack of justice reduces commitment and may foster deviance. Committed employees collaborate, take initiative, assume responsibility, and are less prone to social loafing and turnover. Prior work supports commitment as a mediator between justice and behaviors (e.g., turnover intention). Thus, justice should foster commitment, which in turn inhibits social loafing. Hypothesis H4: Organizational commitment mediates the negative impact of organizational justice on social loafing.

Design and sample: A questionnaire survey, administered both on-site and online due to epidemic constraints, targeted employees of SMEs in Henan Province and Wuhan City, China. Respondents completed the anonymous self-assessment independently; quality controls minimized errors. Scales were translated using back-translation; experts reviewed the instrument; a pilot with 20 employees informed refinements. Of 380 distributed questionnaires, 276 valid responses were retained (effective rate 72.63%). Descriptive profile: 55.8% male; 60.9% aged 30 or below; 83.9% held a bachelor’s degree or below; most firms had operated over 3 years, indicating exposure to the epidemic’s effects. Measures (5-point Likert scales): - Organizational justice: 14 items adapted from Niehoff and Moorman (1993), guided by He (2010); Cronbach’s alpha = 0.946. - Social loafing: 10 items from George (1992); alpha = 0.844. - Organizational commitment: 8 items from Meyer and Allen (1997) and Chen and Francesco (2003), following Chen et al. (2006); alpha = 0.884. - Controls: gender, age, education level, company establishment years. Common method bias: Harman’s single-factor test showed the first factor explained 24.145% (<40%); the unrotated first principal component was 35.154% (<40%), indicating acceptable common method variance. Reliability and validity: Cronbach’s alphas exceeded 0.8 for all scales. KMO values for the measurement scales were 0.945, 0.863, and 0.874, with Bartlett’s tests p<0.001, indicating good sampling adequacy and construct validity. CFA (AMOS 22.0) compared three models: the three-factor model (organizational justice, organizational commitment, social loafing) fit best (χ²/df = 2.025; RMSEA = 0.061; RMR = 0.041; CFI = 0.906; IFI = 0.907) versus two-factor and single-factor alternatives. Analytic strategy: Correlations were examined, followed by hierarchical regressions and mediation testing per Baron and Kenny (1986). Models assessed: (1) controls → social loafing; (2) organizational justice → social loafing (H1); (3) organizational justice → organizational commitment (H2); (4) organizational commitment → social loafing (H3); (5) organizational justice and organizational commitment → social loafing (mediation, H4); (6) interaction term (organizational justice × organizational commitment) → social loafing (moderation test). Additionally, a bootstrapped mediation analysis (5,000 resamples; 95% CI) tested indirect and direct effects.

Descriptive and correlations: Organizational justice correlated positively with organizational commitment (r = 0.640, p < 0.01) and negatively with social loafing (r = −0.236, p < 0.01). Organizational commitment correlated negatively with social loafing (r = −0.290, p < 0.01). Regression results: - H1 supported: Organizational justice → social loafing, B = −0.241, p < 0.001 (negative effect). - H2 supported: Organizational justice → organizational commitment, B = 0.662, p < 0.001 (positive effect). - H3 supported: Organizational commitment → social loafing, B = −0.305, p < 0.001 (negative effect). - Mediation (H4): When both predictors were included, the effect of organizational justice on social loafing became non-significant and weakened (B = −0.068, p > 0.05), while organizational commitment retained a significant negative effect on social loafing (reported B ≈ −0.260, p < 0.001), indicating mediation. Bootstrapped mediation: - Indirect effect of organizational justice on social loafing via organizational commitment = −0.178; 95% CI [−0.300, −0.061] (excludes 0). - Direct effect 95% CI [−0.233, 0.091] (includes 0), consistent with full mediation. - Total effect = −0.249; 95% CI [−0.372, −0.125]. Moderation test: The interaction (organizational justice × organizational commitment) did not significantly predict social loafing (B = −0.082, p > 0.05), indicating no moderating role of commitment. Model fit and reliability: CFA supported distinct constructs (χ²/df = 2.025; RMSEA = 0.061; CFI = 0.906). Cronbach’s alphas: organizational justice 0.946; social loafing 0.844; organizational commitment 0.884.

Findings address the central question of how to inhibit social loafing and sustain employee motivation amid pandemic-induced uncertainty. Consistent with social exchange theory, employees who perceive organizational justice exhibit stronger organizational commitment, which in turn reduces social loafing. The direct link between justice and loafing becomes non-significant once commitment is included, indicating that fairness operates primarily by cultivating employees’ emotional attachment, identification, and willingness to invest in the organization. In turbulent contexts where psychological security is threatened, fair procedures, equitable distributions, and respectful interactions bolster commitment and deter disengagement, slack behavior, and free-riding. The absence of a moderating effect suggests commitment functions as a psychological conduit rather than changing the strength of justice’s direct impact. Practically, enhancing justice perceptions can reinforce commitment, align employee and organizational goals, and elevate effort and task quality, thereby mitigating social loafing and supporting team effectiveness and organizational resilience during crises.

This study investigates how organizational justice relates to employees’ social loafing in the COVID-19 context and tests organizational commitment as a mediator. Using survey data from 276 SME employees in China and validated scales, results show: (1) organizational justice significantly and negatively relates to social loafing; (2) organizational justice significantly and positively relates to organizational commitment; (3) organizational commitment significantly and negatively relates to social loafing; (4) organizational commitment mediates (fully, per bootstrapped CI) the relationship between justice and social loafing. Contributions include identifying fairness perceptions as antecedents of social loafing and clarifying commitment’s mediating mechanism within a cognition–attitude–behavior framework grounded in social exchange theory. Practical recommendations: align enterprise strategy with employee career development; implement scientific assessment and distribution mechanisms to ensure accurate evaluation and fair rewards; cultivate a culture of fair competition and humanistic care that fosters belonging and addresses negative emotions. These measures can strengthen commitment, reduce social loafing, and promote sustainable organizational performance in crisis conditions.

The study relies on a single data collection method (questionnaire); future work could combine surveys and interviews for richer data. The social loafing scale, though established, is rooted in Western contexts; developing localized measures suited to Chinese settings is warranted. Future research should explore situational factors that may influence how organizational justice affects social loafing.