CHAPTER 3: Social Exchange Theory and Organizational Justice: Job Performance, Citizenship Behaviors, Multiple Foci, and a Historical Integration of Two Literatures

In this chapter we present an integrative and historical review of two literatures—organizational justice and social exchange theory. We trace the history of social exchange from an emphasis on relationships to an emphasis on self-motivated exchanges, and back to an emphasis on relationships, and show how social exchange research evolved in the OCB, support, commitment, LMX, and trust literatures. We then show how this evolution opened the door for justice researchers to explore how fairness engenders social exchange relationships, and how social exchange relationships serve as a mediator of justice’s effects on subsequent attitudes and behaviors. We then explore how this integrated research has evolved to take a multifoci perspective, whereby justice judgments made about a particular party impact the exchange relationship between employees and that party, which then impacts attitudes and behaviors directed at that party. Recently coined the “target similarity effect,” this framework serves as an integrative framework for the study of organizational behavior. We conclude by reviewing contemporary applications of social exchange–based multifoci justice, such as the study of multifoci justice climate.