Organizational justice, supervisor-provided resources and duty orientation: lessons from the mining sector

The mining sector is one of the key areas that makes significant contributions to the development of the Ghanaian economy. Data from the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) shows that total direct domestic fiscal receipts attributable to the mining and quarrying sector improved from GH₵ 2.36bn in 2018 to GH₵ 4.02bn in 2019. The 70% increase in fiscal payments by firms in the sector was occasioned by the simultaneous increase in production and price, particularly gold. Specifically, corporate tax receipts from the minerals sector increased by 89% to GH₵ 2.27bn in 2019 from GH₵ 1.20bn in 2018. Consequently, the firms in the sector are expected to operate within the legal framework of environmental and societal consciousness to reap business prosperity. The Environmental Protection Agency Act, 1994 (Act 490) of Ghana enjoins firms in the sector to proactively train and equip employees on environmentally friendly ways of operating.

While businesses in the mining sector may rely on multiple approaches to excel in terms of addressing regulatory and societal needs and making profit (Blinova et al., 2022; Sauer and Hiete, 2019), the presence of employees who are willing to exceed the formal responsibilities specified in their job descriptions has been acknowledged by scholars as a rare resource that can help these organizations succeed (Ansong et al., 2022; Hannah et al., 2014). These employees possess a bundle of discretionary behaviours that are critical for building the goodwill of organizations and spurring productivity (Gnankob et al., 2022). Following the different conceptualizations of discretionary behaviours such as extra-role behaviour (Singh and Singh, 2019), contextual performance and organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) (Organ, 1994), the present study relied on the construct of duty orientation, which Hannah et al. (2014) argued to be the higher order of discretionary employee behaviours. The authors described duty orientation as one’s volition to serve and faithfully support other members of the group, to strive and sacrifice to accomplish the tasks and missions of the group and to honour its codes and principles. Evidence supports the fact that duty orientation can be an important resource to improve organizational performance in complex work environments like the mining sector that demand team-oriented work practices (Ansong et al., 2022; Eva et al., 2020). Apparently, employees in the sector who possess these rare traits of duty orientation tend to project their organizations as meeting the lawful demands of the sector (Ansong et al., 2022). As Moss et al. (2020) submitted, individuals with a higher duty orientation towards their group are motivated to serve the best interests of coworkers, fulfil their shared mission and align with the group’s norms to improve overall performance.

Based on extant literature, organizational justice is a key determinant of extra-role behaviours such as duty orientation and related constructs such as satisfaction and commitment (Akram et al., 2020). Broadly, organizational justice connotes the degree to which employees perceive the “procedural, distributive, interactive and informative” actions or decisions of their organizations as being fair to all members (Hoang et al., 2022; Le et al., 2021). Procedural justice refers to the individual’s perception of the fairness of procedural elements within a social system that regulate the allocation of resources (De Clercq et al., 2021). Distributive justice denotes the perceived fairness of the outcomes received by an employee (Pan et al., 2018). Interactional justice emphasises how decision-makers treat others with dignity and provide reasonable justification for the decision being made (Kurdoglu, 2020). Likewise, informational justice focuses on the explanations provided to employees that convey information about why certain procedures were used in a certain way or outcomes were administered (Kurian and Nafukho, 2022). This suggests that organizational justice captures what the employees see as fair treatment received from organizational authorities in discharge of their roles (Terpstra and van Wijck, 2023).

Thus, Moss et al. (2020) claimed that since duty orientation is about the individual’s volitional decision to make self-sacrifices, they may portray these traits if they perceive fair and reasonable treatment from members. Consistent with the social exchange theory (SET), Blau (1964) argued that interactions are interdependent or contingent on the actions of social exchange partners, in which recipient parties reciprocate with good where good was done to them. Following theory’s tenets, Stafford and Kuiper (2021) advanced that a proposed social exchange between leaders and members would have to be equivalent to balancing reciprocity. Therefore, it is possible that employees will exhibit duty orientation to compensate their organizations when they feel that they are being fairly and reasonably treated. Judging also from the perspective of organizational justice theory (Colquitt, 2001), the present study sought to share a similar view that employees would be driven to demonstrate duty orientation based on managers’ traits of justice, fairness and equity. In other words, with a sense of organizational justice (Asif et al., 2019), the employees may be pleased with management’s actions and decisions, which eventually could propel their willingness to perform beyond their scope of work.

Despite attempts to link organizational justice to discretionary behaviours, limited attention has been given to the concept of duty orientation. Recent works have focused on how leadership (Ansong et al., 2022; Moss et al., 2020), perceived organizational support (DeConinck et al., 2021; Eva et al., 2020) and ethical psychological climate (Gok et al., 2023) influenced duty orientation, with a dearth of literature on the role of organizational justice. Meanwhile, organizational justice encompasses a series of organizational actions that eschew discrimination, information asymmetry and the unfair allocation of resources for work. Thus, the lack of studies on how it drives duty orientation within the mining sector of Ghana calls for further investigation. This is because literature (Khaola and Rambe, 2021) is reluctant to accept the transportation of Western-designed studies into developing contexts without comprehensive analysis of their relevance in such contexts. In addition, organizational justice studies recently (Aggarwal et al., 2022; Akram et al., 2020; Jehanzeb and Mohanty, 2020) advocated for broader contextual investigations that could include plausible intervening variables to comprehend how the construct can transmit indirect influence on employees’ extra work behaviours. Such interventions are essential for illuminating the different mechanisms through which organizational justice affects employee outcomes (Khaola and Rambe, 2021).

We anticipate that supervisor-provided resources (SPR), which describes the tangible and intangible resources supervisors provide employees to facilitate work delivery (Akram et al., 2020; Rabbani et al., 2017; Lemmon et al., 2016), is a potential mediator in the link between organizational justice and duty orientation. By providing the employees with such unique resources as love, care and equitable pay recommendations, the supervisors convey positive signals to the employees to demonstrate duty orientation (Lemmon et al., 2016). According to Lemmon et al. (2016), employees see things that assist them in the performance of their work as good resources, and when the same are provided by supervisors, they produce desirable employee outcomes. Supervisors are the “human face” of organizations who yield more influence in decision-making concerning resource allocation and the fairness of the same is reflected in the practice of organizational justice (Rabbani et al., 2017). Therefore, when mining firms uphold organizational justice, their supervisors may follow a similar tune, which could translate into employees’ self-sacrificing behaviours like duty orientation.

The study contributes to the literature in many prominent ways. The study attempts to fill the gaps on calls to evaluate incremental factors through which organizational justice stimulates employees’ extra-role behaviours (Akram et al., 2020; Jehanzeb and Mohanty, 2020). By understanding how SPR mediates the link between the primary constructs, practitioners are resourced with knowledge relating to factors through which duty orientation could be enhanced. Managers of the mining firms will be enlightened to formulate appropriate policies to help groom employees to be duty-orientated to activate the overall organizational performance. The results of the study would also guide employers in their recruitment and selection initiatives by selecting applicants who are predisposed to exhibiting the attributes of duty orientation. The study would encourage supervisors to be fair and just in dealing with employees. Theoretically, it would contribute to the existing literature on how organizational justice improves employees’ duty orientation through SPR interventions.

Drawing from the social exchange (Blau, 1964) and organizational justice (Greenberg, 1987) theories, which suggest employees react to conditions created by organizations, the employees will demonstrate duty orientation as a beneficial social exchange when employers care about their interests in a manner that is fair and acceptable (Canet-Giner et al., 2020). To amplify this assertion, Ruiz-Palomino et al. (2023) claimed that supervisors who appear as ethical leaders by demonstrating integrity, fairness, altruism and concern for the needs of subordinates tend to motivate the employees to exhibit unspoken behaviours such as customer orientation. By shaping an ethical climate, the employees, within the spirit of reciprocity, are inclined to perform duty orientation (Mkheimer et al., 2023; Ruiz-Palomino et al., 2023; Stafford and Kuiper, 2021). Other scholars that have investigated the link between organizational justice and some duty orientation-related concepts such as work innovative behaviour, ethical behaviour, organizational citizenship behaviour, employee commitment and extra-role performance have reported positive associations (Al Halbusi et al., 2021; Akram et al., 2020).

For instance, Imamoglu et al. (2019) analysed survey data from 211 respondents across 101 firms and found that organizational justice has a positive and significant effect on both organizational commitment and firm performance. Similarly, Al Halbusi et al. (2021) documented that each of the dimensions of organizational justice (procedural, distributive, interpersonal and informational) correlated with ethical behaviour. This leads us to anticipate that when management shows organizational justice, employee may reciprocate duty orientation. Hence;

Lemmon et al. (2016) described supervisor-provided resources to capture intangible attributes such as care, love, recognition and fairness offered by superiors in the workplace beyond tangible resources. These resources are categorized to include informational resources (supervisor’s work-related communication, including facts, opinions, oral or written communication, conveyed verbally and/or behaviourally); love and status resources (love is an employee’s perception of his or her supervisor’s warmth, caring, or friendship towards the employee, whereas status is an employee’s perception of the supervisor’s admiration of the focal employee); and money (defined as an economic benefit, e.g. pay raises, bonuses accrued by virtue of the employee’s supervisor). Thus, SPR is a sort of psychological assistance that “love” employees immediately receive from their supervisor(s) to help complete a work assignment (Lemmon et al., 2016).

O’Connor and Crowley-Henry (2019) emphasised that organizational justice is hinged on the perceptions held by employees concerning subjective fairness in their employment relationships. Thus, it appears attributes of SPR overlap with organizational justice in the event that when organization through their supervisors, provide equitable resources, these will be interpreted by employees as the fulcrum of justice in such a setting (Hameed et al., 2019), which may positively influence the availability of SPR to employees. Hence, the study proposed that:

In line with the SET, Maan et al. (2020) submitted that organizations that support their employees tend to increase the norms of reciprocity. This implies that employees in such organizations feel more indebted to these entities and may have a higher propensity to demonstrate duty orientation. According to Ahmad and Zafar (2018), employees’ fulfilment of instrumental and socioemotional expectations enhances their positive judgements about employers, triggering behaviours such as demonstrating high attendance, taking proactive approaches to organizational challenges, supporting their colleagues and working beyond their legal work requirements. Accordingly, Talukder et al. (2018) revealed that supervisory support was key to enhancing employee performance because supervisors assist employees in attaining work–life balance. Also, Zagenczyk et al. (2021) confirmed a positive relationship between perceived organizational support and affective organizational commitment.

Although there have not been specific studies on how SPR influence duty orientation, we rely on the aforementioned empirical evidence on the positive relationship between perceived organizational support and positive work behaviours related to duty orientation to project a likely association between the variables. This is because, as employees develop the feeling that their supervisors can reach out to them in terms of need, such feelings could be translated into duty orientation. Therefore, we propose that:

Despite the fact that previous studies suggest facets of organizational support could stimulate positive work behaviour such as duty orientation (Baafi et al., 2021; Imamoglu et al., 2019; Akram et al., 2020; Singh and Singh, 2019), the role that SPR plays in the relationship between organizational justice and duty orientation has not been given attention. Following the earlier arguments and the research evidence provided for hypotheses 2 and 3, the study anticipates that organizational justice could influence SPR, which may in turn positively affect employees’ duty orientation. Consistent with the organizational justice theory, the study argues that organizations that make their systems and procedures fair and honest will get the employees to believe that their supervisors are providing resources in the form of championing support for their needs. In light of the tenets of reciprocity (Blau, 1964), these practices will culminate in duty orientation. Through justice perceptions, the employees’ resource loss is minimized (Hobfoll and Freedy, 2017) and, to that extent, their morale in conducting their duties. Hence, we propose that SPR could serve as a mediator in transmitting the indirect effects of organizational justice to duty orientation. Based on the arguments advanced, we hypothesise that:

The framework (see Appendix A) shows the interrelationships among the variables under study. Duty orientation is the dependent variable of the study and organizational justice is the independent variable. SPR serve as the mediating variable, as already established in the literature. According to the framework, organizational justice could have a direct and indirect link with duty orientation through SPR.

Around 291 out of a total of 1,200 employees were drawn from a mining company operating in the Ashanti Region of Ghana for the study. The company selected is one of the largest mining firms in the region and across the country. This fits the premises on which it was selected, besides the fact that the Ashanti Region of Ghana is where the majority of the mining firms are cited. By relying on Krejcie and Morgan’s (1970) sample size determination technique, the study concluded that the sample size used was representative of the total population of 1,200 employees from the mining company. The study further deployed the simple random sampling procedure to identify the respondents for the study, primarily to defeat the issues of sampling bias in the study. Also, a structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data by distributing the questionnaires to the sampled employees during working hours between July and August 2021 on a face-to-face basis. Out of the 291 questionnaires that were distributed, it turned out that the majority of the respondents were males as opposed to females in percentage terms of 64.6% and 35.4%, respectively. In terms of their age groups, 68.4% of them, who were the majority, were between the ages of 31–45 years, while 19.6% of them were between the ages of 18–30 years 10.7% were between the ages of 46–60 years and 1.4% were above 60 years. Finally, the respondents’ characteristics in respect of work experience indicated that 37.1% of the respondents have worked for the company for over nine years. This was followed by 25.8% of the respondents who indicated that they had worked for less than two years. Furthermore, 25.8% of them indicated that they have been working in the company for about 6–8 years, while 12.7% said that they have been working for about 3–5 years. The background of the respondents was presented in Appendix B.

The scales used in the study were adopted from empirically validated instruments by previous scholars of the constructs. Organizational justice is madeup of four-subscales, comprising procedural, distributive, interactive and informational justice. The scale was adopted from a study conducted by Colquitt (2001) due to its wide usage. SPR scale comprising items on love, status and money, developed and validated by Lemmon et al. (2016), was used to elicit responses from the participants. With respect to duty orientation, the study deployed the 12-item instrument developed and validated by Hannah et al. (2014). The instrument captured three subconstructs, including respondents’ extra role of feeling duty to members of their organization, to their organization’s mission and to their organization’s morals and codes. The items for the various instruments have been placed in Appendix C for reference.

The data were analysed using the partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) technique from SmartPLS version 4.0.9.2. PLS-SEM has been praised for its robustness in the determination of relationships among constructs in complex research models (Ringle et al., 2020). It is also effective when analysing data involving higher-order constructs (HOC). The HOC improve the model parsimony and allow for analysis of dimension-specific effects on subsequent constructs (Ringle et al., 2020; Wong, 2019). Because the analysis was based on HOC approach, it was worthwhile leveraging the efficacy of PLS-SEM to interpret the results. Thus, the subconstructs (i.e. procedural justice, distributive justice, interactional justice and informational justice) were used as lower-level constructs (LOC) of the HOC, organizational justice (see Appendix D).

Methodologically, the LOCs are first examined through the PLS-SEM algorithm to ensure the subconstructs have appropriate loadings and correlations with the HOC and then, the HOC is connected to the endogenous (dependent) variable. Again, when assessing the roles of incremental or intervening variables like mediators in the relationship between exogenous and endogenous variables, the PLS-SEM approach seems appropriate (Sarstedt et al., 2021). SPR construct were used as a mediator in the current study. Consequently, the study evaluated the measurement model through indicator or outer loadings, internal consistency and discriminant validity of the constructs. Next, the structural model follows the prescribed indices comprising correlation coefficients or paths (R), coefficient of determination (R²), predictive relevance (Q²), effect size (f²) and a significant level of 5% or less or a t-statistic of 1.96 or higher to test the structural model (Hair et al., 2019).

The results in Tables 1 and 2 present insights on the assessment of the indicator and constructs’ reliability for the model. According to Table 1, indicator reliability, which shows the proportion of variance of an indicator that can be described by its underlying latent variable (Ong and Puteh, 2017), was assessed using the loadings. The results suggest that the indicators have met the 0.60 or higher threshold for social research (Hair et al., 2019).

Also, the internal consistency test for the constructs was not violated. As a rule of thumb, by establishing the cut-off points of CA, rho_A and CR at values > 0.70, it could be deduced that all the scores for the constructs were >0.70. Furthermore, the convergent validity (CV) of the study based on the average variance extracted (AVE) score is presented in Table 2. The rule of thumb is that all the AVE scores should have a minimum threshold of ≥0.50 for each construct (Hair et al., 2019). A cursory look at the scores of the major constructs, including the dimensions of organizational justice, in Table 1 revealed that the constructs have met the criteria (AVE scores ≥0.50).

We assessed the discriminant validity of the model to ascertain the uniqueness of each construct employed in the study using the HTMT ratio results captured in Table 2. Theoretically, the HTMT ratio shows superior performance by having the ability to detect discriminant validity in more common research scenarios than other techniques (Henseler et al., 2016). The rule of thumb is that to achieve DV, HTMT values should be < 0.85 for unrelated constructs or <0.90 for research scenarios where the constructs are highly related (Hair et al., 2019). Given that the study relied on the HOC approach, in which the LOCs are related by dimensionality, the present study used the 0.90 as a benchmark for testing issues of discriminant validity. From Table 2, all the values for each of the constructs and subconstructs were below HTMT.90. This is a good indication that each construct is truly distinct from the others. After these basic assessments, the study followed up with the analysis of the research hypotheses in Table 3.

After a successful evaluation of the constructs quality criteria through the measurement model, the structural model results were followed. The results of the structural model, as reported in Table 3, formed the basis for testing the research hypotheses postulated.

By checking the results of the lower-lever constructs in Table 3, it can be expressed that the four subconstructs (procedural, distributive, interactive and informational) effectively form and contribute to the organizational justice construct. This is reflected in the R² value of 0.999 (see also Appendix D). Furthermore, the results in Table 3 are in line with the study’s expectations imitated in the hypotheses. It can be seen that organizational justice has a significant positive relationship with duty orientation (R = 0.450; t = 6.894; p < 0.001) and SPR (R = 0.634; t = 12.824; p < 0.000). Also, the results indicate that SPR had a significant positive relationship with duty orientation (R = 0.162; t = 2.017; p = 0.044). Finally, the results reported in the indirect column of Table 3 were consistent with the study’s hypothesis that SPR partially mediates the relationship between organizational justice and duty orientation (R = 0.103; t = 1.968; p = 0.041).

On the basis of the R², the study asserts that organizational justice and SPR together explained 32.2% of changes in employees’ duty orientation in organizations. Besides, organizational justice was to have accounted for 40.2% of variations in the scores of SPR. Finally, the predictive relevance of the PLS model along with the various effect sizes of the exogenous variables on the endogenous variable were satisfactory.

The study investigated the influence of organizational justice on the duty orientation of employees in the mining sector of Ghana, using SPR as a mediator. The results of the study supported the hypotheses. Concisely, it was established that organizational justice has a significant positive influence on duty orientation and SPR. With organizational justice, we conclude that employees perceive the policies and systems of companies that are equitable and fair as important resources that facilitate the performance of their work. Again, organizations that eschew discrimination and bias are better positioned to spur duty orientation among their employees. Overall, the findings support the view that employees in “just” organizations tend to be duty-orientated by upholding the vision and mission of the organization, helping their colleagues and respecting the values and beliefs of the companies for purposes of enhancing business prosperity (Hannah et al., 2014). The findings are supported by previous studies (Akram et al., 2020; Imamoglu et al., 2019), which investigated the link between organizational justice and discretionary behaviours. For example, the evidence documented in the Akram et al. (2020) study points to the conclusion that organizational justice spurs innovative work behaviours among employees in the telecommunications sector.

Further, our study revealed that SPR have a significant positive association with duty orientation in the mining sector of Ghana. This means that supervisor-provided resources tend to attract employees to appreciate the firms they work for with a duty orientation. This finding has found expression in the social exchange and organizational justice theories in which Stafford and Kuiper (2021) argue that employees’ value beneficial interactions with supervisors and will, in the spirit of reciprocity, engage in useful acts such as duty orientation. Also, because supervisors are at the forefront of organizations and control resources, initiatives they take in the form of providing the right resources incite employees to demonstrate duty orientations (Lemmon et al., 2016; Hannah et al., 2014). Particularly, employees cherish affection and good relationships as well as the provision of sufficient information towards the execution of their roles (Rabbani et al., 2017).

Finally, the findings revealed that supervisor-provided resources partially mediate the link between organizational justice and duty orientation. The implication is that although organizational justice can influence the duty orientation of employees in the company, such influence can be improved when the employees perceive the adequate presence of SPR. Within the tenets of reciprocity (Blau, 1964), employees will demonstrate improved behaviours of duty orientation when organizational justice and SPR are complimentarily effective in mining companies. Generally, employees who perceive fairness in their organization tend to perceive their jobs as satisfying and meaningful and thus become more responsive to the goals of the organization, the codes of the teams and the overall mission of the organization (Ansong et al., 2022; Akram et al., 2016).

The findings of the study are prominent in many ways. Based on our review of the extant literature, previous studies have primarily analysed how organizational justice predicts employees’ behaviours such as work innovative behaviour (Akram et al., 2020), organizational citizenship behaviours (Yuen Onn et al., 2018), employee commitment and psychological resilience (Quratulain et al., 2012). This study, thus, contributes to the literature by adding duty orientation to the list. Besides providing clarity on some of the determinants of duty orientation among employees, the results answered the call by some scholars (Aggarwal et al., 2022; Akram et al., 2020; Jehanzeb and Mohanty, 2020) for the need to broaden the nature of investigations on the effects of organizational justice on employee behaviour through a broader contextual study that will include plausible intervening variables. The findings provide crucial pointers to organizations on the role of SPR in fostering the relationship between organizational justice and positive employee behaviour-related constructs. Moreover, the evidence documented in the Ghanaian context on the role of organizational justice and SPR forms a fundamental reference for future scholars in related fields. The study has broadened the scope of knowledge on the factors organizations can leverage to promote duty orientation among employees.

The findings further shed light on the organizational justice and social exchange theories by establishing that employees feel the obligation to give back valuable efforts in response to essential services and practices offered to them by the organization. In sum, organizational justice elevates workers’ extra work roles by promoting employees’ duty orientation (Ansong et al., 2022). The findings strengthen the arguments of organizational justice, organizational support and social exchange theories, given that employees perceive justice as an important resource and support that has the potential to provoke positive work behaviours.

The evidence gathered from the study is useful for managers of mining companies and policymakers in the production sector of the Ghanaian economy. Within the contemporary business environment, good organizational policies and systems have been the centre of business success, and firms should not ignore the role of organizational justice in stimulating the duty orientation of employees. Although duty orientation is a sort of discretionary employee attitude, essential company policies like organizational justice and supervisor-provided resources are critical success factors for its enforcement in the organization. In light of these, the management of the mining companies should devote resources to developing organizational justice policies based on fairness in resource allocation, clear roles, employee feedback and effective information dissemination. Management of the companies could also strategically outline and incorporate good pay policies, promotion, performance appraisals and quality of work–life in running their affairs. Moreover, the management of mining companies can ignite the duty orientation of their employees by showing love and affection, recognizing them, providing them with complete information and demonstrating confidence in their abilities. Again, supervisors or managers at the operational level should have a clear perspective on how to conceptualize and administer social, task and financial resources. It would be prudent for supervisors to place priority on acquiring and dispensing these resources in a fair manner. This can be achieved if organizations correlate resource flows and incentives with employee outcomes. These practices would encourage employees to reciprocate good behaviour towards their organization by being duty-orientated.

Following the findings that emerged, the study concludes that organizational justice and SPR are critical factors for spurring duty orientation in mining firms in Ghana. This suggests that the firms should empower the various supervisors to exercise organizational justice in the allocation and delivery of resources to subordinates to demonstrate duty orientation. Considering the high demands from employees to show innovative and loyal behaviours on the job, it is essential for management to adore policies that would foster these behaviours among the employees. Since duty orientation captures the volition to pursue the overall interests of firms, the study would broadly recommend that practitioners and policymakers to pay attention to behavioural measures that promote favourable employee outcomes.

Although the study presented essential findings on how management and policymakers in the mining sector will integrate organizational justice policies with supervisor-provided resources to enhance duty orientation, it should be treated as preliminary until further studies replicate the study in other broad settings. We recommend that future studies consider longitudinal and experimental research to help confirm the causal paths investigated in the present study. Again, the study relied on self-reported measures in the data collection procedure. Despite the fact that some researchers claim self-reported bias is trivial and rarely invalidates research findings, it is possible that the findings of the present study may be contaminated by the same source bias. It is recommended that future studies consider a mixed approach and relevant control and moderating variables like gender to better understand the phenomenon studied.

The supplementary material for this article can be found online.