Middle managers’ perceptions of organistational justice after downsizing in the automotive industry

Abstract

Organisations of every industry are changing continuously. A pervasive response to this experience is some form of downsizing. Chew and Horwitz (2002) state due to globalisation, organisations have increasingly adopted cost/ competitive measures to increase performance. Organisations inevitably seek to survive these pressures by downsizing. According to Tzafrir, Mona- Negrin, Havel and Rom Nagy (2006), downsizing is known to be defined as a company trying to increase its competitiveness, efficiency and productivity by decreasing the number of workers in the organisation. Drummond (2000) states that there is extra pressure put onto the remaining workers for productivity after the layoff process. It must be acknowledged that managers should be seen as both an employee and a supervisor. Managers therefore have to implement the change when the process occurs and deals with the reactions of him/herself and that of the subordinates (Wiesenfeld, Brockner, Petzall, Wolf & Bailey, 2001). To gain a competitive advantage, organisations must pay attention to their managers who are responsible for driving organisation’s processes and outcomes. Rana, Garg and Rastogi (2011) state that organisations need to attend to factors that influence managers’ performance and job satisfaction, such as perception of organisational justice. Managers’ perception of organisational justice is imperative, as subordinates mimic the behaviours and attitude of their managers (Wiesenfeld et al., 2001). The aim of this study is to investigate what impact the downsizing process had on the perception of organizational justice of survivor middle managers. The differences between middle managers’ age, gender, year of service or tenure, marital status and education level were taken into account. The study was conducted in different departments of a large Automotive Retail organisation where downsizing has taken place. A biographical questionnaire and a questionnaire designed to measure perceptions of organisational justice after downsizing (Niehoff and Moorman Organisational Justice Questionnaire), was administered to gather the data. The sample of one hundred and forty-four respondents consisted of male and female middle managers. Convenience sampling was utilised to select the sample. Statistical analyses involved both descriptive and inferential statistics. ANOVA and T-Test were the tools that were used to analyse the data. Findings indicates that there was a statistical significant difference in middle managers’ perception of organisational justice based on gender, age, tenure, marital status and education level in the Automotive Industry.