Informational Justice as a Double-Edged Sword: Negative Indirect Effects on Employee Performance Through Organizational Citizenship Behavior Toward Individuals (OCBI)

Abstract

The study intended to investigate the Informational justice (the fairness, truthfulness, and adequacy of explanations) provided to employees is conventionally viewed as a positive organizational resource that enhances employee outcomes. This study challenges that assumption by investigating whether informational justice can produce negative indirect effects on employee performance through organizational citizenship behavior toward individuals . Drawing on reactance theory and the organizational justice literature, we propose that in low-trust, resource- scarce contexts, extensive justifications may backfire, reducing discretionary helping behaviors and subsequently harming performance. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted with 335 academic staff from 14 federal and state universities in Northeast Nigeria – a region characterized by chronic underfunding, broken labor agreements, and high distrust between academic staff and university administrations. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS 4.0. Bootstrapping (5,000 subsamples) was used to test direct and indirect effects. Common method bias was assessed via Harman’s single-factor test and VIF-based full collinearity. The Findings: Contrary to conventional wisdom and our initial hypothesis, informational justice did not demonstrate a significant positive indirect effect on employee performance through OCBI. The indirect path (informational justice → OCBI → employee performance) was non-significant (β = 0.044, t = 0.541, p = 0.081, one-tailed). Moreover, the direct effect of informational justice on OCBI was negative (though non-significant), and the parallel indirect effect through OCBO was also non-significant. Post-hoc analysis revealed that the non-significance stems from a suppression effect: informational justice positively relates to performance directly but negatively relates to performance indirectly through OCBI. In other words, providing detailed explanations increases employee performance directly (perhaps through clarity), but simultaneously reduces discretionary helping behaviors toward colleagues, thereby offsetting the positive direct effect. This study is among the first to document a negative or non- positive indirect effect of informational justice on performance via OCBI. It challenges the universal positivity assumption in organizational justice research and extends reactance theory to the informational justice domain. The findings suggest that informational justice is a double-edged sword: beneficial in some respects but potentially harmful to peer-directed citizenship behaviors when trust is low. Practical Implications: University administrators and managers should exercise caution when providing detailed justifications for decisions in low-trust environments. Explanations should be accompanied by genuine opportunities for employee voice, follow-through on commitments, and relationship-building. Simply providing more information may inadvertently reduce colleague-helping behaviors, harming the cooperative climate.

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