Research - (2021) Volume 14, Issue 78

A FIELD RESEARCH ON DETERMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP
Duygu Bora* and Burak Bora
 
Dr. Ö?r. Üyesi, Kapadokya Üniversitesi, Turist Rehberli?i Tezsiz Yüksek Lisans Program?, Turkey
Ara?. Görevlisi, Nev?ehir Hac? Bekta? Veli Üniversitesi, ??BF, Turkey
 
*Correspondence: Duygu Bora, Dr. Ö?r. Üyesi, Kapadokya Üniversitesi, Turist Rehberli?i Tezsiz Yüksek Lisans Program?, Turkey, Tel: 0000- 0001-6983-1783, Email:

Received: Jul 02, 2021 Published: Jul 30, 2021, DOI: 1307-9581

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the relationships between dimensions of organizational justice (distributive, procedural, interactional)and psychological ownership. In the study, a questionnaire was applied to 395 employees in four- and five-star hotel establishments. Digitized quantitative data obtained were analyzed by using SPSS 23 package program. According to the results of the study, a positive significant relationship was found between distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice and psychological ownership. It has been concluded that as organizational justice increases, psychological ownership will also increase. In this study, the existence of the necessary precursors for the emergence of the psychological ownership phenomenon based on the extended self-theory in hotel enterprises was investigated. The study is one of the rare studies questioning the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership in hotel businesses. For this reason, as a preliminary study, the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership was questioned, and in line with the results obtained, tips were given to both literature researchers and sectoral practitioners to increase the psychological ownership of employees.

Keywords

Organizational Justice, Psychological Ownership, Extended Self Theory.

1. INTRODUCTION

The tourism sector is a labor-intensive sector that produces goods and services in order to provide tourists with a holistic holiday experience, where the customer is involved in the production process. In this sector, where face-to-face communication is intense, the attitudes and behaviors of the employee can affect the success of the process. Especially in this period, where information and communication is developing a lot and globalization is dominant, there is a great need for educated and talented human capital that can instantly respond to customer requests and expectations, produce practical solutions to problems, adapt to the era. Considering that employee satisfaction in the tourism sector directly affects customer satisfaction, enterprises enter into a tough competition in order to attract and keep talented employees in the business, and managers develop new strategies to motivate their employees. One of these strategies is the concept of organizational justice, which is up-to-date, discussed and regarded as the first and most important value of social organizations from past to present (Konovsky, 2000).

Organizational justice is the process of evaluating managerial decisions regarding variables such as task distribution of employees, compliance with shift, authorization, wage level, and reward distribution.

Therefore, organizational justice differs according to the perceptions of employees. Considering that the employees' attitudes and behaviors are shaped according to the way they perceive the current situation, the perception style and perception in the organization, whether it is positive or negative, will directly affect the performance of the employees. (Budak et al., 2018; Konaklıoğlu, 2015). At this point, the negative attitudes and behaviors that may be caused by the perceived negative sense of justice can only be prevented by the fair policies and practices to be implemented by the enterprise. In the study, in line with the information and observations obtained from the literature, it was assumed that when organizational justice is effectively implemented in a business, the employee will feel safe as if at home and experience organizational psychological ownership. It is assumed that when the employees, who transfers their knowledge, skills and abilities as input to the business, receives an output in proportion to their input in the process, that is, when they are rewarded with practices such as salary, promotion, praise, participation in decisions, they will feel ownership to the organization and see it as an extension of their selves and exhibit positive organizational behaviors in this direction.

Psychological ownership is the state of people feeling as the owner (this is mine!) of the tangible or intangible ownership goal or part of the goal (Pierce et al., 2001). Employees with high psychological ownership see the organization they work with as a part of their self, do their jobs happily and ambitiously, and act proactively to protect and develop their jobs and organizations. Psychological ownership brings out the sense of responsibility, and this feeling causes the individual to act voluntarily for the benefit of the organization (Van Dyne et al., 1995; VandaWalle et al., 1995; Mayhew et al., 2007). While there are many studies on the consequences of the concept in the literature, few studies have been done on its determinants. Therefore, it is aimed to contribute to the literature by questioning whether organizational justice has a role in the emergence of this concept, which is increasingly important for businesses.

The concept of organizational justice and psychological ownership are fields whose answers have not been fully explored in terms of employees and businesses. and will embrace the organization psychologically. Therefore, in this study, it is aimed to contribute to practitioners both literary and sectoral by determining whether there is a relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership. The study carried out for this purpose consists of two parts. In the first part of the study, the theoretical framework of the research is presented. The definition, features, dimensions, and importance of organizational justice concept, which is the independent variable of the research, are explained. Then, the definition of the concept of psychological ownership, which is the dependent variable of the research, its theoretical infrastructure and its importance for the organization were explained, studies investigating the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership were emphasized and research hypotheses were stated. In the second part, information about the population and sample of the research and the data collection tool were presented, and then the findings about the analysis of the data were given. After the method part, the results of the study were discussed in the discussion part, and following the discussion part, the section was ended by making suggestions for the future studies and presenting limitations.

2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1. Organizational Justice Concept

The concept of organizational justice is the sense of moral compliance of employees about how they are treated and the unifying force that allows people to work together effectively (Cropanzano et al., 2007, 34). The concept of organizational justice is a highly subjective structure that depends on the perception of the individual and can often become concrete when violated. Behaviors such as paying unequal wages to women and men doing the same job, arbitrary layoffs, nepotism, and evaluating employee performance by a manager with little communication can be given as examples (Baldwin, 2006).

Employees exhibit positive attitudes and behaviors (organizational citizenship behavior, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, trust, high organizational performance) when they encounter fair practices in the workplace (Folger & Konovsky, 1989; Moorman, 1991; Masterson et al., 2000; Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; McCain et al., 2010; Nazarian et al, 2020). Employees who perceive business practices as fair, consider themselves a valuable part of the business, and develop relationships based on harmony and trust with their supervisors and friends with whom they are in contact (Beugre, 2002). On the contrary, the morale of the employees who think that they are treated unfairly in the business decreases, and in order to show their dissatisfaction, they may behave against the business, such as quitting the job, reducing their efforts at work, constantly complaining, and stealing (Greenberg, 1990a; Turnley & Feldman, 1999; Şenturan, 2014).

When the literature on organizational justice is examined, it is seen that the debates on the dimensioning of the concept continue. In this study, the most widely accepted distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice in the literature will be discussed (Masterson et al., 2000; Cropanzano et al., 2002; Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Grenbeerg & Colquitt, 2005; Luo et al., 2017; Fiaz et al., 2018).

The distributive justice dimension, which is founded on the equality theory of Adams (1965), is a form of justice affecting the employees benefits from the organization. The perception of justice about the allocation of employees (salary, promotion, status, appreciation, bonus, etc.) from the organization is a concept that expresses how they judge what they get from the business (Cropanzano & Molina, 2015, 380). The concept of procedural justice, pioneered by Thibaut & Walker (1975), is a perception of justice towards the methods and guidelines used to implement the distribution of rewards (Folger and Konovsky, 1989; Grenbeerg, 1990b). In procedural justice, the response of employees is directed towards the decision processes and the procedures implemented, rather than the results obtained or not (Ramkissoon, 2016). Developing the organizational justice literature, Bies & Moag (1986), who emphasized the quality and importance of the treatment of managers towards their employees, developed the interactional justice dimension. According to researchers, interactional justice is perceived positively by individuals when decision makers in the business treat employees with respect and sensitivity and fully explain the reasons for their decisions.

When the concept of organizational justice, which has a multi-dimensional and comprehensive structure, is applied systematically in the organization, employees see the job, the business, their colleagues and all kinds of material and moral values as a part of their self. Individuals with a high perception of organizational justice attach importance to the contributions and employability of the business they work in, and they adopt and advocate the resources in the business psychologically (Butt & Atiff, 2013). However, if the needs of the employees in the organization are not met and if the employees consider the organization or the managers as unfair, results such as avoiding responsibility, displaying hostile attitudes, low job performance, leaving the job, experiencing social, mental or physical disorders can be seen (Greenberg, 1993; Sia & Tan, 2016). In fact, employees' perception of injustice in the workplace can prevent the development of their sense of ownership and their emotional commitment and job satisfaction (Sieger et al., 2011, 85). Therefore, organizational justice has an important role in motivating individuals and directing their behavior for the benefit of the organization. Based on these considerations, we assume that providing employees with a fair and safe working environment will provide the employees with the feeling of belonging to the organization and feeling the organization as their home, thus increasing the psychological sense of ownership towards the organization.

2.2. Psychological Ownership

The concept of psychological ownership (Pierce & Jussila, 2011), which is described as a key factor to resolving the incomprehensible aspects of organizational life and increasing competitiveness (Pierce & Jussila, 2011), refers to the situation where people feel as the owner of the tangible and intangible ownership goal or part of that goal (Pierce et al., 2001). Psychological ownership reflects the relationships and bonds between people and objects (ownership goals) that people feel close to and become a part of their self (Belk, 1988). Although these ownership goals are thought to be experiences that involve only the relationships towards material assets, they can actually include immaterial ideas, relationships, words, artworks and other people (Litwinski, 1947; Pierce et al., 2001). The sense of ownership develops for reasons such as exploration (sense of curiosity), someone else having the same object as them (jealousy), the sense of joy (pleasure) and comfort, the sense of control (the sense of being effective), the sense of social power and status, the sense of security and self-reflection of ownership (Furby, 1978).

Considering that ownership and feelings of ownership have been present everywhere since childhood, it is natural for individuals to develop ownership towards different organizational goals such as their businesses, jobs, tasks, work areas, business tools and equipment, ideas or suggestions, team membership (Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004). Pierce et al. (1991) argued that ownership is multidimensional and is a phenomenon experienced formally and psychologically. Official ownership refers to the legal recognition of the property right, and in this type of ownership, the property status is determined and protected by the legal public system (Dawkins, 2015, 1; Etzioni, 1991). In psychological ownership, the sense of ownership is an innate human feeling and can be formed and experienced in the mind for both material and intangible objects (goals). Psychological ownership can create emotional, attitudinal and behavioral effects in people who have a sense of ownership (Pierce et al., 2001).

Based on this view, the study is based on Belk's (1988) "Extended Self Theory" and psychological ownership towards the organization is emphasized. According to the theory, "getting to know closely and establishing control over" material or intangible objects that are the aim of ownership makes the ownership goal an extension of the ego and expands the ego. The human being an "actor in the creative process" enables him to own the created product and make it a part of his extended self. Thus, people's attitudes towards material and intangible objects become more positive (Nuttin, 1987; Beggan, 1992), they see them as an extension of their self, and they stimulate their sense of responsibility to try to protect and defend, increase and develop for the material or non-material goals they have. (Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004, 441). For this reason, it is assumed in the study that employees spend their time, energy and abilities in order to create products or services in the enterprises they are in, and therefore they are in constant communication with objects, people, goals, ideals and social roles. It is argued within the scope of the study that employees perceive these interactions in businesses according to themselves (Is it fair? Is it not fair?) and that their self-esteem will expand and thus develop a sense of responsibility towards material and intangible ownership goals and lead to positive organizational behavior.

2.3. Organizational Justice and Psychological Ownership Relations

Psychological ownership, which reflects the strong psychological commitment employees feel towards the organization they work, even though they do not actually have legal ownership, arises under certain conditions. When the literature is scanned, it is seen that one of these conditions is the necessity of ensuring organizational justice. Employees' positive perceptions of justice enable them to identify with the organization and strengthen their feeling that the business they work in is their home (Chi & Han, 2008). The sense of belonging (feeling at home) is very closely related to the sense of ownership and reflects an important need of the human soul. Acting with the innate need to have a certain space, people transfer their physical and spiritual energies, resources, and objects that can create a sense of home to these areas in order to acquire, protect, decorate or exhibit them. In other words, they try to meet their motivation of belonging by investing in material or intangible objects that make themselves feel like at home (Pierce et al., 2001). Based on this information, we claim that creating a fair work environment for employees will give them a sense of home, thus increasing the psychological sense of ownership towards the business.

The reason we think that there is a relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership is that both phenomena are experienced mentally and emotionally by people; it has a strong influence on attitudes and behavior. While many recent studies focusing on the organizational consequences of psychological ownership (Pierce et al., 1991; Cram & Paton, 1993; Pierce et al., 2001; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004; O’Driscoll et al., 2006; Mayhew et al., 2007; Avey et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2012; Sieger et al., 2013; Brown et al., 2014; Jussila et al., 2015) the issue of psychological ownership expresses a problematic whose answer has not been fully discovered. For this reason, the study focuses on the premises of psychological ownership and tries to explain the necessary conditions for the occurrence of the phenomenon.

In the study of Atalay & Özler (2013) investigating the organizational justice (distributive, procedural, interactional) and psychological ownership relationship of non-family employees in the family business, it was concluded that perceptions of justice may affect their psychological ownership levels. In the study, it was emphasized that the distributional justice dimension is the most effective dimension of organizational justice in creating psychological ownership. This result is a warning about the need to be fair especially in terms of salary distribution and promotion. Similarly, Sieger et al. (2011) found a significant and positive relationship between distributive justice and psychological ownership but concluded that there is no significant relationship between procedural justice and psychological ownership. From this situation, it can be understood that non-family workers see the supervisor as responsible for justice rather than the processes in which decisions are made.

According to Butt & Atif (2015), employees want to obtain identity and gain from that organization by associating themselves with the organization while working in their workplaces. For this reason, employees tend to demonstrate their maximum efforts, physical and intellectual resources to the job and the business. According to the researchers who defend this view, if an organization practices distributive, procedural, and interactional justice, employees are more likely to obtain identity from that organization and to defend it by representing the business in which they work. Unlike Atalay & Özler (2013) and Sieger et al. (2011) some researchers concluded that while distributive justice and interactional justice do not have a significant effect on psychological ownership, the strongest predictor of psychological ownership is procedural justice. These results show that there is a need to evaluate employees' views on establishment policies. In order to retain talented employees and improve their performance in the long term, it is especially emphasized in the study that justice practices should be valued, and the problems should be overcome by adopting a democratic attitude.

Chi & Han (2008) examined the mediating role of organizational justice in the legal and psychological ownership relationship. According to the results of the study, it was seen that distributive and procedural justice had a positive and significant relationship with psychological ownership. In other words, the ability of the employees to embrace the business as "mine" and seeing it as a part of their self depends on the justice practices carried out in the business. The fairness of the organizational resources, the decisions such as salary, bonus, promotion, and the processes in which these decisions are made, the accuracy of the information used in the processes, the level of influence of the employees in the process and the participation in the decisions are effective in the increase of the positive attitudes of the employees such as psychological ownership.

Hameed et al. (2018) investigated the role of psychological ownership and perceived organizational support in the relationship between organizational justice and information sharing behavior. According to the results of the research, it was seen that the distributive, procedural, and interactional dimensions of organizational justice influence psychological ownership. In the study, it was emphasized that especially psychological ownership is an important employee attitude and may lead to positive results such as extra role behavior and increase in organizational performance. In addition, according to the results, it is stated that valuing the contributions of employees, supporting cooperation, providing an innovative, flexible, and fair work environment will enable employees to plan a long-term future in the enterprise. Based on the information obtained from the literature, it is thought that the increase in the distributional, procedural, and interactional dimensions of organizational justice in the enterprise will affect the psychological ownership level of the employees. The models and hypotheses generated in this regard are as follows:

H1: There is a positive relationship between distributive justice and psychological ownership.

H2: There is a positive relationship between procedural justice and psychological ownership.

H3: There is a positive relationship between interactional justice and psychological ownership.

3. Method

3.1. Universe and Sample

The universe of the study consists of the employees of Cappadocia's four- and five-star hotel businesses. The reason why Cappadocia's four- and five-star hotel businesses are preferred as a universe is that the city has a great importance in terms of tourism due to its historical, natural, and cultural attractions. According to the 2020 data of Nevşehir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, there are 5 five-star hotel enterprises and 16 four-star hotel enterprises in Nevşehir.

In the study, due to time and financial constraints, it was not possible to make integers in the universe, and the judicial sampling technique was used. In judicial sampling, the researcher can include the subjects with certain characteristics that he thinks will find an answer to the research problem, based on his own personal observations. (Bernard, 2006; Kumar, 2011).

According to the data of Nevşehir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, there are 21 hotel establishments and the employees working in these hotels were examined within the scope of the study. Due to the high turnover rate of employees in the tourism sector, and the decrease in the number of employees especially outside of the tourism season, the number of employees could not be reached. The general table of Krejcie & Morgan (1970) regarding how much the sample size should be taken against the size of the universe volume was used and the sample size was determined as 370. Gay (1996) and Sekaran (2003) stated that this table is an ideal table capable of representing the universe by taking into account the determinants of the sample size (sampling error, confidence level, rates). 600 questionnaires were delivered by hand to 21 hotel businesses, and hotel employees were made to answer the questionnaires in line with the permissions received from hotel managers. Some questionnaire forms were excluded from the study because the respondents answered the questions randomly without reading or left the answers blank. Thus, 395 questionnaires were used within the scope of the study.

3.2. Data Collection Tool

The scales used to determine the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership in hotel enterprises were applied to the employees through questionnaires. The questionnaire form prepared in accordance with the purpose of the study consists of three parts including questions measuring organizational justice, psychological ownership and demographic variables.

The “organizational justice scale”, which is the first part of the questionnaire form and tries to determine the opinions of hotel employees about their perception of organizational justice, was developed by Colquitt (2001) and was tested by Özmen et al. (2005), Ötken (2015) and consists of 17 items. In the study, a 5-point Likert Type Scale consisting of "1-Strongly Disagree", "2-Disagree", "3-Neither Agree Neither Disagree", "4-Agree", "5-Strongly Agree" answer category was used.

In the second part of the questionnaire form, there is the "psychological ownership scale" developed by Van Dyne & Pierce (2004) and consists of seven statements. The seventh statement among the expressions in this scale is reverse coded. The psychological ownership scale used in the study consists of one dimension. In order to measure the expressions in the scale, a 5-point Likert Type Scale was used.

In the last part of the questionnaire, statements questioning demographic variables are included. Employee profile was tried to be determined in line with the answers received by asking the gender, age, educational status, status of the company they work for, and the working time in the company. It was specifically stated that the data to be obtained in line with the questionnaire will be used only for scientific purposes and collectively, will be kept strictly confidential, and that the institution and person names will not be used in the study.

3.3. Analysis of Data

The data collected through the surveys were transferred to the computer environment, and SPSS 23 was used to measure the suitability of the data for analysis. Reverse coding was performed for the inverse expressions in the scales, and the means, frequency distributions and standard deviations of the obtained data were checked. Since there may be faulty coding in the data, frequency distributions, loss and extreme values of all data were checked. In addition, one of the conditions for analyzing numerical data is the normal distribution of the data. For this reason, skewness and kurtosis, histogram, standard deviation, and Q-Q graphs were used to test whether the data used in the study showed normal distribution. According to George and Mallery (2010), the skewness and kurtosis values of normally distributed data should be between -2 and +2. As a result of the analysis conducted on whether the survey data show normal distribution or not, it was seen that the standard deviations of the expressions in the surveys were close to 1, and the skewness and kurtosis values were between -2 and +2.

3.4. Factor Analysis Results

The concept of psychological ownership, which is the dependent variable of the study, was subjected to factor analysis, and as a result of the analysis, it was seen that seven expressions measuring psychological ownership were gathered under a single factor. In line with this result, psychological ownership was calculated as a single factor, explaining 86,409% of the total variance and was included in the analyzes in this way. One of the other variables of the study, organizational justice, was also subjected to factor analysis and it was observed that seventeen statements were gathered under three factors and explained 81,109% of the total variance. Reliability of all factors subjected to reliability analysis was found to be quite high. The factors obtained were named as interactional justice (factor 1), procedural justice (factor 2) and distributive justice (factor 3). Results for factor analysis and reliability analysis results of factors are presented in Table 1.

3.5. Reliability and Validity of Scales

According to the results of the reliability analysis, the Cronbach alpha values of the sub-dimensions of organizational justice were distributed justice (4 items) α = 0.895, procedural justice (5 items) α = 0.869, interactional justice (8 items) α = 0.932, respectively. In addition, the Cronbach alpha value of psychological ownership (7 items) is α = 0.973. According to Cohen et al. (2007), since these values are between 0.80 and 1.00, the scales mean highly reliable. Content validity of the scales was analyzed after the reliability analysis. Content validity is carried out by having the subject's experts (professionals) and readers examined in order to determine whether the questionnaire contains sufficient number of questions that can measure the phenomenon to be measured (Kumar, 2011). In the exchange of views with the experts of the subject, it was revealed that the questionnaire examined included questions that could measure the research subject.

3.6. Correlation Analysis

Correlation analysis was conducted to determine the level and direction of the relationship between distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice which are the dimensions of organizational justice and psychological ownership. According to the results in Table 2, it is seen that the significance ratio (Sig.2-tailed) is less than 0.05 and there is a significant and positive relationship between interactional justice, procedural justice, distributive justice, and psychological ownership. (Interactional justice, r (395) = .721, p <.001; procedural justice, r (395) = .719, p <.001; distributive justice, r (395) = .697, p <.001).

The level of the relationship between the variables analyzed in the correlation analysis is weak if the correlation coefficient is between 0-0.3; Medium if between 0.3-0.7; If it is between 0.7-1, it can be interpreted as strong (Gürbüz & Şahin, 2015, 256). According to the results of the correlation analysis, while interactional justice and procedural justice had a strong positive relationship with psychological ownership, a moderate positive relationship was found between distributive justice and psychological ownership and H1, H2, H3 hypotheses were accepted. The existence of a positive relationship between variables shows that the two variables change together. In other words, organizational justice and the psychological ownership of the employees increase or decrease together.

Bilal et al. (2015) found a positive relationship between distributive, procedural, interactional justice and psychological ownership, and stated that justice should be provided in order to increase the psychological sense of ownership of employees working in private colleges. According to Knapp et al. (2019), when employees think that they have important contributions to the mission of the enterprise, when they have the authority to participate in business decisions, make a voice and exercise control, they perceive justice and start to see their organization as an extension of their self by identifying with the organization. Supporting this idea with the results of their studies, the researchers found a positive relationship between distribution, procedure, interaction, information justice and psychological ownership.

3.7. Regression Analysis Results

Multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the effect of distributive, procedural, and interactional dimensions of organizational justice, which is the independent variable of the study, on psychological ownership, which is the dependent variable. One of the reasons for performing multiple regression analysis is to try to understand the cause-effect relationship between variables and to verify and explain the causes that cause the result.

As seen in Table 3, the results of multiple regression analysis are statistically significant [F (3,391) = 178,641, P <0.001]. Adjusted R2 value is 0.58. This result shows that 58% variance in psychological ownership is explained by distributive, procedural, and interactional justice.

Employees always try to balance the efforts they spend for their jobs (knowledge, skills, competencies) and the awards they receive (salary, promotion, leave, praise), and make a comparison between what they receive from the business and what they give. If they perceive a difference from time to time, their sense of justice is harmed, and they may exhibit behaviors such as absenteeism, leaving the job, and reducing their efforts towards the work, which are detrimental to the organization in order to reduce the difference (inequality) (Budak & Budak, 2016, 218). One of these attitudes is that employees see the business where they work as their own home, feel safe and belong, that is, exhibit psychological ownership.

İbrahim (2016) stated that organizational justice has a positive effect on psychological ownership and that as organizational justice increases, psychological ownership will also increase. In addition, researchers emphasized that with the increase of psychological ownership, in-role behaviors and extra role behaviors, which are considered as multiple forms of performance behaviors, will also increase positively. It is useful to determine the precursors of the psychological ownership phenomenon that can lead to positive organizational behavior in terms of emerging and developing. For this reason, in this study, the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership has been questioned as a prelude to this study, and in line with the results obtained, clues are given to both literary researchers and sectoral practitioners to increase the psychological ownership of employees.

4. DİSCUSSİON AND IMPLICATIONS

Justice is the belief that the material and moral gains that employees receive in return for their physical and intellectual contributions to the business are in balance. In an age where the need for qualified human resources is very high, it has become more important to manifest justice in the organization in order to create positive attitudes and behaviors in employees. The motto of “justice is the foundation of property” written on the walls of Turkish courts from past to present emphasizes the necessity of ensuring justice for the survival of the state and the maintenance of ownership. What is meant by justice is the behavior of the state towards its people in an equal, balanced way, protecting their rights (Bağdemir, 2009). This discourse, which shows the importance and validity of justice, is discussed in the study on an organization basis. In other words, the assumption that ownership cannot exist without justice has been tested in line with the hypotheses and conclusions have been obtained that confirm this discourse. Theoretical and practical inferences were made in line with these results.

In the study, psychological ownership for the organization was emphasized, and how much justice the employees need to see the tangible or intangible assets in the organization as a part of their self was discussed. According to the results of the correlation analysis, while interactional justice and procedural justice have a strong positive relationship with psychological ownership, a moderate positive relationship was found between distributive justice and psychological ownership. As can be understood from the results, employees pay more attention to the decision processes of financial results and their communication and interactions with their colleagues and managers rather than the financial benefits (such as salary, promotion, leave, reward, etc.) they will obtain from the organization. Therefore, it can be said that employees' perceptions of interactional and procedural justice are effective components in creating psychological ownership.

In regression analysis, it was concluded that 58% variance in psychological ownership was explained by distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. In other words, the positive perception of distributive, procedural and interactional justice has an effect on the psychological ownership of the organization they are in. Employees who believe that the justice practices in the workplace are positive, activate their feelings by embracing the organization by saying my or ours and seeing them as an extension of their self (Chi & Han, 2008; Hameed vd., 2018) and trying to protect and defend against the financial or intangible goals they have, striving to increase and improve them and limiting the access of others to their ownership (Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004). In our findings, a higher relationship was found between interactional justice and psychological ownership, unlike previous studies that examined the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership. Contrary to the studies in the literature that stated that procedural justice and distributive justice are the most important determinants of psychological ownership (Chi & Han, 2008; Sieger et al., 2011; Atalay & Özler, 2013; Butt & Atif, 2013; Manrique-de-Lara & Ting-Ding, 2017), in this study, especially employees, placed more emphasis on managers polite attitude, honesty, impartiality and justification of the decisions taken in the implementation process of procedural decisions. Hon & Lu (2013), in their study investigating the role and importance of justice in hotel operations, similarly concluded that interactional justice is stronger than distributive and procedural justice in order to create positive organizational outcomes (helping intention, organizational performance).

In the study based on the extended self-theory (Belk, 1988), the ownership of the employees towards an intangible goal, namely the organization, was examined, and it was revealed that intangible assets could become an extension of the self, thanks to fair practices. Because it is seen that this theory was used to better understand the customer-material product relationship, especially in the marketing literature (Jussila et al., 2015; Sharon Wu et al., 2015; Li et al., 2019; Li & Atkinson, 2020). This contribution of the study is an important information for the literature because the employee sees the organization he is in as his home and feels safe, will enable him to invest his physical, psychological, intellectual knowledge and time in the organization, thus one of the paths to psychological ownership will be achieved (Pierce et al., 2001; Pierce et al., 2003).

This study, which shows that the employees' perception of positive organizational justice increases the psychological ownership towards the organization, fills a literary gap and gives information about its predecessors in order to better understand the concept of psychological ownership. The study offers some clues not only to the literature but also to tourism sector managers. Firstly, organization managers need to know that organizational justice is an important source of motivation for human resources. It is necessary to understand that justice cannot be achieved only with the equal distribution of material resources, the fairness of every idea and behavior in social relations and decision processes but also with developing policies appropriate to this situation. Secondly, the fact that the employees' material and moral rights and gains are fair is a factor that can reduce unfair competition in the business and support cooperation and teamwork. Managers should not be biased while making decisions about the distribution of resources and earnings such as wages, promotions, leave, working conditions, performance evaluation, and also should have correct information about employees and make the right decision, and consider all parties to be affected by the decision. Thirdly, it is important to keep subordinates properly informed, to protect their interests, and to receive regular feedback from subordinates. At the point of implementation of the decisions taken in procedural processes, a polite attitude should be displayed that respects the personal rights of the employee. As Moorman (1991) stated, if employees believe they are being treated fairly, they will be more likely to have positive attitudes about their job, job results, and supervisors. Especially in the hotel sector, the way to reduce the employee turnover rate, which negatively affects the productivity and quality of the hotel, is to ensure fair practices in the business (Luo et al., 2017).

As we mentioned earlier, the questions in the literature on the determinants of psychological ownership have not been fully answered yet. In this study, we had the opportunity to answer a small number of these questions, and we said that organizational justice can elicit a psychological sense of ownership. Future researchers can continue to explore determinants of psychological ownership that are of paramount importance to organizations and base their work on unanswered questions in this area. They can examine the relationship between organizational justice, psychological ownership, and positive attitudes and behaviors that psychological ownership can lead to. In addition, the causes and effects of regionalism (Avey et al., 2009), known as the dark side of psychological ownership, can be investigated and its relationship with organizational justice can be questioned. In addition, the psychological ownership concept can be evaluated from the perspective of the customer and whether the customers psychologically adopt the service businesses they communicate with (Asatryan and Oh, 2008; Teixeira et al., 2020). Because it is important to understand what causes customers to re-choose a hotel business, recommend a hotel to their friends and relatives, what image a property / brand has, and what features create value for customers (Berezina et al., 2016). In addition, the mediation and / or regulatory effects of the concepts of control, autonomy, trust, organizational commitment, creativity, organizational performance, leadership, identification, and responsibility can be examined in the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership.

This study also has some limitations. The study was carried out in the Turkish cultural context due to financial and temporal constraints and limited to 4- and 5-star hotel establishments. Based on this information, the applicability and generalizability of the findings to different contexts and sectors should be considered. However, by expanding the scope of this research, it can be applied to different businesses within the range of services such as other hotel businesses, travel agencies, restaurants, transportation companies, and seen what kind of results can be reached. In this study, the relationship between organizational justice and psychological ownership was carried out cross-sectionally using the quantitative analysis method by adopting a positivist approach. By adopting a interpretive approach, future researchers can obtain more detailed information on the subject by using qualitative analysis method or by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods.

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