The Impact of Organisational Justice on Job Attitudes of Academic Staff in Saudi Universities: The Mediation Role of Organisational Trust

Abstract

Despite remarkable progress and development in the quality of higher education at the Saudi public universities, recent studies confirm that these universities have faced various challenges, administrative obstacles, and organisational problems that hinder them from achieving their educational goals, perhaps the most prominent of them is low levels of organisational justice and job attitudes of academic staff.  Therefore, this study aimed to identify the levels of organisational justice, work attitudes, and organisational trust in the Saudi universities and examine the impact of organisational trust as a mediator between organisational justice and work attitudes from the viewpoint of the faculty members in these universities. To meet the study’s aims, descriptive and analytical approach was used, and a questionnaire was developed, which consisted of 45 items. The population comprised academic staff in 7 Saudi universities according to the random sampling method. The appropriate statistical tests were employed to achieve the study objectives.

The study concluded that despite high levels of organisational commitment and trust of academic staff in the Saudi universities, they believe that the level of organisational justice in these organisations was moderate, and their job satisfaction was closer to high. Also, the study revealed that organisational trust completely mediated the relationship between organisational justice and organisational commitment, while it partially mediated the relationship between organisational justice and job satisfaction. Moreover, the results revealed statistically significant differences in the responses of the sample towards organisational justice, organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and organisational, associated with respondents’ nationality, age, job, and university, while there were no differences in their responses toward these factors, associated with their gender. Finally, the study concluded with a number of scientific and practical recommendations.