There is substantial evidence that fairness is an important dimension affecting employees’ action within the social milieu of the organization. Researchers have still not adequately examined the mechanism through which fairness perceptions impact the attitude and behavior of the employees (Masterson et al., 2000). Using organizational justice literature, the present study examines the role of fairness perceptions and job mobility preparedness of the employees with the mediating role of supervisor support. Data collected from 186 respondents working in a large manufacturing company based in India provided support to establish partially mediating role of supervisory support in predicting job mobility preparedness. The study emphasizes social exchange relationships at workplace to understand how relationship with supervisor and supervisor’s actions affect employee attitude and how those relationships drive employee workplace behavior. The data is analyzed using multiple regression and mediating effects measured using Sobel test. The results of the study could be used by practicing managers and organizations to determine what kind of employees engage in job mobility preparedness and under what circumstances will such behavior occur.

Greenberg (1987) conceptually distinguished two major forms of organizational justice; one focusing on the content—fairness of ends achieved (distributive justice) and the other focusing on the context—fairness of the means used to achieve those ends (procedural justice). Adams (1965) argued that people were not so much concerned with the actual level of outcome compared to whether the outcomes were fair. He used social exchange theory framework to explain that people compared their contribution ‘inputs’ (e.g., education and experience) to one’s outcome and then compare the ratio (of inputs and outputs) with others. Based on fairness heuristics (Konovsky, 2000), the researchers draw upon interactional justice (Brocker and Wiesenfeld, 1996), procedural justice (Folger and Greenberg, 1985) to study employee attitudes, specifically job mobility preparedness (Kossek et al., 1998). In doing so, the researchers also explore working relationship with supervisor Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) (Dansereau et al., 1975) in predicting job mobility preparedness (Kossek et al., 1998). In the subsequent sections of this paper, the researchers explain organizational justice literature, LMX and job mobility preparedness used to build the hypothesis.

Organizational Behavior Journal, Interactional Justice, Job Mobility, Preparedness, Mediating, Leader-Member Exchange (LMX), manufacturing, Interactional Justice.