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IT’S NOT FAIR . . . OR IS IT? THE ROLE OF JUSTICE AND LEADERSHIP IN EXPLAINING WORK STRESSOR–JOB

PERFORMANCE RELATIONSHIPS

YIWEN ZHANG University of Hong Kong

JEFFERY A. LEPINE Arizona State University

BROOKE R. BUCKMAN Arizona State University

FENG WEI Tongji University

We develop and test a theoretical model of multilevel moderated mediation in which organizational justice serves as an intervening mechanism that explains associations among two dimensions of work stressors (challenges and hindrances) and five dimen- sions of job performance (task performance, helping, voice, counterproductive behav- ior, and creativity) over and above the intervening role of strain. We also consider how leadership influences the intervening role of justice in the stressor–job performance relationships by virtue of the effect it has on how stressors are interpreted with regard to fairness. Results of a study of 339 employees and their supervisors provide support for this model across dimensions of performance. Somewhat unexpectedly, the mod- erating effect of leadership is found to be contingent on the type of leadership and the type of stressors. Transactional leaders reduce the negative effect of hindrance stres- sors on job performance because they weaken the negative link between hindrance stressors and justice perceptions. Alternatively, transformational leaders enhance the positive effect of challenge stressors on job performance because they foster a positive link between challenge stressors and justice perceptions. We discuss how this intrigu- ing pattern of moderated mediation could be explained by using theory and research on regulatory focus.

The challenge–hindrance stressor framework, in- troduced by Cavanaugh and colleagues more than a decade ago (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boud- reau, 2000), has emerged as an important and popular theoretical lens to understand relationships among work stressors and a variety of outcomes that are significant to both employees and organizations (LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005; Podsakoff, LePine, & LePine, 2007). The most important em- ployee outcome, arguably, is job performance, de- fined broadly as the aggregated value of the activities that employees contribute both directly and indi- rectly, and positively and negatively, to organization- al goal accomplishment (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Campbell, 1990). Based on the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the challenge–hin- drance framework suggests two dimensions of stres-

sors that both induce strains, such as anxiety and burnout, yet differ significantly in how they influence job performance (LePine et al., 2005; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011). This framework has been applied to clarify empirical associations among work stressors and an array of job performance out- comes. However, our theoretical understanding of these relationships is limited in two important ways.

First, our knowledge of the process that explains how challenge and hindrance stressors differen- tially influence behavior has been grounded in a somewhat narrow conceptual lens that has not been examined intensively or directly. Specifically, existing explanations of stressor effects focus on the idea that appraising and coping with stressors results in strain that adversely affects or offsets the level of energies that could otherwise be invested

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in work activities (e.g., Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). As Lazarus and Folkman (1984) argued, however, a more thorough investigation of mechanisms that explain stressor effects is necessary to advance the theory and management of stress. Following from this suggestion, we propose an explanation of stres- sor effects grounded in an altogether different the- oretical perspective. Specifically, we argue that or- ganizational justice is responsible for transmitting effects of stressors to job performance over and above the mediating effect of strain. An organiza- tional justice lens is particularly relevant to our understanding of stress in work settings. Not only are organizations largely responsible for the stress- ful demands with which their employees are asked to cope, but, at the same time, employees are in- volved in exchange relationships with their organ- izations that involve uncertainty and personal risk (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). Researchers have considered the link between justice and stress. Janssen (2001), for example, found that people per- form better and feel more satisfied in response to workload when they believe they have been re- warded fairly for their efforts. Others have sug- gested that unfair treatment is a stressor that has negative psychological and physiological effects on employees that, in turn, disrupt work attitudes and behaviors (Judge & Colquitt, 2004; Vermunt & Steensma, 2001, 2005). Although this research is valuable, it has not coalesced into theory that can explain how work stressors influence employee be- havior through perceptions of fairness of the organ- ization (Folger & Cropanzano, 2001).

Our theoretical understanding is further lacking in that we have limited insight into the contextual factors that influence stressor–performance associ- ations. To date, scholars have predominantly fo- cused on social support as a resource to facilitate coping with work demands (e.g., Cohen & Wills, 1985; Wallace, Edwards, Arnold, Frazier, & Finch, 2009). However, an organizational justice lens illu- minates other possibilities. In particular, leaders act as decision makers, resource allocators, and play an important role in managing the meaning that employees assign to situations (e.g., Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006). Thus, leaders can have an influ- ence on how work demands are interpreted as ei- ther costs or benefits of the social exchange relation- ship with the organization (Blau, 1964; Colquitt, 2012; Vermunt & Steensma, 2001, 2005). We draw from transformational–transactional leadership the- ory (Bass, 1985) to explain how leader behaviors in- fluence the relationship between work stressors and organizational justice perceptions, and how this type of moderation influences the intervening role of fair- ness perceptions in work stressor–job performance relationships. Figure 1 depicts our conceptual model, which we develop in the following sections.

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

Although there are numerous theories of stress, the transactional theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) has been used extensively as a basis for under- standing linkages with employee outcomes. Ac-

FIGURE 1 Hypothesized Model

Note: Dashed lines represent relationships that are not included in the hypotheses.

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cording to this perspective, stress is defined as an individual’s psychological response to a situation in which there is something at stake for the indi- vidual and where the situation taxes or exceeds the individual’s capacity or resources. The environ- mental conditions or demands that evoke the stress process are called stressors, and the negative con- sequences of stress, such as anxiety, depression, and burnout, are called strains (Jex, 1998; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).

Cavanaugh et al. (2000) propose that, when try- ing to understand relationships between stressors and work outcomes, it is important to conceptually and empirically distinguish between two broad di- mensions of stressors. Challenge stressors refer to perceptions of the work environment with respect to the level of demands such as workload, time pressure, job complexity, and responsibility. These demands serve as indicators of a higher-order factor representing the degree to which a stressful work environment has the potential to promote mastery, personal growth, or future gains. Hindrance stres- sors, in contrast, refer to perceptions of the work environment with respect to the level of demands such as role conflict, role ambiguity, politics, red tape, and job insecurity. These demands serve as indicators of a higher-order construct representing perceptions of the degree to which a stressful work environment has constraints or barriers that unnec- essarily thwart or hinder one’s progress toward goal attainment or personal growth (Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010). Both types of stressors result in the depletion of energy, which manifests in strains such as anxiety and burnout, and, in turn, reduce job performance (Cohen, 1980). This effect is more apparent for hindrance stressors than for challenge stressors. In fact, challenge stres- sors have positive but weak associations with job performance, presumably because challenging de- mands have a positive indirect effect on perfor- mance through enhanced motivational responses that more than offset the negative indirect effect on performance through strain (Crawford et al., 2010; LePine et al., 2005).

Researchers have supported the validity and use- fulness of this framework in clarifying empirical associations among work stressors and job perfor- mance (e.g., LePine et al., 2005; Podsakoff et al., 2007; Rodell & Judge, 2009; Webster, Beehr, & Christiansen, 2010), yet they have not sufficiently explored why or how these differential associations occur. In the present research, we consider how challenges and hindrances might be viewed differ-

ently in terms of their fairness. Such an approach is grounded in the basic idea that stressful job de- mands serve as stimuli that influence perceptions of fairness, which, in turn, have ubiquitous impli- cations to individuals and organizations through social exchange processes (Colquitt, Conlon, Wes- son, Porter, & Ng, 2001).

Organizational Justice as a Mediator of Stressor–Job Performance Relationships

Organizational justice refers to perceptions of an organization’s fairness, and these perceptions man- ifest in several specific ways (Greenberg, 1987). Employees are concerned about the fairness of out- comes in terms of whether their rewards are pro- portional to costs they expend, to expectations they hold, or to rewards received by their colleagues (distributive justice; Adams, 1965; Homans, 1961; Leventhal, 1976). Employees judge the fairness of processes used to determine outcomes in terms of whether they are consistent, unbiased, accurate, correctable, and ethical (procedural justice; Thi- baut & Walker, 1975; Leventhal, 1980). Finally, em- ployees derive perceptions of fairness by consider- ing whether they are treated with sincerity and respect (interpersonal justice), and whether they are provided with honest explanations during encoun- ters with authorities (informational justice; Bies & Moag, 1986; Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993).

Although scholars have focused a great deal of attention on these narrow aspects of justice, the present research considers a broadly defined jus- tice concept—one that reflects an overall sense of fairness (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998, 2001; Lind, 2001; Van den Bos, 2001; Van den Bos & Lind, 2002). This view is consistent with Cropanzano and Ambrose’s (2001) “monistic” perspective on justice, and recent calls for research that acknowl- edge functional similarities among justice dimen- sions with regard to their influence on a general sense of fairness (Ambrose & Arnaud, 2005; Colquitt, Greenberg, & Scott, 2005). This focus is also in line with Colquitt’s observation that a broad justice concept has theoretical and empirical ad- vantages: “[P]erhaps most important, it explicitly captures the ‘that’s not fair!’ response” (2012).

Our concern with an overall sense of fairness is also consistent with the position that, regardless of its form, justice indicates the favorability of out- comes or benefits received by employees in ex- change for their contributions (Colquitt, 2012; Lavelle, Rupp, & Brockner, 2007; Liao & Rupp,

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2005; Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002). The functioning of justice in this manner is reflected in social ex- change theory (Blau, 1964), a general conceptual framework that justice scholars use to explain why employee fairness perceptions influence their job performance and other related outcomes (e.g., Cro- panzano & Byrne, 2000; Masterson, Lewis, Gold- man, & Taylor, 2000; Niehoff & Moorman, 1993; Tekleab, Takeuchi, & Taylor, 2005; Wayne, Shore, Bommer, & Tetrick, 2002). In essence, employees perceive fair treatment by the organization and its authorities to be a benefit, and, as a result, they feel a sense of obligation to reciprocate with acts that contribute, either directly or indirectly, to the goals of the organization (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005; Cropanzano, Rupp, Mohler, & Schminke, 2001; Lavelle et al., 2007; Rupp & Cropanzano, 2002). Indeed, researchers have demonstrated that percep- tions of organizational justice are positively related to effective performances behaviors, and that these relationships can be explained by social exchange (e.g., Masterson et al., 2000).

Having established the linkage between organi- zational justice and job performance, we now turn to the question of why challenge and hindrance stressors influence job performance through their influence on perceptions of justice (over and above the effects of stressors transmitted through strain). As argued by Folger and Cropanzano (1998, 2001), employees make fairness judgments, in part, by comparing their own circumstances to an imagined alternative. Specifically, they assess whether they would be better off in this imagined alternative and whether the organization is accountable for their current circumstances. Because stressful work de- mands constitute important elements of the em- ployee’s work reality, and, in particular, because work demands serve as the basis for the exchange relationship between the employee and the organ- ization, they are central to our understanding of this process (Blau, 1964).

Mediation of hindrance stressors. When hin- drance stressors are abundant, such as when em- ployees are confronted with hassles, red tape, pol- itics, and relationship conflict, employees feel there is little potential for addressing the situation successfully and that personal growth and progress toward goal attainment is unnecessarily thwarted (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; LePine et al., 2005). Beyond the associated strain that results from ex- pending energy in trying to deal with these de- mands, employees see hindrance stressors as unfair because they create a situation in which norms of

reciprocity are violated. The presence of stressful demands implies that efforts or contributions are expected on the part of the employee in the form of expenditures of physical, cognitive, and emotional energy to deal with the demands. In the case of hindrance stressors, however, there is little hope that additional benefits will accrue in return for allocating the additional personal resources neces- sary to cope. In essence, hindrance stressors place employees in a scenario in which they are obligated to make contributions without an associated bene- fit. This line of reasoning is consistent with Folger and Cropanzano’s (1998) fairness theory. That is, an imagined alternative situation with lower levels of hindrance stressors will be perceived as being preferable—and, thus, more fair—because, in the imagined alternative, the organization and its au- thorities have not violated the norms of reciprocity. Extending this logic one step further, we argue that hindrance stressors are negatively associated with employee job performance. It is not just that hin- drance stressors result in strain, which saps energy that could otherwise be applied to activities that contribute to organizational effectiveness. Rather, hindrance stressors also lead to perceptions of un- fairness as a result of violating norms of social exchange, which, in turn, leads to the withholding of performance-related contributions. Stated as a hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1a. Organizational justice percep- tions mediate the negative relationship between hindrance stressors and job performance.

Mediation of challenge stressors. A situation with high levels of challenge stressors—such as when employees experience high levels of com- plexity, workload, responsibility, and time pres- sure—results in a different pattern of relationships. Although coping with these types of demands also requires a significant investment of personal ener- gies and resulting strain, theory and empirical evi- dence suggest that employees are able to recognize the potential for returns on their investments; typ- ically, in the form of personal growth and develop- ment (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984; Podsakoff et al., 2007). Challenging work demands, therefore, should tend to be viewed as fair because they are consistent with norms of reciprocity that guide so- cial exchange. There is an obligation on the part of the employee in the form of expenditures of phys- ical, cognitive, and emotional energy, but, at the same time, the employee holds promise that bene- fits will accrue in return for their effort. In terms of

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Folger and Cropanzano’s (1998) fairness theory, an imagined alternative with lower levels of challenge stressors will be less preferable—and, thus, less fair—because norms of reciprocity reflected in the imagined alternative situation will be seen as vio- lated. An imagined alternative with fewer challenges will be viewed as less desirable because opportuni- ties to satisfy human needs of self-enhancement and self-direction are withheld (Schwartz, 1994). This the- oretical logic is supported by research that has dem- onstrated that employees seek out and thrive in train- ing and development contexts filled with challenge stressors that stretch them beyond their capabilities (Cavanaugh et al., 2000). As with hindrance stressors, it is possible to extend this theoretical reasoning to explain why challenge stressors are positively associ- ated with employee job performance. Specifically, although challenge stressors result in strain, which saps energy and negatively influences performance, this effect is more than offset by the effect that chal- lenge stressors have on fairness perceptions that re- sult from the promise of future benefits in exchange. In response to the fairness perceptions, employees reciprocate with positive performance-related contribu- tions. In sum, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1b. Organizational justice percep- tions mediate the positive relationship between challenge stressors and job performance.

The Moderating Role of Leadership

Thus far, we have hypothesized that, over and above the role played by strain, organizational jus- tice serves as a key intervening mechanism that explains associations among challenge and hin- drance stressors, on the one hand, and job perfor- mance on the other. Here, we extend our theorizing to consider factors that influence the power of this mechanism in transmitting the stressor effects. This discussion is grounded in the notion that employee perceptions of the work environment are a result of both the realities of the situation and information obtained from the social context (Griffin, Bateman, Wayne, & Head, 1987; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). In this regard, social in- formation transmitted by leaders has a powerful influence on employees’ interpretations of their work experiences (Goffman, 1974; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006; Schutz, 1967; Smircich & Morgan, 1982). It is known, for example, that leaders influ- ence how followers interpret job characteristics (Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006). Unfortunately, scholars

have yet to offer a cohesive theoretical explanation of the role that leaders play in shaping employees’ psychological responses to different types of stress- ful demands, which specific leader behaviors are relevant, or how these effects influence important employee outcomes.

To this end, we draw from the transformational– transactional theory of leadership (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). This framework is the predominant conceptual lens through which leadership behavior is viewed today. Additionally, both transforma- tional and transactional leadership are relevant to follower effectiveness in stressful work contexts. Bass, for example, argued that, in stressful condi- tions, effective leadership requires both the struc- ture reflected in transactional leadership and the competence and consideration reflected in trans- formational leadership (Bass, 1990; Bass & Riggio, 2006). We apply and extend these arguments to consider how these two types of leader behavior, as contextual influences or common stimuli that are perceived and interpreted by followers (Gavin & Hofmann, 2002), can influence the relationships among work stressors and justice perceptions.

Moderating role of transactional leadership. Transactional leaders emphasize the formal trans- actions or exchanges with followers (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978). They specify goals, articulate their expectations, and establish rewards for meeting those expectations. As such, followers’ receipt of rewards or avoidance of punishments is contingent on compliance and completion of the transaction. Indeed, “contingent rewards” has been shown to be the most construct valid component of transac- tional leadership (e.g., Avolio & Bass, 1991; Judge & Piccolo, 2004). We argue, below, that this type of leader behavior influences the implications to so- cial exchange of both hindrances and challenges. Due to this influence, transactional leadership buf- fers the negative effect of hindrances on justice, and, in turn, job performance, and enhances the positive effect of challenge stressors on justice, and, in turn, job performance.

Transactional leaders closely monitor their em- ployees and supply immediate solutions (e.g., clar- ifying roles) that followers can adopt to address demands that come up at work (Stordeur, D’Hoore, & Vandenberghe, 2001). They emphasize compli- ance and reinforce the importance of meeting per- formance expectations, which conveys to followers that stressful demands are “part of the deal” and that, as long as they put forth the effort and get the job done, they will be rewarded. For these reasons,

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transactional leaders reduce the tendency of em- ployees to perceive hindrance stressors as being outside the scope of the social exchange relation- ship. As a consequence, employees who experience high levels of hindrance stressors are more likely to believe that the organization is less unfair. Further- more, because employees feel these types of stres- sors are inclusive to the social exchange relation- ship, there is a greater likelihood of reciprocation in the form of positive performance contributions.

Hypothesis 2a. Transactional leadership mod- erates the negative relationship between hin- drance stressors and organizational justice such that the relationship is less negative when transactional leadership is high.

Hypothesis 2b. Transactional leadership mod- erates the negative indirect effect of hindrance stressors on job performance through organi- zational justice perceptions such that this in- direct effect is less negative when transactional leadership is high.

Similarly, because transactional leaders provide avenues of coping with stressors and rewards for overcoming challenges, they strengthen the ten- dency of followers to appraise situations with chal- lenge stressors as being consistent with the norms of social exchange—and, thus, more fair. Transac- tional leaders also emphasize control, stability, for- malization, and efficiency (Bass, 1990), believe in managing follower performance, and have a deeper understanding of how and why the system works the way it does (Bass, 1985, 1990). As a result, transactional leaders are more likely to strengthen employee understanding of why they are being asked to face such demands, and what potential future benefit can be expected in return. Moreover, because employees of transactional leaders who encounter challenge stressors are more likely to perceive the organization as fair, it follows that they will reciprocate with even greater levels of positive performance-related contributions when confronted with such demands.

Hypothesis 3a. Transactional leadership mod- erates the positive relationship between chal- lenge stressors and organizational justice such that the relationship is more positive when transactional leadership is high.

Hypothesis 3b. Transactional leadership mod- erates the positive indirect effect of challenge stressors on job performance through organi-

zational justice perceptions such that this in- direct effect is more positive when transac- tional leadership is high.

Moderating role of transformational leader- ship. In contrast to transactional leadership, trans- formational leadership involves communication of purpose that transcends followers’ short-term goals and self-interests, and stimulation and encourage- ment to perform beyond expectations (Bass, 1985). We argue this type of leader behavior also influ- ences the social exchange underlying both hin- drance and challenge stressors, and, as a result, it buffers the negative effect of hindrances on justice, and, in turn, performance, and strengthens the pos- itive effect of challenge stressors on justice, and, in turn, performance.

Transformational leaders empower employees and enhance their feelings of self-confidence and control (Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003; Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). They transmit their belief in followers’ abilities and skills and solicit creative solutions to meet work demands (Bass, 1985). Transformational leadership also reflects the ap- pearance of calmness and perseverance under stress, which helps followers overcome anxiety and reach objective and accurate evaluations of the sit- uation (Bass, 1990). Consequently, followers of transformational leaders are more likely to view hindrance stressors as less threatening to their per- sonal resources with respect to the time and effort required. In turn, they should be more likely to perceive the social exchange relationship they have established with the organization as being less vi- olated. As a result, because employees feel their situation is less unfair, they are less likely to hold back their performance contributions.

Hypothesis 4a. Transformational leadership moderates the negative relationship between hindrance stressors and organizational justice such that the relationship is less negative when transformational leadership is high.

Hypothesis 4b. Transformational leadership moderates the negative indirect effect of hin- drance stressors on job performance through organizational justice perceptions such that this indirect effect is less negative when trans- formational leadership is high.

Similarly, transformational leaders help follow- ers see a clearer path to address challenge stressors so that these demands are perceived to be more of a “stretch” rather than “mission impossible.” They

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also foster a deeper understanding and apprecia- tion regarding the long-term rewards and develop- mental opportunities inherent in challenge stres- sors. As a result, followers of transformational leaders are more likely to perceive the organization as fair because they believe their current invest- ment of personal efforts in coping with challenges will be reciprocated in the future. In addition, transformational leaders act as mentors, genuinely care about employees’ achievements and growth, and advocate self-enhancement and self-direction to followers (Bass, 1985, 1990; Shamir et al., 1993). As such, their followers are more likely to interpret the presence of challenge stressors as signs that the organization respects and honors its social exchange relationship with employees. Consequently, these employees are more likely to reciprocate with posi- tive performance contributions.

Hypothesis 5a. Transformational leadership moderates the positive relationship between challenge stressors and organizational justice such that the relationship is more positive when transformational leadership is high.

Hypothesis 5b. Transformational leadership moderates the indirect effect of challenge stres- sors on job performance through organization- al justice perceptions such that this indirect effect is more positive when transformational leadership is high.

Our hypotheses are reflected in the conceptual model depicted in Figure 1. Specifically, we pro- pose that an organizational justice pathway has incremental value over and above strain in explain- ing relationships among work stressors and job per- formance. Moreover, transformational leadership and transactional leadership moderate the overall intervening role of justice due to their influences in moderating the relationships among work stressors and justice. In the following section, we describe a study that tests the hypotheses in our concep- tual model.

METHOD

Sample and Procedures

Our sample comprised 339 full-time employees and 88 supervisors from multiple automobile man- ufacturing and pharmaceutical organizations in eastern China. All employees and supervisors are white-collar workers who perform professional, managerial, or administrative work in offices. On

average, employees have been in their current po- sitions for 3.49 years, and about half are female (164). We first asked the employees to complete a survey about their attitudes and beliefs regarding their jobs and supervisors. After approximately three weeks, we contacted the supervisors and asked them to rate the job performance of the sub- ordinates who had filled out the initial employee survey. The three-week spacing reduced concerns that the observed relationships are due to one spe- cific event or demand, but was not so long as to risk losing participants due to turnover or changes in reporting relationships.

Measures

Consistent with established cross-cultural re- search procedures, two bilingual management scholars translated all surveys into Chinese and back-translated all surveys to English to ensure consistency of meaning (Brislin, 1980). After the back-translation process, human resource manag- ers of the companies in our sample identified items that were unclear, irrelevant, or inappropriate for measuring the constructs in their organizations. This step was important, not only as a check on the content validity of our items, but also because of the companies’ requirement that both the employee and supervisor surveys be kept as short as possible. Unless otherwise indicated, items in the employee survey were scored using a Likert response scale format in which “1” was “strongly disagree” and “5” was “strongly agree.” Items in the supervisor survey were assessed using a Likert response scale in which “1” was “strongly disagree” and “7” was “strongly agree.”

Employee measures. We measured the stressors in a manner that is consistent with previous empir- ical research (e.g., Cavanaugh et al., 2000; LePine et al., 2005; LePine, LePine, & Jackson, 2004). The challenge stressor scale included six items that tap workload, time pressure, task complexity, and re- sponsibility (“having to complete a lot of work,” “having to work very hard,” “time pressure,” “hav- ing to perform complex tasks,” “having to multitask your assigned projects,” and “having high levels of responsibility”). The hindrance stressor scale in- cluded seven items that tap role ambiguity, role and interpersonal conflict, politics, and hassles (“admin- istrative hassles,” “bureaucratic constraints to com- pleting work (red tape),” “conflicting instructions and expectations from your boss or bosses,” “unclear job tasks,” “conflicting requests from your supervi-

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sor(s),” “disputes with co-workers,” and “office politics”). Employees were asked to “rate the fre- quency of these demands in your daily work.” Re- sponses were collected with a Likert scale in which “1” was “never” and “5” was “extremely often.”

Although strain may come in different forms, research grounded in the challenge and hindrance stressor framework has often operationalized the concept using measures that focus on exhaustion (e.g., LePine et al., 2004). Consistent with this re- search, we measured strain with four items from the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996) that most clearly measure exhaus- tion. An example item from this scale is, “I feel emotionally drained from work.” The four items we selected had the least amount of redundancy after back-translation, and have been shown in previous research to consistently and strongly indicate the same broad underlying construct (Maslach et al., 1996).

Although there are different ways to capture a broad justice construct (e.g., Ambrose & Schminke, 2009), we adopt the approach suggested by Colquitt and Shaw (2005: 139), who argued that overall justice could be conceptualized as a higher-order factor that drives responses to items of specific justice dimensions. As an example of this ap- proach, Liao (2007) defined “perceived justice” as an overall fairness perception and specified it as a latent construct, using the four justice dimensions as indicators. Studies by Cohen-Charash and Mu- eller (2007) and Lang, Bliese, Lang, and Adler (2011) also used this approach to measuring justice. We measured organizational justice using Colquitt’s (2001) measure, which taps employees’ perceptions of their organization’s and its authori- ties’ adherence to distributive (items refer to out- comes such as pay, promotions, rewards), proce- dural (items refer to the procedures used to arrive at the outcomes), and interpersonal and informational justice (items refer to authority figures who enacted the procedures). In the translation and back-trans- lation process, we discovered that two of the orig- inal items from the five-item informational justice scale (“Has (he/she) explained the procedures thor- oughly?” and “Were (his/her) explanations regard- ing the procedures reasonable?”) are more appro- priately expressed in one integrative sentence with a Chinese adverb that captures both thoroughness and reasonableness of explanations. Thus, our or- ganizational justice scale included 19 items rather than 20, as in Colquitt’s original publication. We note that similar adjustments have been made to

this scale in cross-cultural research in China (e.g., Liu, Long, & Li, 2003). Given our concern with broadly defined organizational justice, we con- ducted a confirmative factor analysis in which the 19 items were loaded onto their respective first- order factors, and where these first-order factors were loaded onto an overall second-order factor. Results indicated that this model fitted the data quite well (�2 � 402.60, df � 148, CFI � .95, RMSEA � .07, SRMR � .06), with standardized factor loadings of the four dimensions on the over- all justice factor ranging from .64 to .95 (p � .05).

We used the Multifactor Leadership Question- naire (MLQ Form 5X) (Bass & Avolio, 1995) to measure the unit leaders’ transformational and transactional leadership. The measure includes 20 items that tap four dimensions of transformational leadership: idealized influence, inspirational moti- vation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. Consistent with previous research, we used the contingent rewards subscale of the MLQ Form 5X (4 items) to measure transactional leadership (Avolio & Bass, 1991; Judge & Pic- colo, 2004).

Supervisor measures. There is consensus among scholars that job performance is multidimensional (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). The first dimension of job performance is task performance, which refers to employee activities that are directly involved in or directly support the accomplishments of core job tasks (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Katz, 1964). The second dimension is citizenship performance, which refers to behaviors that contribute to the goals of the organization by contributing to its so- cial and psychological environment (Borman & Mo- towidlo, 1993). Consistent with recommendations of scholars (Chiaburu, Oh, Berry, Li, & Gardner, 2011; LePine & Van Dyne, 2001; Van Dyne, Cum- mings, & Parks, 1995), we distinguish between cit- izenship performance that is affiliative and chal- lenging in nature. The most often mentioned affiliative form of citizenship behavior is helping, which refers to acts of assistance and consideration toward co-workers (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). The most often mentioned challenging form of citizen- ship behavior is voice, which refers to the expres- sion of constructive suggestions intended to im- prove the situation (Van Dyne & LePine, 1998). Counterproductive behavior is often considered to be a third major dimension of job performance. This refers to voluntary behavior that violates sig- nificant organizational norms, and, in doing so, negatively contributes to organizational effective-

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ness by threatening the organization, its members, or both (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Although counterproductive behavior is, in many ways, dis- tinct from the other performance-related con- structs, it has often been considered a core compo- nent of the job performance domain (Harrison, Newman, & Roth, 2006; Rotundo & Sackett, 2002)— and one that is particularly relevant here, given that counterproductive behavior has been found to be an important behavioral response to job stressors (Fox, Spector, & Miles, 2001; Rodell & Judge, 2009; Spector, 1998; Spector & Fox, 2002). Finally, there have also been recent calls to extend the job per- formance domain to include creative behavior, de- fined as the production of ideas, products, or pro- cedures that are novel and potentially useful to the organization (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cum- mings, 1996)—and, for the sake of comprehensive- ness, we consider this aspect of performance in our study as well. Although a number of recent studies examining the relationship between challenge and hindrance stressors and job performance have each considered one or more of these behavioral dimen- sions of job performance (e.g., LePine et al., 2005; Ohly & Fritz, 2010; Rodell & Judge, 2009; Wallace et al., 2009; Webster et al., 2010), none has examined this full range of job performance dimensions in the same study. Although it is beyond the scope of our theorizing to offer a priori predictions regarding differential moderated meditation effects for both stressors and both leadership variables in predict- ing the specific job performance dimensions, pat- terns may emerge that could illuminate promising directions for future research.

We asked supervisors to evaluate their subordi- nates’ task performance with four items from the scale developed by Williams and Anderson (1991). Supervisors indicated the extent to which they agreed with statements such as “. . . adequately completes his/her assigned duties.” We measured helping behavior with four items (e.g., “. . . gets involved to benefit the work group”) and voice behavior with four items (e.g., “. . . speaks up and encourages others to get involved in issues that affect the work group”) developed by Van Dyne and LePine (1998). We assessed counterproductive be- havior with five items from the interpersonal and organizational deviance scales developed by Ben- nett and Robinson (2000) (e.g., “. . . acted rudely toward someone at work” and “. . . often comes in late to work without permission”). We note that, when interpreting our results, it is important to keep in mind that the directionality of the counter-

productive behavior items is the opposite of the other performance measures and our hypotheses. That is, higher scores on counterproductive behav- ior indicate lower job performance and vice versa. Finally, we asked supervisors to evaluate their sub- ordinates’ creative behavior with five items from previously validated measures (e.g., “. . . comes up with new and practical ideas to improve perfor- mance”; George & Zhou, 2001; Scott & Bruce, 1994).

Confirmatory factor analyses. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the above 11 measures to examine their construct validity. For organizational justice and transformational leader- ship, we used scale scores of the dimensions to indicate the respective broad factors. For all other study constructs, individual items were used as observed indicators. The hypothesized 11-factor measurement model (consisting of challenge stres- sors, hindrance stressors, strain, organizational jus- tice, transformational leadership, transactional leadership, task performance, helping, voice, cre- ative behavior, and counterproductive behavior) fits the data well (�2 (1169) � 2436.50, CFI � .90, RMSEA � .06, SRMR � .06).

RESULTS

Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations among study and control variables. As shown in the diagonal of this table, each study variable has an acceptable degree of internal consistency reliability. Correlations among the study variables are generally consistent with prior research with respect to their direction and magnitude. For example, the correlation between challenge and hindrance stressors is moderately positive (r � .34, p � .05), supporting the notion that they are related but distinct constructs (LePine et al., 2005).

Our hypotheses and research design imply a two- level, first-stage moderated mediation model. First- stage moderated mediation occurs when the medi- ating process that links an independent variable to an outcome variable varies because the moderating variable accentuates or attenuates the relationship between independent variables and the mediator (Edwards & Lambert, 2007; Muller, Judd, & Yzer- byt, 2005). Accounting for two levels is needed because the employees in our sample are nested in work units/supervisors. The values of the intraclass correlations (ICC (1)) for our endogenous variables, although small in magnitude, were all statistically significant, indicating that responses from employ-

2014 683Zhang, LePine, Buckman, and Wei

ees in the same unit, as well as their performance ratings, were influenced by, depended on, or clus- tered by unit. Thus, to avoid inaccurate standard errors and biased statistical conclusions due to non-independence (Bliese, 2000), we applied mul- tilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) (Liu, Zhang, & Wang, 2012; Preacher, Zyphur, & Zhang, 2010). In comparison to the more conventional multilevel modeling paradigm (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) that researchers have suggested to test multilevel moderated mediation (Bauer, Preacher, & Gil, 2006), MSEM does not require multiple stages of analysis, and offers results that are less biased (Liu et al., 2012; Preacher et al., 2010). The final consideration in our analysis rests with our conceptualization of the leadership moderators as unit-level constructs. In support of this conceptu- alization, and consistent with prior research (e.g., Kirkman, Chen, Farh, Chen, & Lowe, 2009), the unit-level variance components for transforma- tional and transactional leadership were moderately strong and statistically significant (ICC (1) � .35, .20, respectively; both ps � .05).

Using Mplus 6.11 (Muthén & Muthén, 2010), we specified transformational and transactional lead- ership behaviors (i.e. the moderators) at level 2 (unit level) and work stressors (independent vari- ables), justice (mediator), strain (mediator), and performance behaviors (dependent variables) at level 1 (individual level), and we modeled the structural associations among the study constructs

using the approach outlined by Chen, Kirkman, Kim, Farh, and Tangirala (2010). To appropriately test and interpret the within-unit relationships, the level-1 exogenous variables (challenge and hin- drance stressors) were centered at each unit’s mean value and the level-2 exogenous variables (average unit ratings of transformational and transactional leadership) were centered at the overall mean val- ues (i.e., grand mean) (Hofmann, Griffin, & Gavin, 2000). Because our theoretical model focuses pri- marily on relationships at the individual level, we allowed the unit-level variance portions of the moderator, mediator, and outcomes variables to freely correlate (Preacher et al., 2010). Consistent with theory and research, we allowed challenge and hindrance stressors to co-vary (e.g., Podsakoff et al., 2007) and controlled for the effects of job tenure and industry on all endogenous variables. Employee sex was not included as a control be- cause it is uncorrelated with our study variables.

Linkages Between Stressors and Justice

Figure 2 provides the standardized path coeffi- cients for our specified model. Although the path from hindrance stressors to organizational justice is negative and significant (� � �.57, p � .05), the path from challenge stressors to organizational jus- tice is not statistically significant (� � .10, p � .05). Thus, it seems that those employees who encoun- tered higher levels of hindrance stressors tended to

TABLE 1 Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations Among Study Variables

Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1. Sex (“1” male; “2” female) 1.48 0.50 — 2. Job tenure (in years) 3.49 3.12 �.16* — 3. Industrya 1.59 0.50 .08 �.31* — 4. Challenge stressors 2.36 0.78 �.08 .07 .20* .82 5. Hindrance stressors 3.40 0.72 .00 .12* .07 .34* .88 6. Strain 2.43 0.83 .03 .00 .16* .35* .57* .79 7. Organizational justice 5.46 1.07 �.07 �.16* .01 �.16* �.62* .50* .95 8. Transformational leadership 3.38 0.48 �.05 �.06 �.08 �.19* �.46* �.35* .59* .92 9. Transactional leadership 2.43 0.83 �.07 .01 �.09 �.13* �.38* �.33* .56* .87* .73

10. Task performance 5.30 1.11 .01 .14* �.06 �.19* �.37* �.35* .43* .35* .25* .91 11. Helping behavior 4.86 1.11 .04 .04 �.08 �.14* �.44* �.36* .43* .36* .30* .78* .90 12. Voice behavior 4.32 1.21 �.01 .13* .14* �.23* �.27* �.21* .34* .24* .23* .67* .72* .88 13. Creative behavior 1.76 1.16 �.02 .03 .31* �.11* �.15* �.13* .28* .10 .12* .57* .57* .73* .89 14. Counterproductive behavior 3.42 0.50 .03 �.01 �.25* .31* .54* .44* �.43* �.44* �.29* �.64* �.60* �.40* �.23* .91

Note. n � 339 employees and 88 supervisors. Transformational and transactional leadership scores were calculated as unit-level means and assigned back to individual employees. Internal consistency reliabilities are shown on the diagonal in bold.

a Industry (“1” automobile manufacturing industry; “2” pharmaceutical industry). *p � .05

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perceive the organization as less fair, whereas em- ployees who encountered higher levels of chal- lenge stressors were no more or less inclined to report the organization as being fair. However, be- cause leadership behaviors may play a central role in influencing these relationships, a nonsignificant relationship between challenge stressors and organ- izational justice does not necessarily mean that challenge stressors are inconsequential.

Mediation Through Justice

As illustrated in Figure 2, organizational justice relates to the five performance dimensions (task, � � .37; helping, � � .32; voice, � � .30; creative, � � .32; counterproductive, � � �.19; all ps � .05). To examine the indirect (mediation) effects attrib- utable to organizational justice, which speak to Hy- potheses 1a and 1b, however, it is necessary to calculate compound coefficients, which are not normally distributed (Edwards & Lambert, 2007; Shrout & Bolger, 2002). To address this issue, scholars have recommended re-sampling methods to generate an empirical distribution for construct- ing bias-corrected confidence intervals (Shrout & Bolger, 2002). Because the conventional bootstrap- ping method of re-sampling cannot be applied to

multilevel modeling (Preacher & Selig, 2012; Van der Leeden, Meijer, & Busing, 2008), we utilized a Monte Carlo approach of re-sampling to construct the appropriate confidence intervals (Liu et al., 2012; Preacher & Selig, 2012). Specifically, we con- structed bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effects based on 20,000 re-samples using a program written in R (Liu et al., 2012; Preacher & Selig, 2012).

In Table 2, we provide the average indirect ef- fects of hindrance and challenge stressors on the five types of performance attributable to justice. The average indirect effects of hindrance stressors attributable to justice perceptions are statistically significant for all five types of performance out- comes (task, � � �.21; helping, � � �.18; voice, � � �.17; creative, � � �.18; counterproductive, � � .11; all ps � .05). As such, Hypothesis 1a is fully supported. With regard to challenge stressors, the average indirect effects via justice perceptions are not statistically significant for all five types of performance outcomes (task, � � .04; helping, � � .03; voice, � � .03; creative, � � .03; counterpro- ductive, � � �.02; all ps � .05). Thus, Hypothe- sis 1b is not supported. Here, we note that the average indirect effect may be insignificant due to

FIGURE 2 Structural Model with Study Variables

Note: Standardized paths; dashed lines represent p > .05; (C) represents direct effect of challenge stressors; (H) represents direct effect of hindrance stressors.

2014 685Zhang, LePine, Buckman, and Wei

the existence of moderators, which we exam- ine next.

Meanwhile, although there are statistically sig- nificant zero-order correlations among strain and the five types of performance (see Table 1), when estimated in the structural model with all study variables as depicted in Figure 2, strain only relates to counterproductive behavior (� � .12, p � .05), but not the other types of performance (task, � � �.09; helping, � � �.10; voice, � � �.04; creative, � � �.06; all ps � .05). As a result, although hin- drance (� � .50, p � .05) and challenge stressors (� � .17, p � .05) both relate to strain, the average indirect effects of work stressors attributable to strain are only statistically significant for counter- productive behavior (hindrance, � � .06, p � .05; challenge, � � .02, p � .05), but not for other types (hindrance: task, � � �.04; helping, � � �.05; voice, � � �.02; creative, � � �.03; all ps � .05) (challenge: task, � � �.02; helping, � � �.02; voice, � � �.01; creative, � � �.01; all ps � .05).

Moderation of Stressor–Justice Linkages with Leadership

The moderating effects of the stressor–justice as- sociations with the two leadership variables are

summarized in Figure 2. First, transactional lead- ership moderates the hindrance stressor–organiza- tional justice relationship (� � .32, p � .05). The nature of this interaction is illustrated in Figure 3, which indicates that, for employees whose super- visors score high on transactional leadership, hin- drance stressors are less negatively related to jus- tice (simple slope � �.24, p � .05) than for employees whose supervisors score low on trans- actional leadership (simple slope � �.78, p � .05). As such, Hypothesis 2a is fully supported. Con- versely, transactional leadership does not moderate the challenge stressor–organizational justice rela- tionship (� � �.28, p � .05), and thus Hypothe- sis 3a is not supported.

The pattern of moderation with transformational leadership is the opposite of the pattern with trans- actional leadership. Specifically, transformational leadership does not moderate the relationship be- tween hindrance stressors and organizational jus- tice (� � �.22, p � .05). Thus, Hypothesis 4a is not supported. However, in support of Hypothesis 5a, transformational leadership does moderate the re- lationship between challenge stressors and organi- zational justice (� � .32, p � .05). This interaction, shown in Figure 4, suggests that, for employees whose supervisors score high on transformational

TABLE 2 Summary of Indirect Effects of Work Stressors on Performance via Perceptions of Organizational Justice

Task performance

Helping behavior

Voice behavior

Creative behavior

Counterproductive behavior

Hindrance stressors average indirect effects �.21* �.18* �.17* �.18* .11* Transactional leadership

high �.09 �.08 �.07 �.08 .05 low �.33* �.29* �.27* �.28* .17* difference .24* .21* .20* .21* �.13*

Transformational leadership high �.29* �.26* �.24* �.25* .15* low �.13 �.11 �.10 �.11 .07 difference �.16 �.14 �.13 �.14 .09

Challenge stressors average indirect effects .04 .03 .03 .03 �.02 Transactional leadership

high �.07 �.06 �.05 �.06 .03 low .14* .12* .11* .12* �.07 difference �.20 �.18 �.17 �.18 .11

Transformational leadership high .16* .14* .13* .13* �.08* low �.08 �.07 �.07 �.07 .04 difference .24* .21* .19* .20* �.12*

Note. All estimates were tested for significance using bias-corrected confidence intervals from 20,000 parametric re-samples. *p � .05

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FIGURE 3 Interaction of Hindrance Stressors and Transactional Leadership

FIGURE 4 Interaction of Challenge Stressors and Transformational Leadership

2014 687Zhang, LePine, Buckman, and Wei

leadership, challenge stressors are more positively related to justice (simple slope � .28, p � .05) than for employees whose supervisors score low on transformational leadership (simple slope � .03, p � .05).

Moderation of the Mediated Relationships

As discussed above, moderated mediation indi- cates that the indirect (mediated) effect varies with the different levels of the moderator. To examine this issue, we again used the R program to calculate the bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals for the indirect effects of hindrance and challenge stres- sors on performance via justice perceptions at “high” and “low” values of transformational and transactional leadership (one standard deviation above and below the average), as well as the differ- ence between each pair of the conditional indirect effects (Liu et al., 2012). We note that this analysis is precisely the same in form as that recommended by Edwards and Lambert (2007).

For transactional leadership, the indirect effects of hindrance stressors via justice perceptions on all five types of performance outcomes differ signifi- cantly when transactional leadership is at high ver- sus low levels (task, diff (difference between con- ditional indirect effects) � .24; helping, diff � .21; voice, diff � .20; creative, diff � .21; counterpro- ductive, diff � �.13; all ps � .05). As such, Hy- pothesis 2b is fully supported. The indirect effects of challenge stressors via justice perceptions do not differ significantly when transactional leadership is at high versus low values (task, diff � �.16; helping, diff � �.14; voice, diff � �.13; creative, diff � �.14; counterproductive, diff � .09; all ps � .05). Thus, Hypothesis 3b is not supported.

For transformational leadership, the indirect ef- fects of hindrance stressors via justice perceptions do not differ significantly when transformational leadership is at high versus low levels (task, diff � �.20; helping, diff � �.18; voice, diff � �.17; cre- ative, diff � �.18; counterproductive, diff � .11; all ps � .05). Thus, Hypothesis 4b is not supported. Conversely, the indirect effects of challenge stres- sors via justice perceptions on all five types of performance outcomes do differ significantly when transformational leadership is at high versus low values (task, diff � .24; helping, diff � .21; voice, diff � .19; creative, diff � .20; counterproductive, diff � �.12; all ps � .05). As such, Hypothesis 5b is fully supported.

DISCUSSION

Theoretical Implications

We position organizational justice as a new and important mechanism that explains how stressful work demands influence employee job perfor- mance. Drawing from social exchange theory, our explanation for the relationships between stressors and justice rests on the idea that employees con- sider stressful work demands in the context of their ongoing exchange relationship with the organiza- tion. They evaluate whether demands comply or violate the reciprocity rules reflected in social or ethical norms, and form perceptions with regard to whether the organization is being fair or not. Con- secutively, employees decide on how to reciprocate with performance behaviors based on these judg- ments of organizational justice. This approach to stress stands in stark contrast with conventional theories of stress, which, to date, have focused on the appraisal of job demands with respect to one’s capacity to cope and with implications to energy depletion and strain (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The support we found for this framework, over and above the traditional strain-based explanation, pro- vides strong evidence for the important role that fairness perceptions play in the stress experience in organizational contexts.

Accounting for complexities in appraising hin- drances and challenges. Support for our hypoth- eses varied as a function of the type of stressor in question. On the one hand, we found a significant negative association between hindrance stressors and organizational justice that was further trans- mitted to negatively influence a full spectrum of employee behaviors. In other words, employees who are confronted with high levels of hindrance stressors tend to believe their organization is less fair than do employees who are confronted with lower levels of hindrance stressors, and, as a con- sequence, they tend to perform less effectively. On the other hand, we did not find a statistically sig- nificant association between challenge stressors and organizational justice. That is, employees’ jus- tice perceptions do not appear to vary as a function of the level of challenge demands in their jobs. Although this finding for challenge stressors is in- consistent with our expectations, when considered together with our finding for hindrance stressors, it still highlights the importance of distinguishing among hindrances and challenges when trying to understand relationships among levels of stressors and employee performance.

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Moreover, although it may be tempting to con- clude that challenge stressors are an unimportant influence on fairness perceptions, our findings in- dicate that this is not the case. Rather, the relation- ship between challenge stressors and fairness per- ceptions is complex and context dependent. In fact, we theorized and found that leadership has an im- portant effect on the relationship between both challenge and hindrance stressors and perceptions of organizational fairness, and that these moderat- ing effects vary as a function of the demand and type of leadership being considered. More specifi- cally, transformational leadership moderates the challenge stressor–organizational justice relation- ship such that there is a significant positive rela- tionship between challenge stressors and organiza- tional justice for employees with leaders who engaged in high levels of transformational leader- ship, but no such relationship is evident for em- ployees with leaders who engaged in low levels of transformational leadership. In contrast, transac- tional leadership appears to buffer the negative as- sociation between hindrance stressors and justice perceptions. Although we discuss the specific im- plications of these findings to leadership research next, there is an important take-away for the chal- lenge–hindrance framework as well: namely, chal- lenges and hindrances are not only distinct because of their unique relationships with justice percep- tions, but also because these relationships are dif- ferentially affected by contextual factors. These re- sults suggest that future work in this area should consider features of stressful work demands that evoke different perceptions of fairness, as well as contextual factors such as leadership that shape the formation of such perceptions. Such research may be especially important given that the moderating effects of leadership are further transmitted to influence sev- eral indices of employee job performance.

The role of leadership. Our findings regarding the unique roles of transactional and transforma- tional leadership behaviors also have several im- portant implications for leadership theory. First, and at a very broad level, although leadership scholars have often suggested that leaders play a key role in the stress process (e.g., Bass, 1990), our research is the first to provide a cohesive explana- tion of how specific leadership behaviors influence the stress process, and, further, how this influence is transmitted through justice perceptions to im- pact more distally related employee outcomes. In fact, stress, leadership, and organizational justice constitute three significant areas in organizational

behavior research that, remarkably, have not been integrated until now as a means of explaining em- ployee job performance.

Second, and more specifically, our research has important implications for understanding how two distinct types of leadership behaviors contribute to follower effectiveness. According to Bass, “trans- formational leadership styles build on the transac- tional base in contributing to the extra effort and performance of followers” (1998: 5). Some re- searchers have interpreted this “augmentation” ef- fect to mean that transformational leadership adds beyond transactional leadership in a variance ex- plained sense, but not vice versa (Bycio, Hackett, & Allen, 1995). Others have suggested that the aug- mentation effect means that the two types of lead- ership behaviors each uniquely predict indices of effectiveness (Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Wang, Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011). Although our leader- ship hypotheses were grounded in this general aug- mentation perspective, our findings suggest a somewhat different explanation: namely, the influ- ence of each leadership behavior appears to be dependent upon the type of various job demands employees perceive. That is, we found transac- tional leaders to be more influential in buffering the negative effect of hindrance stressors on organiza- tional justice, whereas transformational leaders were more effective at enhancing the positive effect of challenge stressors on organizational justice. Be- cause this pattern of findings is unexpected, we are somewhat reticent to read too much into it. How- ever, such a pattern is potentially important to our understanding of leadership, and intuitively ap- pealing. We discuss it further in the hope that it will be considered in future theoretical and empir- ical research.

In one respect, this pattern of findings provides a new explanation for why “the best leaders are both transformational and transactional” (Bass, 1999: 21). Again, rather than simply augmenting one an- other, our findings support a novel contingency perspective in which transformational leaders will be more effective with employees who find them- selves in some situations whereas transactional leaders will be more effective with employees who find themselves in other situations (Fiedler, 1967; Vroom & Yetton, 1973). Although future research should seek to better understand these offsetting moderating effects, we suggest that the compatibil- ity (or lack thereof) of work demands and leader behaviors may be part of the explanation. For in- stance, followers who are confronted with hin-

2014 689Zhang, LePine, Buckman, and Wei

drance stressors may feel that transformational leadership behaviors (e.g., articulating a compel- ling vision, emphasizing a collective identity, and referencing core values and ideals) are incongruent or incompatible with what they need in exchange for their efforts. To cope with hindrance stressors, they need a leader who is closely monitoring the situation and able to step in to provide timely sup- port and resources in order to get the job done. A leader who tries to focus an employee’s attention on vague distal goals and idealistic values may be seen as an unhelpful distraction. A similar lack of compatibility may also exist between an employ- ee’s experience of challenge stressors and transac- tional leadership behavior. As discussed earlier, employees may perceive the organization as fair when given stressful work demands such as job responsibility and task complexity because these types of demands indicate a belief in, and recogni- tion of, one’s ability, skills, and status. A transac- tional leader who emphasizes the economic re- wards one will receive in exchange for compliance and task completion may not be able to provide the meaningfulness needed in exchange for employees’ extra efforts.

Recent research on leadership’s influence on fol- lower regulatory focus may also offer important insights to explaining this intriguing pattern of leadership contingencies.1 Specifically, Kark and Van Dijk (2007) proposed that leadership behaviors prime followers’ self-regulatory focus, which sub- sequently serves to guide work behaviors. Transfor- mational leaders tend to prime a promotion moti- vational focus among their followers, such that followers become particularly sensitive to the pres- ence or absence of positive factors and perceive their work in terms of its implications to goal achievement and growth. Transactional leaders, in- stead, tend to prime a prevention motivation focus among followers such that they become particu- larly sensitive to the presence or absence of nega- tive factors and perceive their work in terms of avoiding failure in meeting obligations (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Thus, whereas transformational leaders should orient followers to focus on stressors that tend to be perceived as having positive implica- tions to the exchange relationship, thereby enhanc- ing positive effects of challenge stressors, transac- tional leaders should orient followers to focus on stressors that tend to be perceived as having nega-

tive implications to the exchange relationship, thereby alleviating the negative effects of hindrance stressors. This application of regulatory focus holds promise as an explanation for our mixed results specifically, and for Bass’ notion (1999) that “the best leader needs to be both transformational and transactional” more generally, and, thus, is some- thing that researchers could explore much more directly in future research.

Considering specific job performance behav- iors. Consistent with our theorizing, the joint ef- fects of stressors and leadership on organizational justice are further transmitted to influence em- ployee job performance. In general, the pattern of results holds for all five types of performance be- haviors, which supports the validity of our theoret- ical model over an expansive set of criteria. Of course, the consistency is also commensurate with the idea that a broad factor underlies narrow per- formance constructs (e.g., Harrison et al., 2006; Hoffman, Blair, Meriac, & Woehr, 2007; LePine, Erez, & Johnson, 2002), thus raising the question of whether our results would hold with a broad job performance factor as the sole dependent variable. To that end, we tested an alternative moderated mediation model in which we formed a latent fac- tor of overall performance with the five behavioral dimensions as indicators. The results parallel the findings we reported earlier. Organizational justice mediates the negative effect of hindrance stressors on overall performance (� � �.18, p � .05), but not the effect of challenge stressors (� � .03, p � .05). Transactional leadership moderates the indirect ef- fects of hindrance stressors via justice perceptions on overall performance in that the conditional in- direct effects significantly differ when transac- tional leadership is at high versus low levels (diff � .21, p � .05), but no such moderated mediation effect is found for challenge stressors (diff � �.14, p � .05). Transformational leadership moderates the indirect effects of challenge stressors via justice perceptions on overall performance in that the con- ditional indirect effects significantly differ signifi- cantly when transformational leadership is at high versus low levels (diff � .21, p � .05), but no such moderated mediation effect is found for hindrance stressors (diff � �.18, p � .05).

Although the parsimony inherent in considering a broad performance construct is appealing, there are some differences in relationships with the nar- row constructs worth exploring. For example, al- though strain has a significant positive relationship with counterproductive behavior, it has no such1 We thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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relationship with task performance, helping, voice, or creative behavior. Although it is beyond the scope of our research to offer an explanation for this pattern of results, it illuminates issues that merit further study. For example, given that strain has such an important influence on counterproduc- tive behavior even after fairness is considered, our theoretical and practical understanding of counter- productive behavior would be enhanced by consid- ering how energy depletion processes influence de- cisions (or tendencies) to engage in deviant acts. Such research would be worthwhile given the enor- mous costs organizations incur as a result of coun- terproductive behavior (Vardi & Weitz, 2004) and increasing levels of strain being experienced by employees in today’s organizations (Avey, Luthans, & Jensen, 2009).

Limitations

There are several limitations of our study that bear mentioning. First, as in most studies pub- lished on organizational behavior, our research in- cludes cross-sectional relationships, so alternative pathways and feedback loops cannot be ruled out. The use of different data sources, multiple levels of analysis, a lagged design, and consideration of moderating relationship should mitigate concerns about this issue. Nevertheless, our hypotheses could be examined with longitudinal and experi- mental designs to further rule out these possibili- ties. A second limitation is that employees pro- vided ratings of the independent variables, moderators, and mediators, and, thus, it is possible that our results are influenced by common source variance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). However, the outcomes in our study were measured by a second source, and it is difficult to explain how a pattern of results supporting medi- ation, and moderation of this mediation, could be attributed to common source variance. Regardless, a study that included measures from additional sources could help rule out this concern. A third limitation is that we did not include variables that tap the social exchange process that presumably transmits the effects of the stressors to justice. Al- though examination of an extended meditational chain that included a direct measure of social ex- change would certainly provide for a more compre- hensive test of our theory, the complexity of such a model would be without precedent in published research in organizational behavior. Nevertheless, future research may narrow the focus on the “mi-

cro-mediations” inherent in our model, and exam- ine whether these mechanisms further enhance our understanding. Finally, our conceptualization and operationalization of justice as a broad construct is somewhat atypical, and, as a consequence, it may be difficult to directly compare our results with findings of prior research, which has most often considered the narrower dimensions. Consistent with the recommendations of Colquitt (2012), how- ever, our approach is appropriate because we did not propose differential predictions for the spe- cific justice dimensions. Our approach is also rea- sonable in light of conceptual parsimony and math- ematics. That is, multicollinearity from considering highly correlated justice dimensions in our model would result in unstable estimates, which would make it difficult to interpret indirect effects that operate through the individual justice dimensions. Nevertheless, it is not lost on us that by averaging across justice dimensions we also averaged across the sources of justice, thus masking potentially im- portant effects that could have furthered our under- standing (Rupp, Bashshur, & Liao, 2007). Accord- ingly, scholars could test theory regarding mediating role of specific justice dimensions. Such an approach would be well suited to understand links among stressor and performance constructs that are narrower than those we have consid- ered here.

Practical Implications

With the limitations of our research in mind, our findings nonetheless have a number of important practical implications. First, our results provide additional reasons why steps should be taken to minimize the occurrence of hindrance stressors. That is, to the extent that the effects of organiza- tional justice are so encompassing, initiatives to reduce hindrances stressors may have even greater utility than previously thought. Moreover, given that stressors are most relevant through the eyes of those who must cope with them, initiatives to re- duce hindrance stressors could involve employee task forces charged with the mission of identifying them as well as proposing and implementing solu- tions. The usefulness of employee involvement in such efforts is not likely to be obvious, given that hindrance stressors are often rooted in organization- al structures and practices that are quite distal to employees who perform core work tasks. The use of employee involvement in this manner may have an added benefit insofar as it could enhance percep-

2014 691Zhang, LePine, Buckman, and Wei

tions of justice that are damaged due to the pres- ence of hindrances.

Second, whereas stress management practice has focused predominately on support or resources that facilitate coping with stressors, our theorizing and results suggest that stress management may be im- proved by focusing on factors that influence how employees judge stressors with regard to their fair- ness. To this end, for example, stress management could be improved by practices that leverage the “justice rules” (e.g., Cropanzano, Bowen, & Gilli- land, 2007). Organizations could implement prac- tices that help employees understand why they have to deal with work demands, whether others in the organization are also having to face similar stressors, and what the organization is going to do to acknowledge and reward their employees for effectively coping with such demands. Such prac- tices could be especially worthwhile for hindrance stressors, given that it is unrealistic to think that these types of demands can be completely elimi- nated from the work environment. Indeed, a more transparent, informative process of communication could provide employees with additional informa- tion that might temper negative perceptions of or- ganizational justice in circumstances that involve high levels of hindrances due to institutionalized bureaucracy.

Following on from this theme, we found that leaders play a key role in influencing the stressor– justice appraisal relationships, and, accordingly, our study provides indirect support for the utility of leadership training and development practices. We should note, however, that in research and practice, the emphasis on transformational leader- ship over the last two decades has overshadowed transactional leadership. Our study builds on other recent findings (Wang et al., 2011) to highlight the need for training and development that fosters both types of leadership. For example, we described, above, how the relationship between stressors and perceptions of fairness (and, in turn, job perfor- mance) could be improved with leadership that conveys knowledge of how the organizational sys- tem works, clarifying expectations and responsibil- ities, and honoring the agreed-upon rewards when expectations are met.

In addition to training specific leadership behav- iors, however, our study suggests that there may be utility to practices that go one step further. Our results suggest that organizations should help lead- ers understand how varying their behavior accord- ing to the nature of job demands can help employ-

ees more effectively manage their stress and other important outcomes. Training and development practices could help leaders identify and better un- derstand differences between challenge and hin- drance stressors. Further, the training could help leaders develop skills necessary to identify the types of stressors being experienced by their em- ployees, and, in turn, to accurately utilize either a transformational or transactional leadership style. Although a contingency approach to leadership de- velopment is certainly not new (e.g., Fiedler, 1967), the specific contingency factors and the schedule of corresponding leader behaviors illuminated in this study would be a significant departure from current practice.

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Yiwen Zhang ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of management at the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong. He received his Ph.D. in management from Arizona State University. His research interests include leadership, work stress, em- ployee engagement, and personnel selection.

Jeffery A. LePine ([email protected]) is the PetSmart chair in leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in organ- izational behavior from Michigan State University. His research interests include team functioning and effec- tiveness, team composition, adaptability, occupational stress, and employee engagement.

Brooke R. Buckman ([email protected]) is a doc- toral student in the Department of Management at the W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. Her research has been focused on employee engagement, leadership, emotional labor, and team composition and dynamics.

Feng Wei ([email protected]) is an associate professor at the School of Economics and Management, Tongji University, China. He received his Ph.D. in organization- al behavior and human resource management from Fu- dan University in China. His research interests include leadership, psychological contracts, and innovation.

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