ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the impact and the relationship between organizational justice and the intention to leave and investigate the effect of demographic factors on study variables among the universities employees in Egypt. Organizational justice is explained as perceived fairness in terms of distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional justice, temporal justice and spatial justice at workplace. The study differs from other studies because of the research about employees working in private sector of higher education in Egypt. A hypothesized framework was developed and tested using stepwise multiple liner regression analysis on a sample of 438 academic staff and knowledge employees at different private universities were selected for survey and data were statistically tested by applying regression and correlation analysis. This study specifically, addressed the following questions: 1) What are the effects of organizational justice on the employees’ intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt? 2) What are the effects of the demographic factors on the organizational justice and intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt? The results of this study suggest that the perceptions of high levels of organizational justice lead to decrease in the level of intention to leave. The originality of this study contributes to the intention to leave literature and managerial practice in Higher Education Institutions by providing empirical evidence for the effects of demographic factors on organizational justice and intention to leave. The results revealed to that all five justice dimensions and total organizational justice were negatively significant to intention to leave. It can be concluded that age, educational level, university type and experience show the significant differences in intention to leave. Otherwise, there are significant differences in organizational justice among gender, age and experience among the employees worked in the private higher education sector in Egypt.

Subject Areas:

Anthropology, Sociology

Keywords:

Demographic Factors, Organizational Justice and Intention to Leave

1. Introduction

The concept of justice has become an important construct in behavioral science and management over the last decades, the concept of organizational justice has become popular among the researchers of organizational justice in order to achieve greater outcomes as productivity, performance and innovation which lead to sustainable development. The HR practices at any organization can effectively promote fairness in distributive, procedures and interactional relationships among managers and employees in addition reward allocation to accomplish desired objectives in terms of quality and performance. The higher education sector in Egypt is growing and becoming competitive, especially at private sector which consists both of private universities and academies as they are operating with an increasing force of quality of education to deal with both non-profit and profit organizations.

Companies and organizations today are concerned with the human element through their skills and knowledge, the intention to leave and actual turnover are the most important issue that affects the organizations’ efficiency and causes employees to move to another competitor through beneficiary of their expertise and knowledge. There are various types and the forms of employees’ justice perceptions have not been adequately examined and organizational justice is one of the most important tools which enable organizations to reach success and excellence. Moreover, this topic has not received enough attention, especially in the Arab context. Therefore, the previous studies are not interested to use all types of organizational justice namely distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal and spatial. Through considerations of previous studies, there is a difference in the view of the employees’ intention to leave, the information could mention to a big problem which may lead to making employees to layoff and may affect to lose the innovative staff, knowledge employees and the companies may lose their intellectual capital at the same time. To fill the gap in the study, many studies develop a lot of models which depend on the two of three dimensions of justice, this study develops a model to explain the parallel effects of the five dimensions of justice on employees’ intention to leave. Depending on the equity theory, we propose that the five types of justice perceptions enhance and reduce employees’ intentions to leave. In other words, we argue that intention to leave affects the five dimensions of justice.

This study aimed to examine how the perception of employees’ universities to organizational justice which may affect their readiness to quit the job and analyze the relationship between organizational justices which have a new dimensions namely spatial and temporal justice that can lead the employees towards intention to leave. A few researches have been conducted to examine the relationships among multiple dimensions of justice distributive justice, procedural justice, interactional “interpersonal and informational justice”, temporal, spatial justice and intention to leave. Moreover, studying this topic at the context of universities is especially limited and does not exist in the Egypt setting. The study used survey data to test the study hypotheses on a sample of 438 respondents at enormous private universities and academies in Egypt (i.e. Arab Academy for science, technology and maritime transport) as one of the largest academies in Egypt and one of the large Arab universities which has multiple branches in Egypt. Thus, the current study may lead to new shadows with respect to addressing the relationship of all dimensions of organizational justice and its predictability towards the employees’ intention to leave the work.

1.1. Conceptual Framework

Many scholars have focused only on the two types of justice namely distributive and procedural justice. The third type of justice interactional justice does not have much attention as the previous to types. Although, distinction between procedural and distributive justice as distinct dimensions was well supported in the literature and in universities sitting [1] . In addition, there are two new dimensions appear recently “spatial and temporal justice” need more clarification and explanation. [2] mentioned to the new dimensions, this study needs to examine the structures of organizational justice: distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal and spatial justice as distinct dimensions. There is little agreement on the dimensions of interactional, spatial and temporal justice and it is one of our goals to examine the empirical merit of the distinction among these three types of organizational justice.

1.1.1. Distributive Justice

Many of Researchers called distributive justice as the first component of justice because it has to do with the allocations or outcomes that some get and others do not. Distributive justice is concerned with the reality that not all workers are treated like the allocation of outcomes is differentiated in the workplace. Individuals are concerned with whether or not they received their “just share.” Sometimes things are distributive just, as when the most qualified person gets promoted.

1.1.2. Procedural Justice

Refers to the means by which outcomes are allocated, but not specifically to the outcomes themselves. Procedural justice establishes certain principles specifying and governing the roles of participants within the decision-making processes. A just process is one that is applied consistently to all, free of bias, accurate, representative of relevant stakeholders, correctable, and consistent with ethical norms. Procedural justice seems to be essential to maintaining institutional validity.

1.1.3. Interactional Justice

A person is interactional just if he or she appropriately shares information and avoids rude or cruel remarks. In other words, there are two aspects of interactional justice as [3] mentioned. It was divided two parts the first part called informational justice refers to whether one is truthful and provides adequate justifications when things go badly. The second part called interpersonal justice, refers to the respect and dignity with which one treats another.

1.1.4. Temporal Justice

[4] introduced the concept of justice in the distribution of time Temporal justice in organization sitting reflect to what extend that organization takes care of employees about the fair distribution of time as a resource and how to distribute the work time between all categories of employees. Temporal justice recognized as a part of distributive justice but we must distinguish that it not related with the comparison ratio of inputs to outputs as in the equity theory.

1.1.5. Spatial Justice

It means the perception with the geographical distance of the resources among different branches, campuses and units of the organization based on geographical distance [5] .

1.1.6. Intention to Leave

Turnover intention can be described as an individual’s behavioral intention and can be defined as “the extent to which an employee plans to leave the organization”. [6] divided the reasons of employee turnover to three types the first one factors related to work environment as job satisfaction, salaries and performance; the second one factors related to employees as age, education, gender; and third factors are external as unemployment rate and presence of trade union. More than study argued and mentioned [7] [8] that the main problem is the increase in actual turnover which has negatively affected private and public organizations by reducing efficiencies and increasing costs. [9] categorized the quit or turnover as voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary turnover is when Employees decide to leave the organization on their own choice while involuntary turnover happens when the organization decides to make some of the employees redundant or lay them off. [10] mentioned the involuntary turnover is often good for the interest of the organization but voluntary turnover is considered very destructive to the organization’s stability. The employees in Egypt is more associated with voluntary turnover via the organization offers which considered as a mix between voluntary or involuntary.

Although the numerous studies have been conducted in the Western and Arab context on types of justice but there is no study has tried to investigate the relationship between organizational justice (distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal and spatial) and intention to leave with the effect of demographic factors in Egypt environment which can enhance performance, productivity to keep the sustainable of the university. This study aims to identify the impact of organizational justice dimensions on intention to leave moreover, identify justice among the employees in the private higher education sector in Egypt on the other hand, Identify the extent of the impact of the employee demographic and job variables on both of study variables organizational justice and intention to leave. Some specific objectives can be summarized as:

• Measure the level of justice.

• Measure the level of intention to leave among the employees.

• Investigate the association between perceived justice among employees and their intention to leave.

• Examine the effects of demographic variables gender, age, marital status, education level, university type, experience and designation) on both study variables organizational justice and intention to leave.

The research questions could be summarized into the following questions:

Q1: What are the effects of organizational justice on the employees’ intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt?

Q2: What are the effects of the demographic factors on the organizational justice and intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt?

2. Literature Review and Development Hypotheses

2.1. Relationship between Organizational Justice and Intention to Leave

The overall organizational justice has a predictive effect on employees’ intention to quit [11] [12] , however [13] in their study found that the procedural and distributive justice has significant influence on intention to leave and the interactional justice has no significant influences on the turnover intention. While [14] concluded that lower levels of both distributive and procedural justice predicted higher turnover intentions, controlling for gender and job tenure and they found that Procedural justice has a stronger relationship with turnover intentions than distributive justice.

2.2. Demographic Factors, Organizational Justice and Intention to Leave

The demographic variables as “gender, age, educational level and marital status” and job variables as “university type, length of experience and designation” were used in literature and there was a relationship among these variables and both of independent and dependent variables. Although there is a researcher found no main effect of gender on the perceived fairness as [15] . [16] found little effect of demographic variables on justice perceptions. [17] revealed to that organizational justice affect by all demographic factors as (Gender, age, marital status, experience, qualifications, and job) and there are significant differences in the feeling of organizational justice due to demographic factors and the highest demographic variable is marital status and the lowest one is Age in Ministry of Health in Amman. On the other hand the highest perception of justice for distributive justice followed by procedural and the lowest one was interactional justice. The same study proceeded in turkey to determine the relationship between organizational justice and job satisfaction among teachers at schools [18] this study revealed to that the interactional justice comes first followed by procedural justice and lastly distributive justice in the primary school teachers in turkey. On the other hand there was not a statistical significant relationship between organizational justice types and demographic factors as gender, professional seniority, Age and marital status but both of procedural and interactional justice were affected by the duration of working at the same school especially for the level of newcomers. [19] also believed that the most cause of turnover was demographic characteristic there are similar interaction effects involving gender found in other study [20] .

Many studies relating demographic factors to the organizational justice in the European context [21] [22] concluded that there is no statistically significant difference among gender, age, education level and marital status and the dimensions of justice namely distributive, procedural, interactional justice. The findings of [23] mentioned that a significant relationship between age, income, and turnover intentions; however, the relationship between education, gender, and length of tenure was not statistically significant. On the other hand, [24] concluded that both association between (age and experience) and intention to leave was negatively significant However educational level was correlated positively with intention to leave in the large private hospitals in turkey. Moreover, [25] revealed that there is a significance positive relationship between demographic factors and the anti of intention to leave “retention” in the private universities in Bahrain except educational level and occupation. That means gender, marital status, age and experience are insignificant with intention to leave. On the other hand the demographic factors as Age and experience have effect on the four types of justice interpersonal, informational, procedural, distributive and total justice however the educational level effect on all types of justice except interpersonal justice was not significant. They revealed to that males, singles, and individuals less than 40 years and those whom less than 11 years of work have significant positive relationship with intention to leave. [26] concluded to that income and organizational tenure have significant differences on intention to leave among nurses in Malaysian public hospitals. While the age, marital status, educational level and tenure have not significant differences. Therefore, this study set out to add an applied study to the current conceptual base, relating to the effect of demographic and job variables like age, marital status, tenure, educational level, university type and gender to organizational justice in the private higher education sector in Egypt. The considerations above can be summarized in the following hypothesis:

H1: There is a negative significant relationship of the types of organizational justice on intention to leave.

H2: There is a significant effect of demographic variables “Age, gender, university level, educational level, marital status, experience, designation” on all types of organizational justice.

H3: There is a significant effect of demographic variables “Age, gender, university level, educational level, marital status, experience, designation” on the intention to leave.

This study was intended to investigate the relationship between the dimensions of organizational justice and employees’ intention to leave in addition to the effect of demographic factors on organizational justice and intention to leave. (As shown in Figure 1), therefore quantitative research design is more appropriate for developing a framework of present study. The data which were gathered in March to May 2018 from the employees of private universities in Egypt are analyzed via SPSS 22.0 the proposed model is shown in Figure 1.

3. Methodology

3.1. Participants

This study focused on multilevel segment of employees and managers worked at 13 private universities in addition to academies in Egypt. The target population of this study was selected from the population of worked employees at the universities in Egypt, the staff members and knowledge employees employed at higher education private sector in Egypt at private universities and academies (Vice presidents, Deans, deputies, academicians, mangers, supervisors and knowledge employees) contains a group of professionals who have worked and experienced to study the framework of relationship between organizational justice and intention to leave. Therefore, the study focus on the people who worked at higher education sector at academies and private universities at all departments, colleges and administrations which own the capability and facilities with

all levels. The number of universities and academies that participated to this study were ten private universities also three academies. the currently population is over 46,607 individuals enrolled throughout the private universities system, the population of the private universities contains of 7851 Academicians and staff member in addition to 29,441 employed members. Then again, the staff members at academies were 1961 and the non-academicians were 7354. The population consists of all majority at the universities the type of gender, social military, age, educational level, tuner and job level, those employees selected from more than governance around the Arab Republic of Egypt, they participated from six cities in Egypt as the following: Alexandria, Cairo, Giza, Port Said, Tanta and Aswan. The participated universities and academies to this study were from Misr international university, Pharos University, Egypt-Japan University, Germany University, British University, French University, American University, El-Shorouk Academy, Delta University, Nile University, Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Sadat Academy and lastly international academy for engineering and media science.

3.2. Procedural

The study instrument was developed in English and translated into Arabic by the researcher. The translated Arabic version of the instrument was translated back into English by one of our colleagues who is an expert in both the languages Arabic and English, which was later compared with the original English version. A few variations between the two versions were found and corrected accordingly. The semi-final instrument was given to ten Mangers and staff member, five in Arabic language and five in English language, selected by the researcher to pilot and test it further. Given the feedback from the piloted employees the final instrument was prepared and sent out to target sample. All instruments were modified according to the context of Arab world in private educational sector in universities in Egypt environment. Although, the original instruments were valid and reliable it was important to find out the validity and reliability of the modified instruments in Egyptian context. For this purpose, under the guidance of a panel of experts, the draft instruments were modified with reference to the language clarity of items professional authenticity and university context. The panel of experts consisted of six university staff, managers and knowledgeable employees having specialization knowledge in educational administration, organizational behavior, and educational research. A self-administered questionnaire in Arabic with a cover letter stating the purpose of the survey, was mailed to each potential respondent employed at any private university or academy. The Google form allowed to all respondents were asked to send the completed questionnaire back to the researcher. We almost sent out 3700 questionnaires in the initial mailing. A follow-up mailing with the same questionnaire attached took place 3 months after the initial mailing. Finally, 438 completed questionnaires were received, representing a response rate of 11.83%. Such a response rate can be considered acceptable given that it has been noted that the response rate of mailed surveys in Egypt was the lowest among various countries [27] . The study used demographic data career and sector variables as control variables. Gender were measured using two scales, marital status was measured using four scales, education level was measured using five scales, age was measured using five scales, experience or tenure were measured using six scales and designation were measured using seven different scales.

4. Tools and Measures

4.1. Measurement of Organizational Justice

Organizational justice was the independent variable of the study. Based on the review of literature Organizational justice is measured by the scale created by [28] scale was adapted for this particular study. The scale measures organizational justice across its three dimensions distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the reliability of this scale was 0.95, the researcher Added the two new construct namely temporal and spatial justice respectively which measured by the scale created by [2] . The Organizational Justice Scale, the number of items were 22 after deleted all items that were inapplicable and going with validity and reliability. All items use a 5-point scale with anchors of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The total number of items in the modified Organizational Justices became 22 as against 24 items in the original scale. Considering the university setting: 1) Distributive Justice included 3 Items; 2) Procedural Justice included 4 Items; 3) interactional Justice included 8 Items; with the addition of three new items to 4) temporal Justice and 5) spatial were included 4 items. The temporal justice and spatial justice were measured by using the scale developed by [2] they developed these two scales by a careful conduction of focus group. Temporal justice covers office timings, Marital time and personal time, whereas, spatial justice covers resource distance and budget discrimination as predictor. Temporal justice comprises of 4 items and spatial justice 3 items scale. Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients were used to assess internal consistency and the reliability measures in this current study had Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging as 0.953 for total organizational justice and 0.865 for intention to leave respectively. The validity was tested by using Pearson’s Coefficient of Correlation between each type of justice, the validity values were 0.663 for distributive justice, 0.856 for procedural justice, 0.876 for interactional justice, 0.502 for temporal justice and 0.62 for spatial justice.

4.2. Measurement of Intention to Leave

The Intention to leave is measured by the scale created by ( [29] , cited in [30] ). The scale measures Intention to leave across its five questions. It was the second dependent variable of the study. Based on the review of literature Intention to leave is measured by the scale created by [29] scale was adapted for this particular study. The Intention to leave was measured with five items (i.e., “If I have a good opportunity, I would like to find another job”, and “I do not enjoy this job and have been searching for other positions”). The pilot study revealed to the reliability of Intention to leave variable was 0.865 after we deleted the question number 4 and 5 “Layoffs are a typical occurrence around here”, and “People often get fired from this organization without good reason” which made Cronbach’s Alpha at the large percentage when item deleted. The Number of Items after deleted questions were 3 questions and the correlation between the dimension and the item variable ranged from 0.863 to 0.91 with significant level 0.01. After we test the reliability and demonstrate and eliminated the unnecessary items the total number of the items of questionnaire was 25 item.

The data was provided by choosing an answer to every item and statement from a 5-point scale, where: “1 = strongly disagree”; “5 = strongly agree”. All constructs tested and found to be acceptable for dimension analysis with KMO > 0.5 and significance < 0.001. Of the sampling adequacy the measure gives us how our data are suited for Dimension Analysis. KMO values more than 0.6 indicate the sampling is adequate and sufficient. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity for organizational justice amounted (KMO = 0.90; χ2 = 7845.118; p < 0.001) and the amounted of intention to leave was (KMO = 0.703; χ2 = 398.387; p < 0.001) performed by the method of Principal Component Analysis with Varimax Rotation. The demographic data divided to sector (1 = academies; 2 = private universities), gender (1 = male; 2 = female), Marital status (1 = single; 2 = married; 3 = divorced; 4 = widow), educational level (1 = bachelor; 2 = postgraduate diploma; 3 = Master degree; 4 = PhD), age (1 = 26 - 34; 2 = 35 - 44; 3 = 45 - 53; 4 = more than 54 years), experience (1 = 5 years; 2 = From 6 - 10 years; 3 = From 11-15 years; 4 = From 16 - 20 years; 5 = From 21 - 25 years; 6 = more than 25 years), job position or designation (1 = Vices President; 2 = Deans/Deputies; 3 = Heads of Departments/Deputies; 4 = Academicians/Associates; 5 = Mangers/Supervisors; 6 = Specialists’ employees; 7 = others).

5. Methods

5.1. Sample

The questionnaire sent out to the respondents via electronic mail and whats App application approximately 3700 questionnaires were distributed and 438 questionnaires were answered and returned. The reaction of the survey covered 438 respondents which included all categories worked at the universities. The participants were classified into seven ranks: Vice President (N = 14), Deans or their Deputies (N = 44), Heads of Departments their Deputies (N = 47), Academicians or their Associates (N = 165), Mangers/Supervisors (N = 102), Specialists’ employees (N = 50) and others (N = 16). They were mainly recruited from thirteen private academies and universities around six cities in Egypt. The different categories of employees, mangers and staff have different perception of justice and intention to leave it may be different for each level. The researcher allocated the sample by using the table to determine the sample size for a given population size [31] cited in [32] . The majority of employees who participated in this survey represented academies (82.4%) and private universities (17.6%). Among the respondents, the majority were gender employees men (71.7%) and female (28.3%). Within marital status single (13.7%), married (81.7%), divorced (3.2%) and widow (1.4%). Within Educational level bachelor (5.9%), postgraduate diploma (4.1%), Master degree (41.1%) and 48.4% were a PhD holder. age range of 26 - 34 (22.8%), 35 - 44 (39.7%), 45 - 53 (24.7%) and more than 54 years (12.8%).With work experience at university 5 years (10.5%), from 6 - 10 years (19.9%), 11 - 15 years (20.5%), 16 - 20 years (20.3%), 21 - 25 years (16.4%) and more than 25 years (12.3%). Holding managerial positions were (47.2%) included vices president, deans, deputies, heads of departments and supervisors), academicians and their associates were (37.7%) and non-managerial positions including specialists and others (15.1%).

5.2. Data Analysis

The descriptive statistics for the perceptions regarding distributive Justice are presented for example item # 3 with distributive justice measurement “I feel that my job responsibilities are fair” has the highest Mean score (Mean = 3.5, SD = 1.076) the range of Mean scores weighted from 3.42 to 3.5 and the distributive justice has a high level of justice dimensions (Mean = 3.46, SD = 0.972). Item # 3 with Procedural justice measurement “Job decisions are made by supervisor in an unbiased manner” has the highest Mean score (Mean = 3.48, SD = 1.238). The range of Mean scores weighted from 2.9 to 3.48, the level of procedural justice was medium (Mean = 3.31, SD = 0.98). on the other hand, the interactional Justice shows that, item # 2 with interactional justice measurement “My manager treats me with respect and dignity” has the highest Mean score (Mean = 4.12, SD = 1.034). The range of Mean scores weighted 3.24 to 4.12 and the level of Interactional justice was a high level (Mean = 3.59, SD = 0.999).

The descriptive statistics for the perceptions regarding Temporal Justice shows that, item # 3 with Temporal justice measurement “My job makes me spent the time with spouse and children” has the highest Mean score (Mean = 3.01, SD = 1.184) The range of average scores was between 2.78 to 3.01 and overall the level of Temporal justice was medium (Mean = 2.86, SD = 1.126). Finally, the item # 2 with Spatial justice measurement “Facilities and Geographical distance are available” has the highest Mean score (Mean = 4.17, SD = 1.019). The range of average scores from 2.47 to 4.17 and overall the level of Spatial justice was medium (Mean = 3.29, SD = 0.945).

The overall organizational Justice Perceptions in the private higher education sector in Egypt has Mean score (Mean = 3.37, SD = 0.736). Overall the level of organizational Justice Perceptions was medium. In addition to above the employees’ intention to leave shows that, item # 1 with intention to leave measurement “If I have a good opportunity, I would like to find another job” has the highest Mean score (M = 3.22, SD = 1.348). The range of Mean scores of this dimension was from (2.73 to 3.22) and overall the level of intention to leave variable was medium (M = 2.896, SD = 1.189). Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics to all study variables.

In order to see which dimensions of organizational justice are played the most important role in predicting intention to leave, the correlation test is further applied. Table 1 showed that all the dimensions of justice correlated negatively role and it seems to predict intention to leave through procedural, interactional, spatial, distributive and temporal justice respectively. The average of organizational justice is 3.346 and intention to leave is 2.896 (Table 1) show that the employees are relatively perceived a moderate level of justice and intention to leave to the private universities. In addition to that the procedural justice (r = −0.341, 0.01), interactional justice (r = −0.311, 0.01), distributive justice (r = −0.28, 0.01) and spatial justice (r = −0.289, 0.00) it seems to play more important role in prediction intention to leave than temporal justice (r = −0.238, 0.01). The procedural has the highest negative relationship with intentions to quite (r = −0.341, ρ < 0.05) and the temporal justice has the least negative correlation with intentions to quite (r = −0.238, ρ < 0.05). However, the full justice is correlated negatively with intention to leave (r = −0.40, 0.01).

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

6. Testing the Statistical Hypotheses

The hypothesis number one assumed that there is a negative significant relationship between perception of organizational justice and employees’ intention to leave (Table 2) Demonstrated the relationship among organizational justice dimensions and employees’ intention to leave. In order to test this hypothesis, the following sub hypothesis is formulated as there is a significant relationship between perception of distributive, Procedural, interactional, temporal, spatial justice and employees’ intention to leave thus the study used some of statistical analysis the correlation analysis one of them which explained the relationship between the dimensions of justice and the employees’ intention to leave. A non-parametric correlation as Spearman Rho correlation used to extract this relationship, the table below has the relations between justice and employees’ intention to leave.

Table 2 contains the significance relationship between total organizational justice and employees’ intention to leave was a negative relationship (R = −0.38, level of confidence = 99%) the relationship between “distributive justice and intention to leave was negative with 26.7%”, “procedural justice and intention to leave negative and equal 28.2%”, “interactional justice and intention to leave was negative with equal 29%”, “temporal justice and spatial justice have a negative relationship with 22.4%, 28.2% respectively”.

The hypothesis evaluated the relationship between organizational justice and intention to leave, suggesting that if perceptions of organizational justice are high there will be decrease or reduce in intention to leave. The multiple a simple linear regression was calculated to determine the employees’ intention to leave based on their perception of total organizational justice. the regression results were significant (F = 78.814, p < 0.000) with R square of.39 and Beta was a negative with.39, which means the increase of organizational justice by 1 unit helping to reduce the level of intention to leave by 39% thus, this means that study hypothesis was supported.

In order to test the following hypothesis is formulated there are a significant relationship between perception of distributive justice, Procedural justice, Interactional justice, temporal justice, spatial justice and the employees’ intention to

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

leave. When the study used the Enter liner regression method between the independent variables and dependent variable. the relationship between all dimensions of justice and intention to leave was 0.399 and the coefficients proved that the interactional, temporal and spatial justice are significantly correlated with intention to leave at significance level P < 0.05 with the negative explanatory power 0.145, 0.123, 0.149 respectively which means that the increases of these dimensions of justice by one unit will affect negatively on the intention to leave with the same percentage respectively. On the other hand, the distributive justice and procedural justice were not significant with intention to leave. The relationship between the interactional, spatial, temporal justice and intention to leave were negative of percentage whether we added them one followed by others were 0.31, 0.365 and 0.389 respectively. In addition to the stepwise liner regression technique showed the dimensions are more effective and have more influence on the intention to leave. We entered dimensions of justice generated three models by used the stepwise liner regression. Table 3 Presents the coefficients of the three models.

Stepwise regression analysis results in Table 3 showed that the interactional justice, spatial justice and temporal justice predict of the intention to leave in a private higher education sector in Egypt. It might be said that the first model showed that the interactional justice was the strongest variable predict of the intention to leave (R square change 9.7%), the second model predicted (R square change 3.6%) of intention to leave. Lastly, the third model predicted (R square change 1.9%) In other words, the models are stated that:

Dependent Variable: Intention to leave.

Model I: Intention to leave = 4.225 − 0.371 Interactional justice.

Model II: Intention to leave = 4.756 − 0.284 Interactional justice − 0.256 Spatial justice.

Model III: Intention to leave = 4.973 − 0.247 Interactional justice: 0.230 Spatial justice: 0.151 temporal justice.

It might be said that improving interactional, spatial and temporal justice will lead to reduce intention to leave in the private higher Education sitting in Egypt. Therefore, the Stepwise regression analysis results of supporting H1 “Organizational justice dimensions have a significant impact on intention to leave and partially supported”.

Thus, the sub-hypothesis of the study hypothesis number 1 was partially supported and there is a negative significant relationship between perception of interactional, temporal, spatial justice and intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt otherwise the interactional justice was the most significant dimension influencing the employees’ intention to leave. Which means that employee in private universities sitting are more concern about how actually they are treated by their managers and this has major towards reducing the intention to leave in higher education sectors in Egypt. When the research question number two and number three asked about the statistical significant of demographic variables “gender, age, marital status and educational level” and job variables “university level, experience and designation” on organizational justice. In this part the study tried to answer about the two hypotheses number 2 and number 3.

Table 4 indicates the positive correlation with confidence level 99% between independent variables of the study which suggests that a significant positive correlation between total organizational justice and all types of justice where Spearman’s rho Coefficient of Correlation 0.363, 0.797, 0.866, 0.475 & 0.60 respectively. Accordingly, there is positive correlation between age as demography factor and (distributive, spatial, total organizational justice) and negative correlation with intention to leave. The experience was correlated with distributive justice and spatial justice with confidence level 99% except the education level was insignificant with all variables.

**The correlation is significant at 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The gathered data was not normal, Mann-Whitney U test is a non-parametric test used to assess and analyze the significant differences in dependent variable by a single independent variable. It is the non-parametric equivalent of the independent samples t-test. This means that the test does not assume any properties regarding the distribution of the dependent variable in the analysis. This made the Mann-Whitney U-test the appropriate analysis to use when analyzing dependent variables on an ordinal scale. Table 5 shows the dimensions of justice as procedural, interactional, temporal, intention to leave was insignificant with the gender (Male or Female), but distributive, spatial justice and total organizational justice to males has upper mean than females at significant level < 0.05 which mean that the significant differences showed that males perceived the distributive justice, spatial justice and total organizational justice more than females.

The study used Kruskal-Wallis test to explain the study variables as distributive justice, spatial justice, intention to leave and the total organizational justice which affected by age categories “less than 25 years, between 26 - 34 years, between 35 - 44 years, between 45 - 53 years and more than 54 years”. The procedural justice, interactional justice and the temporal justice were not significant and were not affected by age as a control variable. Table 6. Shows the distributive justice, spatial justice and total organizational justice affected by age this means that the significant differences showed at employees who have more than 54 years than the others categories. On the other hand, intention to leave will be affected by age especially the significant differences showed between 26 - 34 years than others. this means that the levels of employees have more than 54 years old in private higher education sector in Egypt perceived and familiar with distributive justice, spatial justice and total organizational justice more than the others’ age categories. However, the intention to leave organization is showed that age stage between 26 - 34 means that this level did not find itself at this environment.

On the other side, Table 7 indicates marital status as “single, married, divorced and widow” not affected by all study variables at Sig. level 5%, however

the distributive justice affected by widow status than others. That means the widow employees perceived distributive justice more than the others’ marital statuses.

Table 8 demonstrates that distributive justice and intention to leave were affected by Educational level and significant at 5% except the reminded variables as procedural justice, interactional justice, temporal, spatial justice and total organizational justice were not significant with the Educational level “Doctorate, Master Degree, Postgraduate diploma, Bachelor degree and other qualifications”. The distributive justice affected by Educational level which mean that the significant differences showed to the bachelor degree holders than others. Employees’ Intention to leave was affected by Educational level which mean that the significant differences showed at the lower qualifications holders than other categories or educational level status because they have the upper rank mean. The bachelors’ holders of employees perceived and felt that the distributive justice is more existed than the others’ educational levels perceived and may the others lowest educational level has the intention to leave.

The test of Mann-Whitney U helped to revealed that the dimensions of justice as distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal, spatial were insignificant with the university categories (Private or Academy), on the other hand the intention to leave was significantly with the university categories at Sig. < 0.05. Table 9 shows that perceived organizational justice at the private universities and academies in Egypt were the same to all employees, However employees’ intention to leave at the private universities have the upper rank mean (215.97) which means that there are different in culture through university to another one. That means the employees at private universities has more intention to leave than the employees at academies.

Table 10 explains the significance of variables towards experience factor the distributive, procedural, temporal, spatial, intention to leave and total organizational justice are significant at 5% affected by the Job tenure or experience as a control variable, however the reminded variables as interactional justice was not significant of Job tenure/Experience “less than 5 years, between 6 - 10, between 11 - 15, between 16 - 20, between 21 - 25 and More than 25 years”. On the other hand the distributive justice and the spatial justice affected by Job tenure which mean that the significant differences showed at segment of employees have more than 25 years of experience than others, the procedural justice affected by Job tenure at the segment of employees those have less than 5 years of experience than others. The temporal justice affected by Job tenure which mean that the significant differences showed between 6 - 10 years than others, the intention to leave affected by Job tenure which mean that the significant differences showed less than 5 years than others. Finally, the organizational justice was affected by Job tenure to employees those have more than 25 years of work experience than others. That means the employees that have experience more than 25 years have perceived distributive, spatial and total organizational justice than the others experience categories. However, the employees had experience from 6 - 10 perceived temporal justice more than others.

Table 11 shows the study variables distributive justice and spatial justice were

significant at 5% with the designations as a job variable, however the reminded variables were not significant and effected of designations “Vice presidents, Deans/Deputies, Heads of departments/Deputies, Academicians, Supervisors, Specialists and Others. The distributive justice affected by designation which mean that the significant differences showed at Deans/Deputies than others and the spatial justice affected by designation which mean that the significant differences showed at Specialists than others. Finally, the deans and their deputies have perceived distributive justice more than the others designation categories. However, the specialists’ employees have perceived spatial justice more than others.

7. Results

The primary data consisted of scale means, standard deviations, alpha Reliabilities, and inter correlations among the study variables. The reliability measures in this study had Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging as 0.953 for organizational justice and 0.865 for intention to leave respectively. The individual dimensions scale were also found within acceptable ranges of reliability (0.796 - 0.96) which considered fit and applicable for analysis. The Mean values for distributive justice (3.46), procedural justice (3.24), interactional justice (3.58), temporal justice (2.86), spatial justice (3.29), the total organizational justice (3.346) and the descriptive values for employees’ intention to leave (2.986) were measured on 5-point Likert scale and ranged between strongly disagree and strongly agree with a considerable deviation. Correlation statistics in Table 1 determined the association between variables. The correlation values for distributive justice (r = −0.28), procedural justice (r = −0.34), interactional justice (r = −0.31), Temporal justice (r = −0.238) and Spatial justice (r = −0.289) are negatively correlated with employees’ intention to leave which show that all five organizational justice dimensions are significantly associated with employees’ intention to leave. In addition to the correlation value for total organizational justice (r = −0.40) is negatively correlated with intention to leave which mean the overall or total organizational justice is significantly associated with employees’ intention to leave.

Descriptive statistics explained that distributive justice was high level in academies (3.49) and medium level in private universities (3.31). On the other hand males were perceived high level of distributive justice (mean = 3.62) however females were perceived a medium level of distributive. Widow and divorced statuses have high mean (3.77, 3.76) respectively spite of the singles were perceived the medium level of distributive justice. Single, married and divorced perceived a high level of interactional justice (3.51, 3.58, 3.98) respectively, otherwise single and married perceived a medium level of temporal justice (2.91, 2.86). On the other hand the temporal justice for divorced was medium level thus the total organizational justice level were a medium level of these marital statuses (3.25, 3.34 and 3.66).

The widow status perceived high level of distributive justice (3.78) and it perceived medium level of spatial justice whereas the intention to leave was high for this case (3.33) and medium level (2.85) for married.

The educational level in the private higher education sector in Egypt showed that the PhD Holders were moderately concerned about procedural (3.3), temporal (2.86), spatial (3.27), intention to leave (2.89) and total organizational justice (3.38) otherwise, they have highly concerned about the distributive (3.55) and interactional (3.62).

Whereas the masters’ degree holders were perceived moderate level of distributive, procedural, temporal, spatial, intention to leave and total justice, the Interactional was high level. The bachelors’ holders perceived justice more than the others levels of education and they have intention to leave more than others have postgraduate diploma.

All categories of age have medium level of total organizational justice except the last level those older than 54 years and above perceived highly concerned. The intention to leave is a trend to all categories except last one was moderately concerned and the stage above 54 years old has low intention to leave. Anyone has an experience more than 25 years perceived highly concerned of total justice otherwise the remaining categories perceived medium or moderate concerned. On the other side all categories of experience factor have moderate level of intention to leave.

The designation of job all categories have the medium level of total justice except the specialists and Regardless the designation of jobs all categories have the medium level of intention to leave.

The correlation values (Refer to Table 1) Show the moderately negative relationship between all dimensions of organizational justice and employees’ intention to leave. The regression results were significant (F = 78.814, p < 0.000) with R square of 0.39 and Beta was a negative with 0.39, which means the increase of organizational justice by 1 unit helping to reduce the level of intention to leave by 39% thus, this means that study hypothesis was supported.

The value of R2 (0.39) shows that 39% variation in employees intention to leave is due to explanatory variables interactional, spatial, temporal justice that were negative of percentage 0.31, 0.365 and 0.389 respectively Which could explain that all three dimensions of organizational justice together are significant but moderate predictors of employee’s intention to leave. The model used for this study was found fit as determined by the t test and its significance indicated by P value (0.000). The coefficient or beta values indicated that the amount of variations in employees’ intention to leave caused by interactional justice (31%) showed relatively more significant than spatial justice (20%) and temporal justice (14%) (Refer to Table 3).

The hypothesis H1 was not supported which means that the significant relationship between the two types of justice distributive and procedural are not exist towards intention to leave. On the other hand the reminded types as interactional, temporal and spatial justice were significant with intention to leave at p-vale < 5%. Thus we can say that the organizational justice effect partially on employees’ intention to leave in the private higher education sector in Egypt. Organizational justice types were not affected by gender except for distributive and spatial justice however, the total organizational justice was affected by gender and it seems that males are the important part who perceived justice. The distributive, spatial and total justice can affect on Age levels but all types of justice and total justice were not affected by marital status and educational level except distributive justice. The intention to leave was not affected by gender and marital status but affected by Age and educational level.

The hypotheses number 2 and number 3 mentioned whether the demographic variables can effect on the independent and dependent variables, the hypothesis was supported the relationship between organizational justice and gender, age, marital status and educational level partially. On the other hand the dependent variable intention to leave partially significant with demographic variables.

The organizational justice types and total organizational justice are not affected by university type and the dimensions of organizational justice and total justice are affected by experience except the interactional justice was not supported Which mean that the organizational justice affected partially by experience and the independent variable is not existed towards designations except distributive justice affected by deans and spatial justice affected by Specialists. However the employees’ intention to leave is affected by university type and was partially affected by experience at p-value < 5% and it is not affected by destinations. The organizational justice affected partially by experience and designation however the intention to leave was affected by university type, experience and was not supported the destination.

Based on these statistics that employees in the private higher education sectors in Egypt especially males, employees who have more than 25 years of experience and those whom more than 54 years in universities are more concerned with distributive, spatial and total organizational justice. The widow cases and bachelors’ degree holders are concerned with distributive justice. Lastly, deans are concerned with distributive and Specialists concerned with spatial.

8. Discussion

The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational justice dimensions as distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, temporal justice and spatial justice and employees’ intention to leave among all categories in the private higher education sectors in Egypt. In addition to determinate to what extend that independent and dependent variables affected by jobs and demographic factors. The results of this study indicated that all the justice dimensions are negatively related to employees’ intention to leave as the previous studies are revealed [33] [34] [35] .

The results of the study indicate that organizational justice and its dimensions have a significant negative correlation with intention to leave organization among all employees. This means that an increase in fairness and justice among employees have the likelihood to decrease their intentions to quit or intentions to leave organization. The findings revealed that there is no significant difference in the level of intention to leave between male and female employees this finding is also consistent with previous findings on gender and turnover intentions [2] . In addition, interactional justice, temporal justice and spatial justice contribute significantly to intention to leave this finding is disagree with the study by [36] , which indicates that distributive justice and procedural justice are the only components of organizational justice that determines turnover intentions. On the other hand the study also disagrees with study in 2014 which indicate that interactional justice did not contribute significantly to employees’ turnover. The increase of organizational justice helping to decrease the level of intention to leave and there are noted negative significant relationship between the perception of interactional, temporal, spatial justice and intention to leave at the environment of the private higher education in Egypt. Our finding is consistent that the knowledge workers perceived interactional justice as the highest dimension of justice (mean = 3.59) at the private higher education and the lowest dimension of perceived justice was the temporal justice (mean = 2.86).

The research finding indicates that there are many dimension of justice could explain the situation in universities context and still there is doubt and issue or contradiction in university sitting with others researchers who made more investigated about the importance of the procedural and distributive justice in university sitting [1] . Although [25] asserted that distributive justice was the strongest variable predict of the employee’s retention in Bahrain private universities our study proved that the strongest variable is interactional justice predict of employees’ intention to leave in private universities sitting in Egypt. Otherwise temporal, spatial justice is significantly negative correlated with intention to leave at significance level 0.05 and the interactional justice is the most significant dimension influencing intention to leave. On the other hand the distributive justice and procedural justice were not significant with intention to leave.

The research questions and the research objectives will discuss with the previous few lines, the question number two mentioned to the statistical significant of demographic factors “gender, age and educational level” and job variables “experience and designation” on the main study variables. On the other hand our study revealed to that the males are more sensitive to difference in distributive, spatial and total organizational justice than the females in comparison.

Males’ employees were more perceived distributive, spatial and total justice than females and the gender is not effect on the intention to leave. Likewise, Age is significant with organizational justice and intention to leave thus the employees in the age 54 and above perceived distributive, spatial and total justice than others otherwise the age 26 - 34 is more intent to leave university. The Marital status has a significant difference in the level of distributive dimension only especially for widow cases compared to others. However the residuals of the study variables were not significant with marital status. The Educational level of the employees was significant in the level of Intention to leave and distributive dimension at the level of significance equal 5%. The BSc holders are more significant with distributive justice and there is no educational level intent to leave universities except whom holed lower qualifications. The findings concluded that there is significant difference between educational level and intention to leave and the highest level for to whom less educated employees followed by bachelors’ holders and these findings disagreed with [37] revealed that the less educated employees are not giving the same attention to leave organization as the educated employees moreover, there was contradiction with study of [38] that mentioned that high educated employees are more likely to quit. The experience was significant with all dimensions of justice especially distributive justice, spatial justice and total organizational justice with experience 25 years, procedural justice with less than 5 years of experience, temporal justice with 6 - 10 years of experience except interactional justice. On the other hand, the experience was significant with intention to leave towards the employees less than 5 years of experience this results agreed with [25] except the interactional justice was not significant with the experience. The designations were significant with distributive and spatial justice especially to deans and specialists respectively.

The intention to leave was significant with age between 26 - 34 years this result is consistent with the findings of [39] and disagreed with results of [25] . The study disagreed with [25] in age as a demography factor effect on all four types of justice interpersonal, informational, procedural, distributive and total justice because our study revealed to that age has a significant difference in the level of distributive dimension, spatial dimension and the total organizational Justice. However the other variables have not a significant difference with the age variable. Also the educational level effect on all types of justice except interpersonal justice was not significant as [25] mentioned however the current study proved that only educational level has effect on distributive justice. The university type was not significant with all study variables except the intention to leave was significant with worked people in private universities.

It might say that males’ employees and the older employees than 54 years perceived a higher level of distributive, spatial and total organizational justice than females’ employees and other levels of Age. Widow employees and bachelor degree holders only perceived a higher level of distributive justice than others.

It might say that the employees have more experience level “25 years and above” are perceived a higher distributive, spatial and total organizational justice level than others level of experience. This proved that experienced employees who know the business environment well had the highest wages consisted with the level of justice perceived than unexperienced employees. The highest class of employees that have perceived distributive justice are deans and their deputies on the other hand the highest class that perceived spatial justice are specialists.

It might say that both of gender, Marital status, Job level “designation” are not effect on intention to leave but on the other hand Age, Educational level, university type and Experience effect on the employees’ intention to leave especially category 26 - 34 years, people whom their degrees below bachelor holders, worked at private universities and others less than 5 years of experience respectively. Although some scholars as [40] agreed that whether the period of experience is long the actual turnover will be low but our study revealed to that intention to leave is increase for category experience less than five years followed by category from 6 - 10 in the private higher education sector in Egypt. That means younger employees are ready to talk risk that older employees because the responsibilities of older experience employees increasing than younger employees.

The study also revealed that there are significant correlations between intention to leave and demographic variables such as age, educational level, universities type and experience. It was found that age and experience are negatively and significantly correlated with intention to leave. Our study consistent with other results concluded that there are significant correlations between intention to leave and demographic variables such as age, educational level and it was found that age and experience are negatively and significantly correlated with intention to leave. However, [41] in Ghana context conclude that there is not significant relationship between demographic variables and intention to leave. The study found a significant difference between age and intention to leave the older people who are more than 54 years, 35 - 44 and 45 - 53 years respectively have lower intention to leave than younger people between 26 - 34 and agreed with [42] based on the Kruskal-Wallis Test. On the other hand, there is no significant difference between gender, marital status and intention to leave based on the Mann-Whitney U-test our results were disagreed with [42] .

It might be seen that there is a difference on the distributive justice among the levels of marital status and the educational level only. On the other hand there are significant differences on organizational justice among the levels of gender, four levels of age and the six levels of experience. It can be concluded that gender, age and experience have explained a unique variation on total organizational justice this results supported the findings by [25] . Because the p value < 0.05, there are significant differences on intention to leave among the levels of age, five levels of educational level, two types of universities and six levels of experience. It can be concluded that age, educational level, experience and university type have explained a unique variation on intention to leave. This results supported the findings by [43] .

The interactional justice can significantly contribute towards the intention to leave of the employees worked in universities sitting. The findings of this study supported the notion that interactional justice is negatively related to employee’s intention to leave. The interpersonal justice is also found negatively related to intention to leave in the private universities in Egypt this result consisted with the study of [44] which concluded that Interactional justice has more of an effect on turnover intentions than the distributive and procedural justice.

9. Contributions, Limitations & Future Recommendations

This study contributes new shadows of using many types and many dimensions to determinate the level of intention to leave and to explain to what extend that demographic factors and job variables can effect on the organizational justice and employees’ intention to leave. The author has also suggested that interactional, temporal and spatial justice have received less attention than distributive and procedural justice. Some recent research has shown their distinctive factor structures [45] . The present study is limited in scope as the respondents represented population from a private higher education sector in Egypt. This study used snowball sampling technique the future research needs to use a stratified random sampling in order to reduce the potential bias because universities have many categories at many locations administrative, colleges, laboratories, libraries and others locations inside colleges the staff member has more than four groups which are assistant teacher, teacher, associated professors, professor and etc.

Therefore, future studies may develop a larger sample size from different context private, government and different regions. It is also suggested that longitudinal studies should be conducted in near future to reflect whether changes over time alter the perceptions of employees regarding justice. Future studies may also include mediation role of different possible variable such as innovative work behavior, organizational support, work climate, and others as an attempt to develop a broader understanding of the concept in the academic settings.

10. Conclusions

The study shadows the light to find out whether the demographic factors have an effect on organizational justice and intention to leave. In addition to this, the study investigated and evaluated the role of organizational justice towards predicting the relationship between types of justice distributive, procedural, interactional, temporal and spatial and employees’ intention to leave. The study revealed that all types are correlated negatively but there are three types of the justice dimensions: “interpersonal, spatial and temporal” are significantly related to employees’ intention to leave. However, interactional justice is found to be a stronger predictor of employees’ intention to leave. The findings outlined that interactional justice was the strongest variable predict of employees’ intention to leave. It seems reasonable that improving interactional justice, spatial justice and temporal justice will cause to reduce overall intention to leave in the higher private education sector in Egypt. At the same time, the study found a negative correlation between the types of organizational justice and intention to leave. The age as demographic factor can affect distributive justice, spatial justice, total justice and intention to leave. The experience representing distributive justice and spatial justice with confidence level 99% except the educational level, was not significant with all study variables.

In general, it can be concluded that the results of estimating ranking means in this study show that gender, marital status and designation were insignificant differences on intention to leave while age, educational level, university type and experience showed the significant differences on intention to leave among the employees worked in the private higher education sector in Egypt. This study can be useful for managers, researchers and decision makers in making more suitable policies and procedures to decrease the level of leaving organizations.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Cite this paper

Monged, T.M., Raghab, M.A. and Tantawi, P. (2019) The Effect of Demographic Factors on Organizational Justice and Intention to Leave in the Private Higher Education Sector in Egypt. Open Access Library Journal, 6: e5539. https://doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1105539

References