Resumo

The concern with stakeholder relationships and interests is gaining more attention as the way organizational management evolves. The panorama of higher accountability demanded by society and by the competitive environment of the corporate world itself demands ethical, fair, and sustainable practices from companies. In this sense, effective and fair stakeholder management becomes relevant. Thus, the stakeholder theory shows itself as a valid theoretical perspective for this challenge.

In the current literature, there is a lack of empirical studies linked to organizational justice and firm performance (Harrison et al., 2010; Zhao & Murrell, 2016).Moreover, the relationship of justice between firm and its stakeholders play an important role in the Stakeholder Theory and stakeholder management models (e.g. Bosse et al., 2009; Harrison & Wicks, 2013; Bridoux & Stoelhorst, 2014). Given this scenario, the objective of this study is to analyze the influence of organizational justice on firm performance.

Several authors point out the importance of organizational justice in stakeholder management models, and they use the previous concepts of organizational justice, proposed by other authors, to build their premises (Bosse et al., 2009; Phillips, 2003; Harrison et al., 2010). Organizational justice is presented in three dimensions: distributive, procedural, and interactional. In this regard, organizational justice refers to the belief that stakeholders value being treated fairly and behave reciprocally (Harrison & Wicks, 2013).

This study aims to analyze the impact of organizational justice on firm performance in publicly traded Brazilian companies. Hypotheses are formulated and will be tested through statistical analysis techniques using Stata 14. For this study, we performed multivariate analysis using panel data. Data collection was done through ISE for organizational justice data and Economatica for financial performance data. The sample comprises 63 companies listed in the São Paulo Stock Exchange and Futures Markets (B3) from 2008-2017, resulting in 406 observations.

According to the results obtained in the data analysis, we found that organizational justice and its dimensions - distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice - have a positive statistical correlation with ROA, our proxy for firm performance. However, according to the model results, only organizational justice, distributive justice, and procedural justice were statistically significant. Interactional justice was found to be non-significant in the estimated models, both for t and t-1.

The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of organizational justice and its main dimensions - distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice - on firm performance. The results corroborate that, in fact, organizational justice and most of its dimensions have a significant role in stakeholder management models that intend to improve firm performance. Thus, fair and just actions towards stakeholders can generate positive effects not only for the stakeholders, but also for the firm (Bosse, et al., 2009; Harrison & Wicks, 2013).

Bosse, D. A., Phillips, R. A., & Harrison, J. S. (2009). Stakeholders, reciprocity, and firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 30(4), 447-456. Harrison, J. S., Bosse, D. A., & Phillips, R. A. (2010). Managing For Stakeholders, Stakeholder Utility Functions, And Competitive Advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 31(1), 58-74. Hayibor, S. (2017). Is fair treatment enough? Augmenting the fairness-based perspective on stakeholder behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(1), 43-64. Phillips, R. (2003). Stakeholder theory and organizational ethics. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.