A Correlational Study about Authentic Leadership and Organizational Justice Perceptions among Hotel Employees

Abstract

Positive styles of leadership have been in focus from the early 21st century, however there are only limited empirical studies examining the relationship between positive styles of leadership and their influence on employees’ perceptions of justice. Authentic leadership is considered one of the popular positive leadership theories and this study tested a conceptual relationship model between authentic leadership and hotel employee’s fairness perceptions at an individual level. The purpose of this non-experimental, quantitative, correlational study was to determine whether a relationship existed between authentic leadership and employee’s perception of justice within the hotel industry. Survey data was analyzed from 172 employees working in the hotel industry for this study. Even though limited to hotel industry, the results indicated that authentic leadership has a strong relationship with hotel employees’ organizational justice perceptions, and authentic leadership may be considered as a predictor of employees’ perceptions of organizational justice. This study contributed to the academic literature by integrating theories of authentic leadership and organizational justice which tested a conceptual model of relationship. Future research direction should include testing a mediation model whereby organizational justice becomes the mediator variable impacting the relationship between authentic leadership and organization outcomes. Implications for the practice include support for including authentic leadership into leadership development programs for strengthening levels of fairness within the organization.