The effect of employer’s moral obligation violation on survivor’s commitment: The mediating role of justice climate

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cross-level relationship between moral obligation violation, overall justice climate, and survivors’ commitment. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from 25 companies with 261 individual employees’ cases from three main industries in Taiwan (n=25/261). Findings – Organizations which have moral obligation violation during layoff would directly influence survivors’ perceptions of justice and further affect survivors’ level of affective commitment. Originality/value – This is one of the first studies to provide evidence of the relationship between moral obligation violation, overall justice climate and survivors’ affective commitment. Additionally, most studies of survivors’ attitude and behavior are based on the third-party perspective; this study is the first to argue that survivors are also affected by employers’ layoff as well as victims. The influence of layoff will lead to survivors’ subsequent attitude and behavior.