Organizational justice, corporate citizenship and work engagement. A mediating effect of organizational trust in the Malaysian banking sector

The main objective of this research was to determine the relationship between corporate
citizenship, organizational justice and work engagement mediated by organizational trust
among the employees in commercial banks in Malaysia. This study was motivated by the
increase in the number of employees being terminated by their employers in the Malaysian
commercial banks due to absenteeism, lack of integrity, missing from the workplace,
unpunctuality, failure to complete assignments, frequent medical leave and absent without
leave which signal the lack of work engagement among the employees. In times of stiff
competition, work engagement is vital for ensuring performance and profit for commercial
banks. Seven main hypotheses and 14 sub-hypotheses were developed. Corporate citizenship
had four dimensions: perceived economic, legal, ethical and discretionary. Organizational
justice had three dimensions: distributional, procedural and interactional; and work
engagement had three dimensions: vigor, absorption and dedication. The study’s sample
comprised of commercial bank employees and out of the 411 responses received, only 396
were accepted and used for analysis. This study found that corporate citizenship and
organizational justice have significant effects on work engagement, and organizational trust
plays an important mediating role in the corporate citizenship-organizational justice-work engagement relationship. However, organizational trust has an insignificant effect on work engagement. It is suggested to the management of commercial banks to increase activities in corporate citizenship, and practice fairness, which can increase the level of organizational trust in enhancing work engagement. Future researchers can include a new variable such as job satisfaction, and expand the research area to other industries.