An Examination of the Link between Leader Motivating Language and Follower Interactional Justice

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and their workers’ perceived interactional justice, that is, interpersonal and informational justice. The study also examines the influence of workers’ levels of power distance and uncertainty avoidance orientations on these relationships. We test the proposed model by conducting structural equation modeling using data from a sample of 505 participants. The findings show a positive relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and their workers’ perceived interpersonal and informational justice. Furthermore, the study confirms our hypotheses that workers’ power distance orientation negatively moderates the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived interpersonal justice and that workers’ uncertainty avoidance orientation negatively moderates the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived informational justice.

Keywords

motivating language organizational justice interactional justice interpersonal justice informational justice power distance uncertainty avoidance

Introduction

The degree to which employees perceive they are being treated unfairly in organizations is an important factor that organizations simply cannot afford to disregard. Perceived unfair treatment by employees can severely hurt organizations because it affects several employee attitudes and behaviors in the workplace. For example, employees who feel they are being treated unfairly at work show lower levels of job satisfaction (Ilies et al., 2018), job performance (Otto & Mamatoglu, 2015), organizational citizenship behavior (Karriker & Williams, 2009; Moorman, 1991), felt obligation to work unit (Frenkel & Bednall, 2016), and intent to stay (Nadiri & Tanova, 2010). Deterioration of such employee attitudes and behaviors reduces employee efficiency and consequently organization efficiency.

An important aspect that contributes to employees’ perceived fair treatment in organizations is called interactional justice, which is defined as the fairness of interpersonal treatment that employees receive by their employers (Bies & Moag, 1986). This justice dimension is important as it is observed quite often since it is tightly related to day-to-day interactions between employees and their managers (Bies, 2015). Despite the importance of employee perceptions of interactional justice, its antecedents are fairly unexplored, and, therefore, various academics have called for more research in explaining how managers can improve their employees’ perceptions of interactional justice (Colquitt et al., 2001; Turel & Connelly, 2013). To this end, recent research has examined different aspects of leaders such as the degree of leader ethicality (e.g., Ahmad, 2018; Charoensap et al., 2019), leader benevolence (e.g., Gumusluoglu et al., 2020), and leader authenticity (Li et al., 2014).

Since communication is a crucial part of leader effectiveness (Riggio et al., 2003), leaders need to be conscious of what language style they use when talking to their workers (McGinn, 2017). One communication strategy that encompasses a wide range of linguistic dimensions is leader motivating language (ML) (Rowley Mayfield et al., 1998). Its usage has been linked to improving several employee attitudes and behaviors (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018). However, the effect of a leader’s language style, specifically the use of motivating language, on a worker’s perception of justice has not yet been studied. Therefore, the current study aims to help fill this gap in the literature by proposing and testing a conceptual framework that focuses on the communication style of the leader and how it may affect an employee’s perceived interactional justice as it relies heavily on the direct interaction between supervisors and employees. Furthermore, we contribute to the ongoing literature that aims to identify and examine moderating factors that may influence the relationship between interactional justice and its antecedents (Steiner, 2020). As such, we examine the role of personal cultural orientations as moderators for the relationship between a leader’s use of motivating language and a subordinate’s perception of interactional justice.

Specifically, the purpose of the study is two-fold. First, the study proposes a link between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived interactional justice. Following the justice literature, we examine both components of interactional justice: (1) interpersonal justice, which is concerned with the degree to which an individual is treated with dignity and respect, and (2) informational justice, which is concerned with the accuracy and timeliness of information provided by employers. Second, given that employees have different perceptions of the quality of communication between them and their employers based on their cultural orientations (Kessler et al., 2004), we argue that these orientations influence the relationships between leader motivating language and perceived interpersonal and informational justice. Accordingly, we examine two cultural orientations: power distance, which refers to the degree to which an individual accepts power to be distributed unequally among people in different hierarchical levels (Hofstede, 2011), and uncertainty avoidance, which refers to the degree to which an individual can tolerate the idea that the future is uncertain (Hofstede, 2011). In this study, we argue that the relationship between motivating language and interpersonal justice would be stronger for employees with a low power distance orientation. Also, the relationship between motivating language and informational justice would be stronger for employees with a low uncertainty avoidance orientation. The conceptual model proposed in the current study is shown in Figure 1.

By examining the model, this study contributes to the research on motivating language and interactional justice, as well as personal cultural orientations, in three major ways. First, the research contributes to the business communication field in general and to motivating language theory in particular by extending the range of employee outcomes influenced by leader motivating language. Second, the study extends our understanding of what influences employee perceptions of interactional justice. Lastly, the study contributes to the literature that examines the moderating role of personal cultural orientations on employee attitudes.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. The following section provides the literature review of motivating language, interactional justice, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance. We then present our hypotheses development. Next, we discuss the methodology used to test the conceptual framework, followed by the results of our analysis. The discussion, implications, limitations, and directions for future research are provided in the last section.

Literature Review

Motivating Language Theory

Motivating language theory was introduced by Sullivan (1988) in an attempt to further understand how leaders could use different forms of communication to motivate their employees. This theory states that leaders can deliberately vary their communication with their followers as a motivational strategy to meet organizational and personal goals (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018; Rowley Mayfield et al., 1998). Motivating language theory builds on existing motivational theories (e.g., goal-setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990, 2002), Vroom’s (1994 expectancy theory) that consider information to be a crucial motivational factor for employees. From this perspective, leader-follower communication serves as a channel that transmits information from the leader to the follower. This information allows the follower to reduce any uncertainties or ambiguities that they may have regarding what goals they should pursue or what rewards they should expect. For example, managers could clarify to them the goals, objectives, and rewards they should expect to reduce job-related uncertainties and give employees a clear direction about how to perform their tasks (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018).

Nevertheless, motivating language theory suggests that leaders do not only motivate employees by reducing their uncertainties. They could also motivate employees by helping them understand why their job is important and how it contributes to the overall success of the organization. For instance, managers could emphasize to their employees the meaningfulness of the work they are assigned to do. This type of motivation is not explicitly provided through formal interactions, but rather informally through organization-related stories or anecdotes (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018). Although this type of motivating language is used in a more subtle and indirect form, it can be quite powerful in helping an employee understand the organization’s cultural environment and how he or she fits in this organization. With a higher degree of meaning about their jobs, employees feel a higher sense of belongingness and identification with the organization (Demirtas et al., 2017; Moynihan et al., 2017). This meaning-making talk is closely tied to task significance in the job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) which explains how experiencing meaningfulness of the work one is doing will positively affect outcomes like worker motivation, performance, and satisfaction. It is also rooted in interpersonal sense-making (Weick, 1995), positive leadership (Cameron, 2012; Dutton & Spreitzer, 2014), and transformational leadership (Bass & Riggio, 2006) as it shapes the organization’s vision with an emphasis on the individuals within it.

Another approach leaders can take in motivating employees is by emotionally connecting with them and showing genuine consideration or empathy toward them. For instance, leaders could appropriately adjust their communication style to a more empathetic one to achieve an emotional bond with their employees by being polite and cordial, addressing achievements as well as setbacks, giving praise, or recognizing effort. Consequently, this “human connectedness” between the manager and the worker will allow the worker to develop a sense of trust and self-worth. The use of empathetic language is most closely related to people-oriented leadership theories (Miner, 2015; Yukl, 2012), compassionate communication at work (Dutton et al., 2014; Miller, 2007), the supportive aspects of path-goal theory (House, 1971; Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018), and emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1998).

To summarize, motivating language is effective when leaders strategically use all three language types: direction-giving language, meaning-making language, and empathetic language (Mayfield et al., 2015). More specifically, managers can use the direction-giving language to motivate workers by reducing role ambiguity and role conflict so that workers can make better sense of the connection between their actions and the achievement of their goals (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018; Robbins & Judge, 2014). Similarly, meaning-making language can be used by managers to show employees how their work helps contribute to the mission of the organization and aligns the personal values and goals of employees with the goals and vision of the organization (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018). Lastly, leaders could use empathetic language to emotionally connect with their employees to develop trust between them and increase the followers’ self-worth. The comprehensive nature of motivating language theory enables leaders to move away from using “language in a restrictive manner” (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2019; Sullivan, 1988, p. 113). Instead, motivating language theory emphasizes that “all functions of language must be combined in a coherent discourse to have the greatest impact on employee motivation” (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2019; Sullivan, 1988, p. 113). Thus, leader speech can motivate workers and, in turn, can improve desirable employee attitudes and behaviors.

For motivating language to be successfully implemented by leaders, several antecedents to ML have to be present. Therefore, leaders need to display behavioral integrity, that is, they must walk the talk; all three ML components must comprise the majority of leader talk and be used appropriately and strategically; while ML emphasizes leader-follower speech, the follower must accurately interpret the leader’s intended messages (Holmes & Parker, 2017, 2018; Mayfield & Mayfield, 2019; Mayfield et al., 2015). To this end, effective use of motivating language by leaders can improve several employee and organizational outcomes such as absenteeism, intent-to-stay, job satisfaction, perceived leader communication competence and effectiveness, organizational commitment, and performance, among others (Choi, 2006; Holmes, 2012; Holmes & Parker, 2019; Krause, 2013; Madlock, 2013; Madlock & Sexton, 2015; Mayfield & Mayfield, 2007, 2009; Sharbrough et al., 2006; Simmons & Sharbrough, 2013).

Interactional Justice

The way leaders interact with their subordinates can influence the subordinates’ perceptions of interactional justice (van Knippenberg et al., 2007), which is an aspect of justice concerned with how fairly leaders treat their followers (Colquitt et al., 2001). For instance, when managers discuss with their workers why certain procedures in the organization are implemented a certain way, they should provide this information in a truthful, respectful, and timely manner. When they do not interact with their employees in this manner, employees would feel a sense of unfairness in how they are being treated (Bies, 2015).

Interactional justice is composed of two distinct components: interpersonal justice and informational justice (Greenberg, 1990, 1993). Interpersonal justice focuses mainly on behavior, and it represents the degree to which people are treated with politeness, dignity, and respect by authorities. On the other hand, informational justice focuses on the degree of truthfulness and timeliness of the explanations provided to people that convey information about why procedures were used in a certain way or why outcomes were distributed in a certain fashion. Consequently, more accurate and timely information would positively affect an employee’s perception of informational justice. Further empirical studies have confirmed that these two components of interactional justice are distinct enough from one another to be examined separately (Au & Leung, 2016; Colquitt et al., 2001).

Because employees’ perceptions of interactional justice can be shaped by the interactions between employees and supervisors (Li et al., 2018; Tyler, 1994), several studies have examined different leadership styles and their impact on employees’ perceived interactional justice. For example, interactional justice is influenced by transformational leadership (Carter et al., 2014; Gumusluoglu et al., 2013), servant leadership (Mayer et al., 2008), paternalistic leadership (Wu et al., 2012), and ethical leadership (Charoensap et al., 2019). However, different leadership styles focus on different aspects of leader-member interaction. For instance, servant leadership emphasizes an empathetic approach, while social learning theories emphasize a more direction-giving approach (Sullivan, 1988). Given the different types of interactions that each leadership style emphasizes, the focus on one particular leadership style may limit our understanding of how leaders influence the justice perceptions of their workers. Indeed, the situational leadership theory (Blanchard et al., 2013; Hersey & Blanchard, 1969) suggests that different situations require different leadership styles. It is possible, however, that different leadership styles could reside within the same individual (Doucet et al., 2015), and, to be effective, leaders should adapt their leadership styles to the demands of different situations. Therefore, since leader communication is an important aspect of leader effectiveness, we examine how leaders’ use of motivating language affects their employees’ perceptions of interactional justice.

Personal Cultural Orientations

This study also examines how an employee’s personal cultural orientations influence the relationships between leader motivating language and both interpersonal and informational justice. Hofstede (1980) defines cultural orientations as “broad tendencies to prefer a certain state of affairs over others” (p. 19). As such, cultural orientations are shaped as a “result of personal learning through interactions with social environments such as family, workplace, community, host country, and media” (Yoo & Donthu, 2005, p. 10). While cultural orientations have been initially conceptualized at the national level, later studies have found significant variances among individuals within a nation (e.g., Clugston et al., 2000; Kirkman & Shapiro, 2001), and an examination of cultural orientations at the individual level would provide a more accurate measure of an individual’s cultural orientations (Ma et al., 2020; Yoo & Shin, 2017). Individuals are not born with a set of cultural orientations. These orientations are rather sculpted by their unique experiences and the environment to which they are exposed (Khatri, 2009; Sharma, 2010; Yoo & Donthu, 2005). Hence, in this study, cultural orientations are examined from an individual perspective.

Two important personal cultural orientations relevant to the relationships examined in this study are power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Power distance is defined as the accepted degree of inequality among individuals of different hierarchical levels (Hofstede, 1993). Individuals with a high power distance orientation are more prone to accept hierarchical inequality when compared to individuals with a low power distance orientation (Hofstede et al., 2010). In organizations, power distance influences the proximity and interaction between supervisors and subordinates. For instance, subordinates with a high power distance orientation are more likely to accept a centralized, top-down control in organizations (Hsiung & Tsai, 2017). Hence, individuals with a high power distance orientation are less likely to question the word of their supervisors (Wang et al., 2012). On the other hand, employees with a low power distance orientation do not tend to emphasize hierarchical levels as much, and they may be more comfortable in approaching and discussing various issues with their supervisors in decision-making situations. The degree of power distance orientation has been found to influence a number of employee attitudes and behaviors, including voice behavior (Hsiung & Tsai, 2017), acquiescence silence (Lam & Xu, 2019), and job performance (Hu & Judge, 2017). Therefore, an employee’s power distance orientation can influence the interactions between them and their supervisors.

The second cultural orientation refers to the feeling of uncertainty about the future and how comfortable an individual is with the idea that the future is uncertain. This cultural aspect is generally referred to as uncertainty avoidance. Hofstede (1993) defined uncertainty avoidance as the degree to which individuals “prefer structured over unstructured situations, with structured situations being those in which there are clear rules as to how one should behave” (Hofstede, 1993, p. 90). Individuals with a high uncertainty avoidance orientation experience higher levels of stress when they are faced with ambiguous situations (Bozer & Delegach, 2019), and they have a higher need for clarity and structure than individuals with low uncertainty avoidance orientations (Hofstede, 2011). Hence, they tend to prefer more regulations, formal procedures, consistency, and orderliness to more accurately predict future situations (House et al., 2004). On the other hand, individuals with a low uncertainty avoidance orientation tend to have a higher tolerance for uncertainty. Empirical studies have found that the uncertainty avoidance orientation of individuals can be quite important in organizational settings as it may influence many employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, turnover intention, and innovation (Jang et al., 2018; Watts et al., 2020).

Hypotheses Development

Motivating Language on Perceived Interpersonal and Informational Justice

Supervisors play an important role in influencing their followers’ perceptions of both interpersonal and informational justice (Bies & Moag, 1986), and they can strategically use motivating language to improve such perceptions. Focusing on interpersonal justice, one of the circumstances in which employees’ perceptions of interpersonal justice may be affected is when supervisors have to deliver negative news to their employees (Patient & Skarlicki, 2010). Negative news that affects employees is bound to exert a certain degree of suffering on them. In these situations, leaders could take an empathetic approach and express their concern about how this news would affect employees. This empathetic concern may be expressed by leaders through politeness and respect toward employees. This form of communication exerted by leaders would make followers feel that their leaders care and respect them, and, in turn, they will be more likely to perceive higher levels of interpersonal justice.

Additionally, supervisors could also take advantage of informal discussions with their employees to increase their level of motivation. In these situations, leaders could emphasize meaning-making language and discuss aspects of the organizations in a way that would allow employees to create an understanding of how their strengths and abilities contribute to the organization’s goals (Sullivan, 1988). Such informal discussions would allow employees to feel valued members of the organizations and respected by their supervisors (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018). Consequently, these employees would perceive higher levels of interpersonal justice (Colquitt et al., 2001).

Lastly, leaders could also motivate employees by emphasizing performance feedback. Feedback of a task performed is highly desired by employees (Colquitt et al., 2021). As such, leaders could use motivating language to offer such feedback by taking a direction-giving approach. This feedback could take the form of “words of encouragement to a follower, such as reminders of past accomplishments and her or his specific/relevant talents for performing an assignment” which strengthens the interpersonal bond between leaders and followers (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018, p. 59). Receiving this kind of information may make followers feel appreciated and respected, which could positively influence their perceptions of interpersonal justice. Therefore, given the different conditions under which leaders can use motivating language to increase followers’ perceptions of interpersonal justice, we develop the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1: A leader’s use of motivating language will be positively related to a worker’s perceived interpersonal justice.

Supervisors could also use motivating language to increase their followers’ perceptions of informational justice. More specifically, employees perceive a higher level of informational justice when their supervisors provide adequate explanations about the various procedures used in the organization and what is expected of them to succeed (Bies, 2015). Thus, leaders could emphasize a more direction-giving approach by articulating to employees all the information that is necessary for them to perform their jobs or receive rewards. When leaders effectively provide this information to the followers, they reduce the level of ambiguity that followers may have about different aspects of their jobs, which will make followers more likely to perceive a higher degree of informational justice.

Additionally, employees tend to use social connections to find clues that would allow them to understand how to properly behave in organizations (van Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003). Hence, leaders could emphasize meaning-making language during informal discussions with their followers by talking about the organization’s vision, values, and norms, and how followers can contribute to the greater organizational goals. Employees would consider such informal discussions with their leaders as an important source of information for this purpose, thus increasing their perceptions of informational justice.

Lastly, leaders could also emphasize the empathetic aspect of motivating language during the delivery of decisions that are unfavorable for followers. In these situations, leaders could thoroughly explain why certain decisions were made by also acknowledging - and perhaps apologizing about - the negative effects of such decisions on their followers. Followers may then be more satisfied with the explanations provided by their leaders, which could lead to an increase in their informational justice. Thus, we develop the second hypothesis as follows:

Hypothesis 2: A leader’s use of motivating language will be positively related to a worker’s perceived informational justice.

The Moderating Roles of Power Distance and Uncertainty Avoidance Orientations

Since the leader’s use of motivating language occurs during supervisor-subordinate interactions, an employee’s level of power distance orientation may influence the relationship between the leader’s motivating language and the employee’s perception of interpersonal justice. Low power-distance-oriented individuals prefer a reduced leader-member power differential (Li & Sun, 2015). Thus, they are more likely to question and be affected by how they are being treated by their supervisors (Wang et al., 2012). Given that a leader’s motivating language is characterized by a reduction in leader-member power differential (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018), this type of communication will be more appreciated by low power-distance-oriented employees. Indeed, Mittal and Dorfman (2012) found that lower power-distance-oriented individuals responded more positively to servant leaders due to these leaders’ tendencies to reduce power differentials between them and their subordinates. Thus, we expect that the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language on subordinates’ perceptions of interpersonal justice will be stronger for low power-distance-oriented employees.

On the other hand, we expect that the effect of motivating language on employees’ perceptions of whether they are being treated fairly will be weaker for high power-distance-oriented employees. Given that such employees accept strong power differentials between leaders and their subordinates, they tend to consider a wider range of leader behaviors as fair (Kim & Leung, 2007). For instance, Lian et al. (2012) found that high power-distance-oriented individuals found abusive leadership to be fairer when compared to low power-distance-oriented individuals. Furthermore, high power-distance-oriented employees tend to find insults by their supervisors more acceptable (Bond et al., 1985), suggesting that the desire of these employees to be treated with dignity and respect by their leaders is lower than that of low power-distance oriented employees. Given that leaders’ use of motivating language emphasizes respect toward their subordinates, especially through empathetic language (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018), we expect a weaker relationship between leader motivating language and employee interpersonal justice for high power-distance-oriented employees. Hence, we develop the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 3: A worker’s attitude toward power distance negatively moderates the relationship between a leader’s use of motivating language and a worker’s perceived interpersonal justice, such that a high level of power distance weakens the relationship, and a low level of power distance strengthens it.

Our last hypothesis focuses on the moderating role of the subordinates’ degree of uncertainty avoidance orientation on the relationship between the leaders’ use of motivating language and the subordinates’ perceptions of informational justice. In organizations, employees are found to perceive a higher degree of fairness when supervisors provide accurate and timely information regarding the procedures implemented by their organizations (Bies, 2015). This information includes justifications and explanations as to how and why certain procedures were implemented or why certain decisions were made. However, an employee’s satisfaction with the degree of information received from his or her supervisor may differ based on the level of his or her uncertainty avoidance orientation. Individuals characterized by a high degree of uncertainty avoidance tend to require more information to feel satisfied in their efforts to minimize uncertainty (Money & Crotts, 2003). Therefore, for the same amount of information given through the use of motivating language, employees high on uncertainty avoidance may not perceive the given information to be as sufficient as compared to employees low on uncertainty avoidance. As a result, individuals high on uncertainty avoidance will tend to perceive a lower sense of informational fairness than individuals low on uncertainty avoidance for the same degree of information provided by their supervisors. Given this reasoning, the following hypothesis is developed:

Hypothesis 4: A worker’s attitude toward uncertainty avoidance negatively moderates the relationship between a leader’s use of motivating language and a worker’s perceived informational justice, such that a high level of uncertainty avoidance weakens the relationship, and a low level of uncertainty avoidance strengthens it.

Methodology

Data Collection

This study required respondents to provide their subjective opinions on their leader’s communication practices. Given that employees may be hesitant in reporting how they truly feel about their supervisors when participating in data collection surveys that are connected in any way to their organization, we decided to collect the data through an online survey tool to obtain more accurate responses from the participants of this study. Specifically, we used Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online crowdsourcing survey tool offered by Amazon (Buhrmester et al., 2011). On the Mechanical Turk website, a researcher can post a call, named “HIT” (Human Intelligence Task), that can be accessed by respondents from all over the world. In this HIT, the respondent can find information about the task (“complete a study on your workplace” in this case), time expected to complete the task (10–20 minutes for this study), expected respondent qualifications (in this case being a working individual and a high-reputation MTurk worker, i.e., above 95% approval rating), the payment amount for completing the task, and confirmation of respondent confidentiality. Once the respondent accepts the HIT, he or she can answer the survey. Altogether, Mechanical Turk is an innovative, high-quality tool that has been shown to satisfy standard social science survey requirements (Peer et al., 2014). Besides, it ensures a high response rate due to the financial compensation received by participants of the study. The amount of financial compensation was determined according to recommended averages (Buhrmester et al., 2011).

Measures

To measure our variables in the model, we used the existing reliable and proven scales. We measured motivating language with the nine-item scale developed by Mayfield and Mayfield (2007). Interpersonal justice was measured with four items developed by Bies and Moag (1986). Informational justice was measured with five items developed by Bies and Moag (1986) and Shapiro et al. (1994). Power distance and uncertainty avoidance were each measured by five-item scales developed by Yoo et al. (2011). All scales can be found in Table 1. To test the model’s hypotheses, we utilized WarpPLS (Kock, 2020), a versatile multivariate analysis software based on structural equation modeling (SEM) using the partial least squares (PLS) methods. The results of this analysis, as well as descriptive statistics of the sample, are discussed below.

Table 1.

Measurement Scales and Factor Loadings.

Items		Loadings
Motivating language (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2007)
Direction giving
1	Gives me useful explanations of what needs to be done in my work.	0.72
2	Gives me clear instructions about solving job-related problems.	0.78
3	Provides me with helpful information about forthcoming changes affecting my work.	0.75
Empathetic
1	Shows me encouragement for my work efforts.	0.75
2	Shows concern about my job satisfaction.	0.77
3	Expresses his/her support for my professional development.	0.79
Meaning making
1	Offers me advice about how to behave at the organization's social gatherings.	0.70
2	Offers me advice about how to “fit in” with other members of this organization.	0.69
3	Tells me stories about people who have left this organization.	0.56
Interpersonal justice (Bies & Moag, 1986)
The following items refer to the authority figure who enacted the procedure. To what extent
1	Has (he/she) treated you in a polite manner?	0.84
2	Has (he/she) treated you with dignity?	0.85
3	Has (he/she) treated you with respect?	0.83
4	Has (he/she) refrained from improper remarks or comments?	0.71
Informational justice (Bies & Moag, 1986) (first 2) and Shapiro et al. (1994)
The following items refer to the authority figure who enacted the procedure. To what extent
1	Has (he/she) been candid in (his/her) communications with you?	0.71
2	Has (he/she) explained the procedures thoroughly?	0.83
3	Were (his/her) explanations regarding the procedures reasonable?	0.83
4	Has (he/she) Communicated details in a timely manner?	0.82
5	Has (he/she) Seemed to tailor (his/her) communications to individuals’ specific needs?	0.78
Power distance (Yoo et al., 2011)
1	People in higher positions should make most decisions without consulting people in lower positions.	0.83
2	People in higher positions should not ask the opinions of people in lower positions too frequently.	0.89
3	People in higher positions should avoid social interaction with people in lower positions.	0.88
4	People in lower positions should not disagree with decisions by people in higher positions.	0.86
5	People in higher positions should not delegate important tasks to people in lower positions.	0.85
Uncertainty avoidance (Yoo et al., 2011)
1	It is important to have instructions spelled out in detail so that I always know what I’m expected to do.	0.64
2	It is important to closely follow instructions and procedures.	0.78
3	Rules and regulations are important because they inform me of what is expected of me.	0.80
4	Standardized work procedures are helpful.	0.79
5	Instructions for operations are important.	0.82

Sample

The MTurk HIT for this study resulted in a sample of 505 qualified working individuals. The sample is composed of 43% women and 57% men. The average respondent’s age is 32 years. As for educational levels, 10% of workers had a high school degree, 15% had an associate degree, 46% had a 4-year college degree, and 28% had a graduate degree. The size of the organizations that respondents worked in, ranged from small (less than 100 employees), medium (100 to 1,000 employees), to large (more than 1,000 employees) with 25%, 50%, and 25% of the respondents falling in each respective category. The three largest sectors from which respondents came were information technology, health care, and financial services, and accounted for 24%, 19%, and 11% respectively. Most respondents were either professional employees (45%) or skilled labor (48%), with only 7% being unskilled labor. Based on this we conclude that the sample is well diversified. Table 2 presents an overview of the demographics.

Table 2.

Demographics.

Description	Value	Percentage of total respondents (%)
Total respondents	505	100
Female	217	43
Male	288	57
Mean age	32 years
High school	51	10
Associate’s	76	15
Bachelor’s	232	46
Master’s	127	25
Doctoral/MD/JD/terminal	14	3
Firm size–small	126	25
Firm size–medium	253	50
Firm size–large	126	25
Industry–technology	121	24
Industry–health care	96	19
Industry–financial care	56	11
Job type–unskilled	35	7
Job type–skilled	242	48
Job type–professional	227	45

Data Analysis

We first conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the validity of the measures. Specifically, the data were first analyzed to check for convergent and discriminant validity. Table 1 shows the loadings of each latent variable. All p-values associated with the loadings are statistically significant, that is, they are lower than .05. Moreover, all loadings have values greater than or equal to the threshold of .5 (Hair et al., 2010). Hence, it can be concluded that the model has acceptable convergent validity. Next, to test for discriminant validity, the square roots of the average variance extracted (AVE) were compared against the correlations among latent variables. Table 3 presents the latent variable correlations, with the square roots of the average variances extracted on the diagonal. Discriminant validity is given if all values on the diagonal are greater than any of the values above or below them, in the same column (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Kock, 2015; Kock & Lynn, 2012). Table 3 shows this to be the case. Thus, the model has acceptable discriminant validity.

Table 3.

Correlations among Latent Variables with Square Roots of AVEs.

	IP	IF	PD	UA	ML	PD*ML	UA*ML
Interpersonal justice (IP)	(0.81)
Informational justice (IF)	0.76	(0.80)
Power distance (PD)	0.06	0.27	(0.86)
Uncertainty avoidance (UA)	0.51	0.48	0.02	(0.77)
Motivating language (ML)	0.31	0.46	0.19	0.13	(0.85)
PD*ML	−0.25	−0.37	−0.06	−0.12	0.07	(0.76)
UA*ML	−0.25	-0.18	−0.12	−0.27	0.09	0.19	(0.70)

Note. Values in the diagonal are square roots of AVEs.

To evaluate the reliability of the scales, two measures were used: the composite reliability and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Both measures were examined and compared to the empirically proven threshold of .7 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Kock, 2014; Kock & Lynn, 2012; Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994). Table 4 shows that all of the values far exceed this threshold. Therefore, the used scales show acceptable reliability.

Table 4.

Composite Reliability, Cronbach’ Alpha, and Full Collinearity Variance Inflation Factor.

	ML	IP	IF	PD	UA	PD*ML	UA*ML
Composite reliability	0.88	0.88	0.90	0.93	0.88	0.95	0.93
Cronbach’s α	0.80	0.82	0.85	0.91	0.83	0.95	0.92
Full collinearity VIF	1.44	2.73	3.66	1.17	1.47	1.30	1.18

Note. ML = motivating language; IP = interpersonal justice; IF = informational justice; PD = power distance; UA = uncertainty avoidance; VIF = variance inflation factor.

Furthermore, the model was tested for multicollinearity. Full collinearity variance inflation factors (VIFs) were used as a measure of multicollinearity among variables. Table 4 presents the correlations among VIFs and latent variable error terms. All values are equal to or lower than the threshold of five (Hair et al., 2010). Hence, it can be concluded that the model has no multicollinearity issues. Additionally, VIF values lower than five also indicate that there is no common method bias present (Kock, 2015; Kock & Lynn, 2012).

Results

We tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Figure 2 presents the model with the main results, including the path coefficients, their significance levels, as well as relevant R-squared values. The beta coefficients are standardized partial regression coefficients provided for each independent–dependent variable pair. All beta-coefficients are statistically significant at the p < .01 level. R-squared coefficients are shown under dependent variables; they reflect the percentage of explained variance for those variables by their independent variables in each variable block. Overall, all our hypotheses are supported.

Greater levels of leaders’ use of motivating language were associated with greater levels of workers’ perceived interpersonal justice (β = .32, p < .01), supporting hypothesis H1. Higher levels of leaders’ use of motivating language were also associated with higher levels of workers’ perceived informational justice (β = .43, p < .01), supporting hypothesis H2. Furthermore, we found support for hypothesis H3, which proposed a negative moderating effect of power distance on the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived informational justice. A high level of power distance weakens the relationship, and a low level of power distance strengthens it (β = −.27, p < .01). Lastly, the data show support for hypothesis H4, that is, workers’ attitude toward uncertainty avoidance negatively moderates the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived informational justice, such that a high level of uncertainty avoidance weakens the relationship and a low level of uncertainty avoidance strengthens it (β = −.20, p < .01). A summary of the results for all four hypotheses is shown in Table 5.

Table 5.

Summary of Hypotheses.

H1	A leader’s use of motivating language will be positively related to a worker’s perceived interpersonal justice.	Supported
H2	A leader’s use of motivating language will be positively related to a worker’s perceived informational justice.	Supported
H3	A worker’s attitude toward power distance negatively moderates the relationship between a leader’s use of motivating language and a worker’s perceived interpersonal justice, such that a high level of power distance weakens the relationship, and a low level of power distance strengthens it.	Supported
H4	A worker’s attitude toward uncertainty avoidance negatively moderates the relationship between a leader’s use of motivating language and a worker’s perceived informational justice, such that a high level of uncertainty avoidance weakens the relationship, and a low level of uncertainty avoidance strengthens it.	Supported

Discussion

The purpose of the current study was to gain a better understanding of the effects of motivating language on employee perceptions of interactional justice. Examining factors that may improve employee perceptions of this type of justice is especially important because lower levels of perceived interactional justice can negatively affect not only employees themselves (Son et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2019), but also team performance (Buengeler & Den Hartog, 2015), and several firm performance indicators (Luo et al., 2015; Mahajan & Benson, 2013). Given that managers play an important role in influencing employee perceptions of justice (van Knippenberg et al., 2007), there are compelling interests in examining communication strategies that can help leaders improve such employee perceptions. As such, motivating language is considered a key communication strategy as it has been shown to improve many employee outcomes and attitudes (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018).

This study also examined the influence of workers’ individual level of power distance and uncertainty avoidance orientations on these relationships. It is important to examine the moderating effect of these personal cultural orientations because the extent to which leaders affect worker outcomes is influenced by both power distance orientation (e.g., Lian et al., 2012; Lin et al., 2018) and uncertainty avoidance orientation (e.g., Afsar & Masood, 2018; Zhang & Zhou, 2014). Therefore, our current investigation would provide us with a better understanding of how effective motivating language is in shaping justice perceptions for employees with different cultural orientations.

The results of our empirical analysis show that, as predicted, leaders’ use of motivating language increases employees’ interpersonal and informational justice perceptions. The findings are in line with prior studies that have examined how leaders may influence such employee perceptions of justice. For instance, Patient and Skarlicki (2010) found that employees exerted higher levels of interpersonal and informational justice when leaders showed empathetic concerns during the delivery of bad news. Similarly, when leaders were effective in communicating their vision to their employees and effectively inspire them to pursue shared goals, employees would show higher levels of perceived interactional justice (Bacha & Walker, 2013). Thus, our findings show that motivating language is indeed an effective communication strategy that can improve employees’ perceptions of interactional justice.

We also found support for the moderating role of personal cultural orientations in these relationships. Specifically, the impact of motivating language on employees’ perceived interpersonal justice was stronger for employees low on power distance. This finding adds support to the existing literature on power distance in that employees with lower levels of power distance are more sensitive to workplace (in)justices (Shao et al., 2013). Indeed, Kirkman et al. (2009) found that the effect of transformational leadership on employee justice perceptions is stronger for employees in low power distance cultures. Similarly, Park et al. (2019) found that the negative effects of abusive supervision on employees’ perceptions of justice are stronger for low power distance oriented employees.

Lastly, our findings show that the impact on informational justice perceptions is stronger for employees with a low degree of uncertainty avoidance, as they may be satisfied with less information and fewer assurances given by their supervisors when compared to employees ranked high on uncertainty avoidance. This finding is in line with those of other studies that examine uncertainty avoidance in the workplace. For instance, employees with high uncertainty avoidance orientations were found to be less tolerant toward misinformation (Kim et al., 2020). In a similar vein, Yang et al. (2014) found that information insufficiency was negatively related to information-seeking behaviors, and this relationship was stronger for high uncertainty avoidance oriented individuals.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

The current findings have several theoretical implications. First, our findings contribute to the business communication literature by further understanding how leaders can effectively communicate with their subordinates in a way that improves their outcomes. Specifically, our study focuses on motivating language theory by extending the range of employee outcomes influenced by leader motivating language use. The empirically tested relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and employees’ perceptions of interactional justice shows the positive impact that strategic leader talk may have on employees. Both perceived interpersonal and informational justice were positively related to a leader’s use of motivating language. This is in line with previous studies that link motivating language with positive employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, performance, and intent to stay (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2007; Rowley Mayfield et al., 1998). Overall, this study’s investigated relationships show that leaders can strategically alter their speech to leave a positive impact on key employee outcomes such as perceived interactional justice.

The study also contributes to the justice literature in two directions. First, the study extends our understanding of what influences employee perceptions of both interactional justice dimensions: interpersonal and informational justice. Given the importance of interactional justice in affecting worker outcomes (Bies, 2015), it is crucial to understand factors that can increase such employee perceptions of justice. However, the literature that focuses on determinants of interactional justice is surprisingly scarce (Steiner, 2020; Turel & Connelly, 2013), and the model developed and tested in this study contributes to the literature by showing the effect of leader motivating language as well as cultural orientations on employee perceptions of both interpersonal and informational justice. Second, by examining power distance and uncertainty avoidance orientations as moderators of these relationships, we contribute to the ongoing research that aims to determine factors that may influence the relationship between interactional justice and its antecedents (Steiner, 2020).

Lastly, the study contributes to the literature that examines cultural dimensions at an individual level of analysis. In this study, we found that power distance and uncertainty avoidance are personal cultural orientations that moderate the strengths of the relationships between leaders’ use of motivating language and employees’ perceptions of interactional justice. The findings of our study add to the support for using cultural dimensions at an individual level of analysis as previous studies have also found that individual-level power distance and uncertainty avoidance orientations can moderate the effects of different contextual factors (e.g., job control, participation in decision making, abusive leadership) on employee attitudes and behaviors (e.g., job satisfaction, turnover intention, innovation, voice behavior, acquiescence silence, performance) (Hsiung & Tsai, 2017; Hu & Judge, 2017; Jang et al., 2018; Lam & Xu, 2019; Watts et al., 2020).

The study’s findings also offer practical implications for managers in organizations. Previous research shows that employee perceptions of injustice can negatively influence key employee attitudes and behaviors, such as absenteeism, job satisfaction, and performance, which may be detrimental to organizations (Colquitt et al., 2001). Motivating language is a communication strategy that can be used by managers to increase employee perceptions of interactional justice, which can ultimately lead to other positive employee outcomes that benefit the organization. Therefore, organizations may invest in training interventions and workshops for managers to foster the intentional use of motivating language when speaking to their followers.

Lastly, the results of this study can help practitioners better understand which variables may impact the effectiveness of leader motivating language in increasing employee perceived interactional justice, which is especially important in culturally diverse organizations. Understanding how an employee’s personal cultural orientation may moderate the relationship between both interpersonal and informational justice is of high value and should not be ignored.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

Even though this study increased our understanding of the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and employees’ perceived interpersonal and informational justice, it is not without limitations. One limitation is related to the design of the study, which is cross-sectional in nature. Hence, causality cannot be established. For instance, it could be that an individual’s perception of justice would also influence his or her perception of the leader’s use of motivating language. Indeed, De Cremer et al. (2007) found that employees’ perceptions of interactional justice would also affect their perceptions of leader transformational leadership. Therefore, longitudinal designs would appropriately address causality concerns in the proposed relationships. Another limitation is related to data collection, with the data for all the variables used in this study coming from a single source. As such, there is always the risk of common method bias with this method of data collection. Even though in the current study we tested for and found that the data is not likely to suffer from common method bias, using different sources to collect the data would increase the robustness of the results.

As for further directions for future research, while the current study found that motivating language is positively related to interactional justice, future studies could consider interactional justice as an underlying mechanism of the relationship between motivating language use and other employee outcomes. For instance, a higher perception of interactional justice plays an important role in reducing counterproductive work behaviors exerted by employees (Wang et al., 2012). Hence, future studies could examine the relationship between motivating language and counterproductive work behaviors by considering interactional justice as a mediating mechanism.

Additionally, it is worth noting that this study provides initial empirical support for the relationship between leaders’ use of motivating language and workers’ perceived interactional justice, and thus it is more concerned with the overall effect of motivating language. Hence, future studies could examine the intensity of the three dimensions of motivating language as well as their differential effect on interactional justice. For instance, Holmes and Parker (2019) found that the intensity of the three dimensions of ML is not always distributed equally. Such an examination of ML and its relationship to interactional justice would further enhance our understanding of this relationship. From this perspective, the 24-item ML scale would be more appropriate for this type of study. In our current study, we used a shorter nine-item version of the 24-item ML scale (Mayfield et al., 1995) as we focused on the ML construct as a whole. While this shorter version of the scale shows reliabilities that are comparable to the complete 24-item scale (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2007), the 24-item scale would be more accurate in capturing each dimension of motivating language (Mayfield & Mayfield, 2018).

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

This manuscript is original and is not under consideration or published elsewhere.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Albi Alikaj

Doreen Hanke

Author Biographies

Albi Alikaj is an assistant professor of management at Jacksonville State University. He received his Ph.D. at Texas A&M International University, and his research focuses on the examination of the effects of HR practices on various employee outcomes.

Doreen Hanke is an assistant professor of management at McNeese State University. Her research interests cover issues in leader communication and how such communication affects different employee outcomes.

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