Balancing organizational justice and leader–member exchange to engage workforce: Evidence from social cooperatives in Italy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is, first, to examine the role of two key organizational determinants of work engagement among employees operating in human service organizations – organizational justice and leader–member exchange (LMX) – in nonprofit organizations – i.e. social cooperatives in Italy – and, second, whether any interaction effect exists between these two variables, more specifically if LMX plays a moderating role in the relationship between organizational justice perception and employees’ engagement. Design/methodology/approach The analysis was developed through the administration of a questionnaire to 290 employees operating in ten nonprofit human service organizations in Italy. Findings The results support the hypothesis of a positive relation between both distributive and procedural justice and work engagement. In addition, the aforesaid relation was moreover found to be stronger among employees experiencing high levels of LMX than those reporting little LMX. Research limitations/implications Despite some limitations, the paper has both theoretical and managerial implications. Originality/value This paper contributes to the research on the important role of organizational justice in enhancing employees’ work engagement and the pivotal interacting role of the leader in boosting this relationship.