Turnover Intentions and Political Influence Behavior: A Test of "Fight-or-flight" Responses to Organizational Injustice

We examined the role of organizational frustration as a linking mechanism between the perception of organizational injustice and fight (political influence behavior)/flight (turnover intentions) responses. The participants were 201 middle-level managers drawn from manufacturing and logistics companies in northern Malaysia. Data were collected by means of a printed questionnaire. Whereas all the three components of injustice-procedural, distributive, and interactional had significant positive impact on turnover intentions and political influence behavior, only procedural injustice and distributive injustice had such impact on frustration. Interestingly, organizational frustration played a partial mediating role in the relationship of distributive and procedural injustice with turnover intentions and political influence behavior. Implications of the findings for those in managerial roles and directions for future research are suggested.