Effects of human resources management practices and organizational justice perceptions on organizational cynicism: A research on municipalities in a developing country

Organizational cynicism is one of the key factors that should be monitored in an organization since it is largely due to organizational reasons and it can be expressed that some of the most important reasons are human resources management (HRM) practices and organizational justice concepts. Although there are some researches on the bilateral relations of these variables with each other, in the literature, no study that examined the relationships and effects be-tween these three concepts, at the same time, has been observed. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship between perceived HRM practices and organizational cynicism with the mediating role of perceived organizational justice. In this study, descriptive approach was applied and to test the research model; a quantitative method and questionnaire-based survey were conducted. The survey data were collected from the employees across local administra-tions (municipalities) in a developing country, Northern Cyprus, by using convenience sampling method. In order to test the conceptual framework, SPSS v24, Hayes Process v3.4 and Amos v22.0 Programs were used. In this context, in SPSS program, exploratory factor analyses and linear regression analysis were performed. Besides, Amos Program was used for confirmatory factor analyses. In addition, Hayes Process analysis was applied to determine the mutual relationships between variables and the direct and indirect effects between each other. According to the results of the analysis, it is observed that the perceived organizational justice mediates the relationship between perceived human resources management practices and organizational cynicism. In other words, the results proved that effective application of contemporary HRM approaches boosts the perception of organizational justice and at the same time helps to reduce organizational cynicism and also high perceived organizational justice reduces organizational cynicism. In addition, in this study, the scale developed by Singh (2004), which was widely used in the measurement of HRM practices in the literature, was further developed by the addition of work conditions, and at last it has been transformed into a more comprehensive scale that can be used in both public and private sectors. Thus, it has been made more appropriate for today's HRM practices and theory. Consequently, this study contributes to the relevant theoretical literature and has some important implications for managers.