An Empirical Investigation Of The Administrative Transparency Practices And Its Relationship To Organizational Justice In Universities In Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The purpose of the present study is to examine the administrative transparency (AT) practices of departmental chairs and its relationship with the organizational justice (OJ) at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (IAU) in Saudi Arabia. The present study used a structured survey questionnaire approach developed by the researchers that contained 32 items investigating three areas of AT (administrative communication, rules and regulations, faculty evaluation), and three areas of OJ (distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice). The survey was electronically distributed to a sample of (376) faculty members at IAU. The findings reported a “high” level of AT and OJ with means of (3.96 and 3.91) and with standar[1]d deviations of (1.02 and 1.12) respectively. Overall, the results show that AT is highly correlated with the OJ (r =0.908; p <0.001).  The findings also revealed a statistically significant difference in the levels of AT and OJ based on the gender of the departmental chairs, in favor of the females (p<0.01). While no statistically significant differences were reported based on other study variables (gender of participants, years of experience, academic rank), (p>0.05). The study called upon the upper leadership of IAU to support the culture of transparency and OJ for all academic and administrative personnel by providing a set of recommendation, such as getting all academic programs accredited by various national and international accreditation agencies, and increasing women empowerment and active participation in leading the university into an era of transparency and OJ.