A case study towards understanding the relationship between organizational justice, organizational legitimacy and turnover intention: 2015 Bursa automotive industry strike

Abstract

The automotive industry makes up most of the the exports in Turkey with an annual total of 22 million dollars. The automotive industry employs hundred of thousands in the city of Bursa and is the heart of the automotive industry. The work stoppage action that automotive employees started in May 2015 with the demand of a rise in wages has become a case that also influences the international environment. In this case, automotive employees strongly believed that benefits were not distributed fairly and decisions related to benefits were not conducted fairly. As well, they believed that interpersonal relationships are not fair within the industrial union that they are a member of and this developed a negative perception concerning the legitimacy of the industrial union. This perception led many employees to intend to leave the membership of the industrial union and some left too. This study is qualitative research that aims to make the relationship between the three variables that are not handled together often in the literature more comprehensible. As stressed above, the method of the study is a case study. The case was analysed through newspaper reports that were published during the situation. Scanning was done within the visual and written press using the Google search engine. The encountered contents of the news about the case were examined towards the statements orientated towards the perception of injustice and the perception of legitimacy of the industry union and turnover intention. At the end of the study, a positive relationship between the three variables was observed and the model that demonstrates the relationship was proposed. Furthermore, future research recommendations are presented.