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systems of distributing rewards (e.g., consistently, accurately, ethically and lack of bias) this may lead to
induced the notion of procedural justice in organizations (Tyler & Blader, 2003; McShane et al., 2015).
Within a pay for performance model, many scholars view that communication, involvement,
performance evaluation and procedural justice have different meanings, but highly interrelated
constructs. For example, the competency of managers to appropriately implement communication
openness, allow employees to involve in the design and administration of pay systems, and use
performance evaluations in determining pay systems may lead to higher procedural justice (Ismail et al.,
2014; Newman et al., 2016). Although many studies have been done, the predicting variable of
administration of pay for performance plans has been largely ignored in the creative and innovative
compensation research literature (Najwa et al., 2016; Rizal et al., 2014). Hence, this situation stimulates
the researchers to fill in the gap of literature by quantifying the effect size of administration of pay for
performance plans on procedural justice. Specifically, this study will answer two important research
questions: Which administration of pay for performance plans affect procedural justice? and do
administration of pay for performance plans affect procedural justice?

Literature Review
Relationship between administration of pay for performance plans and procedural justice is consistent
with the notion of leadership theory. For example, role theory posits that distribution of rewards and
benefits is an important sign of high quality relationship between leaders and followers and this practice
may induce employees’ positive behavior (Graen, 1976). While, leader-member exchange theory explain
that in kind exchanges (e.g., morale and/or material) is an emblem of high quality relationship between
leaders and followers and this practice may enhance followers’ positive actions (Graen & Uhl-Bien,
1995). In the context of pay for performance plans, the notion of quality relationship between leaders and
followers is translated as communication, involvement and performance evaluation. The notion of these
theories has gained strong support from pay for performance research literature.
Several further studies were conducted using a direct effects model to examine pay for
performance using different organizational samples, such as perceptions of 139 participants who working
in retail and service industries in United States (Tyler & Blader, 2003), 171 participants from private
higher education institution in Malaysia (McShane et al., 2015), and 212 bank employees in the Midwest
region of the United States (Walumbwa et al., 2008). Outcomes of these studies found that the ability of
managers to openly communicate the information about pay for performance (e.g., explanations, sharing
information and negotiation), actively encourage employees to involve in pay for performance (e.g.,
suggestion and decision making) and appropriately use performance evaluation in determining pay
systems based on employee performance had enhanced procedural justice (McShane et al., 2015; Tyler &
Blader, 2003; Walumbwa et al., 2008). Thus, it was hypothesized that:

H1: Communication is positively related to procedural justice
H2: Involvement is positively related to procedural justice
H3: Performance evaluation is positively related to procedural justice

Methodology
A cross-sectional research design is employed because it allows the researchers to integrate the pay for
performance research literature, the semi-structured interview and the actual survey as the main
procedure of collecting data for this study. This method may help the researchers to gather accurate, less
bias and high quality data (Sekaran & Bougie, 2015). This study was conducted at fire and rescue
organizations in Peninsular Malaysia. At the initial stage of data collection, the self-report questionnaire
was adapted from the pay for performance literature. Next, the semi-structured interviews were
conducted involving four management and non-management employees who had working experienced
more than ten years in the organizations. Their opinions were used to understand the nature and features
of administration of pay for performance plans and procedural justice, as well as relationship between
such variables in the organizations. Information gathered from the interviews is very useful to be used in
improving the content and format of the self-report questionnaire for an actual survey. Further, a back-
translation technique was used to translate the questionnaire into Malay and English languages in order to
enhance the validity and reliability of the research findings (Sekaran & Bougie, 2015).