Effects of perceived justice for coaches on athletes' satisfaction, commitment, effort, and team unity

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between perceived justice for sports team coaches and athletes' satisfaction, commitment, effort, and team unity. A questionnaire was utilized to gather data from 161 futsal (10 teams) and volleyball (10 teams) players after a midseason game day in Iran. Data analysis was conducted using the partial least squares method. The results indicate that, as expected, all three dimensions of perceived justice, namely distributive, procedural, and interactional justice, were positively and significantly related to athletes' satisfaction, commitment, and effort. In addition, procedural justice and interactional justices were positively related to team unity, whereas there was no significant relationship between distributive justice and team unity. These results clearly indicate the important role played by coaches' distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in building athletes' satisfaction, commitment, effort, and team unity and have important practical and theoretical implications.