How and When Mindfulness Enhances Justice Enactment? Moral Implications of Mindfulness

In this article, we identify whether, how, and when manager mindfulness translates into justice enactment. Through the lenses of Social-Cognitive Theory (SCT), we propose moral potency as a mechanism through which mindful managers enact higher levels of justice toward their subordinates. We further suggest that such moral implications of mindfulness are hindered under high levels of workload. We tested our moderated mediation model by conducting two complementing studies each with three-wave data collection. In Study 1, the data we collected from 419 managers working in the U.S. and the U.K. fully supported our model. We replicated and supported our findings with the data collected from 230 employees working in the U.S. Our study repositioned mindfulness within justice and SCT literatures while revealing its moral implications and boundary conditions. Through the presented findings and discussions we also respond to recent criticisms of divorcing mindfulness from its original ethical conceptualization.