Can organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour reduce workplace deviance?

Purpose: This paper investigates the impact of organisational justice on organisational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance and examines the mediator effect of organisational citizenship behaviour between organisational justice and workplace deviance in higher education in Malaysia. Design/methodology: This study employs a deductive approach and uses non probability, especially judgmental sampling. It analyses data of faculty members from five universities in Malaysia. SEM-PLS3 is used to examine the research model and test the mediating effect of organisational citizenship behaviour on the relationship between organisational justice and workplace deviance. Findings: The results reveal the positive impact of organisational justice on organisational citizenship behaviour and the negative effects of organisational justice on workplace deviance. Further, the study confirms the mediating effect of organisational citizenship behaviour between organisational justice and workplace deviance, especially in higher education. Practical implications: This study guides managers and administrators, especially in public higher education settings, in implementing appropriate organisational mechanisms towards improving organisational citizenship behaviour. In addition, the findings can also provide insights for other public and private organisations alike in approaching workplace deviance. Originality/value: These research findings expand knowledge on workplace deviance behaviour by providing evidence for the different impacts of organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour.


Introduction
An organisation's efficiency and maximum outcomes in such a competitive market require factors that enhance workers' performance and efficiency (Eder & Eisenberger, 2008). Therefore, the prosperity of an organisation depends on how the employees perform in the workplace. Investigators and researchers recognise that workplace deviance is a significant issue in an organisation, which has increased sharply. Robinson and Bennett (1995) defined workplace deviance as voluntary behaviour that violates usual organisational standards and threatens organisation goals, members, or both. As employees encounter different types of deviance in their workplace, they often reciprocate to co-workers or deviate, adding costs to the organisation. Accumulating these costs to the extended breaks, wasted resources, sabotage, and the numerous other expenses associated with the wide range of deviance is evidence that workplace deviance is a severe and current issue in the workplace (Spector & Fox, 2010).
Employee theft or reciprocal deviance is a pervasive and severe problem for any organisation. According to one research of the University of Cincinnati, 64% of businesses have been victims of employee theft. In addition, unscheduled absenteeism can cost as much as $755 per employee per year (Ruiter & Hardy, 2019). According to Yekini, Ohalehi, Oguchi and Abiola (2018), organisational factors strongly impact employee theft. In addition, the researchers discovered that many businesses did not have preventive measures against employee theft in their workplaces.
Recently, most organisations have encountered workplace deviance behaviour between their employees (Abbasi, Ismail, Baradari & Shahreki, 2020b). Unfortunately, higher education cannot avoid this challenge because this service-oriented industry involves close and direct interaction of lecturers, students and employees of universities. In this interaction, the employees' and lecturers' behaviour significantly and directly influences students' performance and satisfaction.
Recent studies call for future investigations in the field of workplace deviance. Specifically, Bobocel (2021) agrees that investigating the impact of injustice in the workplace remains relevant. Further, Mackey, McAllister, Ellen III and Carson (2021) highlight that the measurement and direction of relationships within workplace deviance need further probing. In the same vein, Dirican and Erdil (2016), who researched organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and work behaviours in public universities in Turkey, recommend that future researchers consider organisational factors to measure work behaviour. Building upon the existing works, the outcomes obtained so far and the still unresolved issues, this study aims at answering the following research questions in the specific context of higher education institutions: Q1) Does organisational justice have an impact on workplace deviance? Q2) Does organisational justice have an impact on organisational citizenship behaviour? Q3) Does organisational citizenship behaviour have an impact on workplace deviance? Q4) Does organisational citizenship behaviour mediate the relationship between organisational justice and workplace deviance?
The empirical application considers the case of Malaysia higher education system. Malaysia is among the fastestgrowing metropolitan regions in South-East Asia in terms of economic and university development. However, its higher education industry is currently facing a reduction in students and a decrease in the government budget.
As a result, the Ministry of Higher Education declared that the allocation of public universities in Malaysia would be gradually reduced and encouraged the universities to be enterprising. However, in 2017, Malaysian higher education encountered two serious issues related to decreasing number of students and a reduced budget from the Ministry of higher education, thus, creating a situation where the interaction may be compromised. Nevertheless, we believe the Malaysian higher education settings to be of interest because higher education was one of the government's goals to introduce Malaysiaas one of the leading destinations for Asian students. This paper is structured as follows. The following section discusses the literature review, presenting the theoretical aspect and the hypotheses. Subsequently, the methodology in the study is elaborated, followed by the analysis of data. Finally, a discussion and implications of the results and concluding remarks for future research and practice are presented.

Key concepts
Workplace deviance (WD) is considered voluntary behaviour that violates usual organisational standards and threatens organisation goals, members, or both. Based on previous literature, workplace deviance has two parts. One of them is related to physical deviance, such as picking up something from the workplace or intentionally damaging the organisation's assets, which is called organisational deviance. The other focuses on workplace employees' behaviour like verbal abuse and sexual harassment, called interpersonal deviance (Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Deviant behaviour brings adverse implications to individuals, groups, and organisations, and therefore, specifying the predictors of abnormal behaviour in an organisation is essential for administrators and human resource managers (Abbasi & Ismail, 2017). Brunsson and Sahlin-Andersson (2000) claimed that the employee-organisation relationship in universities is treated similarly to relationships in other organisations.
Notwithstanding, there seems to be an increasing number of studies that examine this phenomenon in the specific context of higher education, looking for some specific behaviours that occur in this particular setting. For example, deviance in higher education has been examined by Dong and Phuong (2018). These authors argue that deviance leads to increased efficiency of employees and lecturers of higher education in Malaysia. Similarly, Abbasi, Ismail, Baradari and Javadinasab (2021) explored the impact of deviance in higher education in Malaysia and found that deviance in higher education in Malaysia is one of the obstacles of government to reach their goal to introduce Malaysia as the main destination for Asian students for higher education. However, Gürlek's (2021) results indicate that deviance positively impacts employees' productivity. Moreover, Chan, Chen, Pierce and Snow (2020) assert that the costs of employing unethical workers are higher than the direct cost of those workers in the workplace. Similarly, Abbasi and Wan Ismail (2018) presented a distinction between organisational and interpersonal targets of deviance, while Adeoti, Shamsudin and Mohammad (2020) highlighted the impact of job pressure and workload to increase deviance in an organisation. Although there are many studies on WD, understanding the predictors of workplace deviance is of paramount importance to reduce its potential negative effects on organisationtal performance (Mackey et al., 2021).
Organisational justice (OJ) presents a general perception of fairness in the organisation (Greenberg, 1990).Any unfair act could create various attitudinal problems. Hence it hasan important impact onpreventing workplace deviance in an organisation (Pérez-Rodríguez, Topa & Beléndez, 2019). On the other hand, the absence of justice potentially stimulates workplace deviance of employees (Qi, Liu & Mao, 2020). Bobocel (2021) suggested that future research investigate the impact of injustice in the workplace.Several studies establish the correlation between OJ and the employee's behaviour, particularly deviance in the workplace that leads to a decrease in employees' efficiency and productivity (Colquitt, Greenberg & Zapata-Phelan, 2005). Henle (2005) contends that the impact of OJ on workplace deviance is crucial. Bouazzaoui, Wu, Roehrich, Squire and Roath (2020) declared that one of the vital factors in behavioural studies is OJ, which considers the individual's perception of fairness in organisations. Organisational justice in higher education impacts the efficiency of higher education employees and lecturers in Malaysia (Sheeraz, Ahmad, Ishaq & Nor, 2020). Similarly, the findings of Ahmad and Jameel (2021) regarding higher education in Iraq show that higher education decision-makers should pay more attention to the justice or fairness of resources allocated, payment, promotion, and training to increase the performance of faculty members in Iraq universities.
Organisational citizenship behaviours (OCB) refers to individual actions that are discretionary but not rewarded directly by the organisation (Podsakoff, Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Maynes & Spoelma, 2014). One of the first research studies conducted over 50 years ago noted employees' autonomous behaviour in the workplace. However, Organ and Konovsky (1989) first presented the OCB concept, in which he explained OCB as individual beneficial behaviour that is not recognised directly by the organisational reward system. On the other hand, Bolino, Hsiung, Harvey and LePine (2015) stated that the effect of OCB is that those who exhibit the act may do so at the cost of their typical in-role job performance. Furthermore, they argued that it is complicated to prove the adverse effects of OCB because most studies provide OCB scales and in-role scales as supervisors measure.According to Xu and Yang (2021), when employees have a positive perception of fairness in an organisation, the possibility of OCB increases. Also, Jafari and Bidarian (2012) explained that employees who perceive the organisation as fair have a higher intention to help co-workers and participate in OCB. One recent study shows that non-economic motivations for OCB in construction megaprojects are high (Yang, He, Cui & Hsu, 2020), whereas an investigation of Rejeki, Setiyanti and Susanto (2019) in India's higher education revealed significant influences between OCB and the performance of higher education employees in India.

Theoretical framework and hypotheses
Social exchange theory (SET) describes the motivation for behaviour and attitudes exchanged among individuals, such as involvement and exchange with supervisors, colleagues, organisations and teams, interactions, and workplace relations (Shore et al., 2009). The main idea in SET is that parties enter into and maintain exchange relationships with others, expecting that doing so will be rewarding (Blau, 1968). Some researchers suggest that SET offers the best explanation for an employee willingness to participate and employees' standard of fairness in the organisation (Pierce & Maurer, 2009). Similarly, employees tend to behave according to their organisational relationships. If they believe in the reciprocal nature of their organisation, they will also act in a manner consistent with organisational rules (Umphress, Bingham, & Mitchell, 2010). Therefore, many researchers utilise the SET to elaborate on WD and organisational factors (Aloustani, Atashzadeh-Shoorideh, Zagheri-Tafreshi, Nasiri, Barkhordari-Sharifabad & Skerrett, 2020; Ilyas, Abid & Ashfaq, 2020).

Organisational justice and workplace deviance
Numerous researchers attempted to link distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice to workplace deviance. However, the cumulative effect of these variables on workplace deviance requires more study and work (Colquitt et al., 2005). Cropanzano, Rupp, Mohler and Schminke (2001) found that fairness improves individual workplace efficiency and motivates them psychologically in tackling the workload. Bennett and Marasi (2015) argue that workplace deviance is a salient problem in organisational behaviour. The variety of deviance and numerous reasons that lead to dysfunction in the workplace make this issue an important topic in organisational behaviour. One of the latest researches on human resource management highlighted reducing the workplace deviance required to enhance commitment and fairness between employees in an organisation (Amin, Situngkir & Aira, 2021).
Scholars indicate a significant role for organisational justice in employees' working life for a range of causes. Mainly, three models determine the cause of fair or unfair treatment, affecting employees' work attitudes, behaviours, and emotions. As the first cause, the instrumental aspect demonstrates that justice effectively performs an important impact on the economic needs of employees. Second, the correlational factor confirms that one's identity is affirmed among valued groups with fair treatment. Third, the moral virtue aspect discusses the fairness treatment implications to organisational loyalty to dominant moral standards (Folger, Cropanzano & Goldman, 2005).
It has been argued that some specific organisational-based factors are more vulnerable to workplace deviant behaviour. For example, Chen and King (2018) and Alias and Abu Samah (2013) argue that organisational factors play a critical role in shaping WD behaviours. In the same vein, Lugosi (2019) declared the importance of WD in the social sciences and highlighted the impact on organisation efficiency. Similarly, Rahman (2021) emphasised the importance of organisational justice on the efficiency of employees in an organisation. Further, Hany, Hassan and Badran (2020) showed that nurses' perceptions of organisational justice and workplace deviance are lower than the average. On the other hand, Gerlach (2019) shows that justice differentially impacts the quality and efficiency of the employee and employee-coworker relationships in the workplace. Finally, according to Kakavand, Neveu and Teimourzadeh (2019), organisational justice hurts deviance in an organisation and has a high impact on the selected determinant psychological resources and deviance. Therefore, based on the SET, we propose the following hypothesis.
H1: There is a negative relationship between organisational justice and workplace deviance.

Organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour
OCB is a critical behaviour affected by different factors (Nielsen, Hrivnak & Shaw, 2009). OCB has been considered one of the outstanding behaviours in organisations, which is self-motivation and awareness that is neither directly nor explicitly predicted by the formal incentive system of the organisation (Preenen, Oeij, Dhondt, Kraan & Jansen, 2016). On the other hand, according to Xu and Yang (2021), when employees have a positive perception of fairness in an organisation, the possibility of OCB increases. Jafari and Bidarian (2012) explained that employees with a higher perception of fairness tend to help co-workers and participate in OCB. In addition, they found a significant positive relationship between the components of OJ and OCB.
However, other studies have concluded that organisational justice is not a determining factor for predicting OCB, contradicting the seminal research of Organ and Konovsky (1989). Similarly, the implications of Sjahruddin and Sudiro (2013) study suggested that organisational justice is not a deciding factor for predicting OCB. Still, they revealed that OJ has a positive effect, although insignificant, on OCB. Their study should be repeated in an individualist society to validate the findings further. Other scholars assert that organisational justice directly impacts individual-level and organisational-level OCB (Mohammad et al., 2016). Likewise, Yorulmaz and Karabacak (2021) found that OJ has a high impact on employees' OCB.
Organisational factors play a critical role in shaping OCB (Chen & King, 2018). According to López-Cabarcos, Vázquez-Rodríguez, Piñeiro-Chousa and Caby (2019), there are positive and significant correlations between organisational justice and OCB. A more recent study by Ansari and Upadhyay (2021) reveals that OCB positively impacts team effectiveness and that organisational justice results in the development of corporate loyalty. In addition, Rice, Taylor and Forrester (2020) demonstrate that abusive supervision reflects an unpleasant experience that ultimately can turn employees to display poor OCB.Therefore, the researchers propose the following hypothesis: H2: There is a positive relationship between organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour.

Organisational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance
Workplace deviance and OCB are two critical aspects of employee behaviour that have a vital role in the survival of an organisation. A study from hotels across Taiwan provides evidence of the relationship between individual characteristics, both OCB and WD, on the hospitality of employees (Chen & King, 2018). One recent research shows that non-economic motivations for OCB in construction megaprojects are high . According to Yam, Klotz, He and Reynolds (2017), most employees intend to display OCB because they feel obliged. In the same vein, Kloutsiniotis and Mihail (2020) found OCB impacts high-performance work systems in an organisation. On the other hand, according to Kelloway, Loughlin, Barling and Nault (2002), OCB and WD are preserved as separate concepts and structures. Overall, there seems to be some evidence to indicate a relationship between OCB and WD.
There have been a plethora of studies on OCB. Employees who exhibit good citizenship and positive behaviour will enhance organisational survival (Davoudi, 2012). Podsakoff, Whiting, Podsakoff and Blume (2009) showed that OCB is significantly related to multiple organisational outcomes, confirming their importance and highlighting the need to understand these relationships' theoretical underpinnings. One of the latest investigations has recommended that coaches with a proactive personality have higher performance (Hsiao & Wang, 2020). Based on Kwahk, Yang and Ahn (2020), OCB positively impacts employee work behaviour, while the findings of Hongbo et al. (2021) demonstrate that pretending OCB in an organisation that turns to WD influences employees' efficiency in the workplace. Overall, there seems to be some evidence to indicate a relationship between OCB and WD. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: H3: There is a negative relationship between organisational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance.

Organisational citizenship behaviour as a mediator
Research on OCBhas been mainly on individual characteristics, task characteristics, organisational characteristics, and leadership behaviours. Although all four categories are essential to understanding citizenship behaviour, the organisational characteristic is a vital antecedent (Podsakoff et al., 2014). In addition, previous researchers argued that organisational factors are the key element for workplace deviance, making organisations more vulnerable to the workforce (Henle, 2005).
Employees tend to reciprocate with destructive behaviour when the organisation's perceptions of ethics, justice, support, and commitment are high. Therefore, this support is of great importance as it promotes positive workrelated outcomes (Taylor, Del Campo & Blancero, 2009). Similarly, Kaur and Randhawa (2021) highlighted that supportive managers have a major impact on increasing OCB in the organisation, while organisational justice plays a vital role in improving productivity (Alias & Abu Samah, 2013).
A vast number of studies are available on OCB (Podsakoff et al., 2014). Podsakoff et al. (2009) showed that OCB is significantly related to multiple organisational outcomes, confirming their importance and highlighting the need to understand the theoretical underpinnings of these relationships. Although many have used OCB as moderators, few empirical studies have employed OCB as a mediator variable in deviant behavioural studies (Hakim & Fernandes, 2017). A survey in hotels across Taiwan indicates that organisational factors significantly reduce WD and increase the OCB of employees (Chen & King, 2018). Thus, there is a constant relationship between organisational justice and OCB, and there is a consistent connection between OCB and WDB. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis: H4: Organisational citizenship behaviour mediate the relationship between organisational justice and workplace deviance.

Conceptual framework
The following framework ( Figure 1) is proposed based on the literature review supported by the social exchange theory.

Higher-Order Models (Reflective-Reflective)
One of the main reasons to include second-order construct in research is to reduce the model's complexity. According to Ringle, Sarstedt and Straub (2012), previous researchers focused on a single component layer. Still, it is better to refer to higher-order models or hierarchical component models with a two-layer variable for more accuracy. A higher component model was analysed in the current study by generating two second-order factors, workplace deviance, interpersonal and organisational, as the dimension of workplace deviance. Another variable analysed is the organisational citizenship behaviour construct, which also has two dimensions: organisational citizenship behaviour, organisational and interpersonal. Figure 2 highlighted the conceptual framework after implementing the second order.

Sample and data collection
Data were collected using non-probability sampling. A nonprobability approach was used, especially judgmental sampling, due to a lack of information regarding the number of staff and lecturers. The judgmental sampling method is a major type of nonprobability sampling that involves choosing subjects who are most advantaged or in the best position to provide the information required. Since suggestions of sample size in PLS-SEM build on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression characteristics, Cohen-Charash and Spector (2011) go back to more distinguished rules of thumb, including those suggested. Consequently, the minimum essential sample size will be at a significance level of 5%, the R 2 value of 0.10, and the 80% level of statistical power. Therefore, based on Cohen-Charash and Spector (2011), the minimum population sample for this study is 174 for 0.10, considering the 5 % scale minimum R 2 . The researcher personally distributed 230 questionnaires, and of these, 203 were returned (89% response rate). Of the collected questionnaires, 18 remained unanswered, or only a few pages were filled, leaving 185 surveys, demonstrating a reasonable response rate. According to Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle and Mena (2012), if the missing value is less than 5% per indicator, it should be replaced with mean. Therefore, the sample is acceptable to conduct SEM analysis (Hair et al., 2012).
The elaboration regarding the survey instrument is as follows (see Appendix 1 for the full statement of the items included in the survey): Organisational Justice: The 12-items of organisational justice (Colquitt et al., 2005) include three dimensions, distributive justice, interactional justice, and procedural justice. The sample items include "Has (he/she) treated you in a polite manner?" or "Has (he/she) treated you with dignity?" The authors utilisea five-point Likert scale and ask respondents to rate each statement from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).

Organisational Citizenship Behaviour: Organisational citizenship behaviour individuals (OCBI) and
Organisational citizenship behaviour -Organisation (OCBO) were assessed using Lee and Allen's (2002) 14-item measure. The sample items include "Willingly give my time to help others who have work-related problems" or "I adjust my work schedule to accommodate other employees' requests for time off ". All 14 OCB items were measured on a five-point Likert scale. The authors utilisea five-point Likert scale and ask respondents to rate each statement from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).
Workplace Deviance Behaviour: Deviance behaviour comprises various destructive work behaviours, from simple expressions like gossiping and taking unapproved breaks to more severe actions. Workplace deviance was divided into organisational deviance and interpersonal deviance using the ten items adapted fr om Robinson and Bennett (1995). The sample items included "Spent too much time fantasising or daydreaming instead of working" or "Come in late to work without permission or taking a longer break." The authors use a five-point Likert scale and ask respondents to rate each statement from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The variables are as shown in Appendix 1.
The present research used SEM-PLS.3 to check the statistical links between the items of each factor and among the elements of dependent and independent variables. Furthermore, structural equation modelling and PLS allow the correlations between the variables to be examined and recognise probable relationships or pathways among the variables. Thus, PLS can be a preferable method in measuring categorical variables with nonprobability sampling methods and mediating tests. Moreover, PLS has been the standard estimation method in the research. Accordingly, the researchers utilisedSEM-PLS3 to examine the hypothesis and research model and test the mediating effect of OCB on the relationship between OJ and WD.

Demographic characteristics of the respondents
The sample includes 118 females and 67 males. 9.7% of respondents were below 25 years, 44.3% were between 25-34 years, 24.9% between 35-44 years, 15.7 % between 45-54 years and 5.4% were 55 and above. The majority of respondents were Bumiputra 93.5%, 1.6% Indian, 1.1% Chinese and 3.8% other. In terms of the position in the organisation, 16.8% were academic staff/executive, around 8.1% were lecturers, 7.5% were from the finance department, 7.1% were from information technology, 6.5 from international student office, and 54% were other employees. In terms of educational background, most respondents had a bachelor's degree and below (82.7%), 11.9% had a master's degree, and 5.4% had a doctoral degree. Unfortunately, academic staff tend less to respond in terms of job position, representing 25%. Although most of the questionnaires were distributed to academic staff, some of the academic staff may have ticked the 'other employees' option. It might be due to the fear that the result of deviance among academicians will be reported high or that they prefer to prevent any possible question arising from it.

Convergent validity
Convergent validity explained that a set of items needs to represent a similar and underlying construct revealed by their one-dimensionality (Hair, Sarstedt, Hopkins & Kuppelwieser, 2014). As a significant outer loading could still be fairly weak, generally outer loadings should be higher than 0.7 or at least equal to 0.7 (Hair et al. 2014). This study showed that the factor loadings for each construct ranged from 0.793 to 0.907. Only OC1, OC8, and OC10 were deleted due to outer loading lower than 0.7.One of the old methods for internal consistency testing is Cronbach's alpha. In general, the lower accepted limit of coefficient for Cronbach's alpha is 0.70. In this study, the Composite Reliability (CR) is between 0. 912 to 0.949. The finding of the study shows that the average variance extracted is around or above 0.7. Accordingly, the validity (AVE) and reliability (CR) exist for the constructs of this study (Table 2).

Discriminant validity (FORNELL-LARKERS)
Discriminant validity in this research was tested at the construct level using Fornell and Larker's (1981) criterion. Fornell and Larcker's criterion explains that the square root of the AVE for each construct needs to be higher than another construct's correlation with other ones (inter-construct correlation). As shown in Table 3, the square root of AVE for each construct known as diagonal values is higher than the existed correlation among other constructs known as off-diagonal values in both columns and rows. Moreover, no inter-construct correlation value is higher than AVE's square root and satisfies the discriminant validity criterion.

Test of hypotheses
As highlighted in Table 4, there is a significant negative association between OJ and WD. In addition, recent research on organisational justice shows OJ negatively correlated with WD (Mahmud, Kenny, Zein & Hassan, 2015). These results concur with other studies that supported and presented that organisational justice significantly affects workplace deviance. Accordingly, Hypothesis H1 (organisational justice has a negative effect on workplace deviance) is supported. Previous studies support the findings of this study result (Chen & King, 2018;Pérez-Rodríguez et al., 2019) as well as earlier studies conducted in higher education institutions in Iraq and Malaysia (Ahmad & Jameel, 2021;Dong & Phuong, 2018). These results can be read by saying that if higher education employees respect the different dimensions of justice, it may reduce the workplace deviance of employees and lecturers in university and eventually improve the efficiency of higher education in Malaysia.
Another key finding is a positive association between OJ and OCB (see Table 4). As in López-Cabarcos et al.
(2019), our results suggest that employees who have a higher perception of fairness in an organisation have more intention to develop citizenship behaviour. One latest research on OCB and justice declared that OJ has a high impact on citizenship behaviour (Yorulmaz & Karabacak, 2021). This research results provided empirical support for Hypothesis H2 (there is a positive relationship between organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour). Consistent with previous literature, there is a positive and direct relationship between organisational justice and organisational citizenship behaviour (Rice et al., 2020;Yorulmaz & Karabacak, 2021). This result implies that if higher education employees in Malaysia feel justice and fairness, they are more likely to engage in OCB over the long term. In the same vein, based on the research on Malaysia and Turkish higher education, when faculty members' perception of OJ was high, they were motivated to exhibit OCB. This may help the students, colleagues, department, and university to achieve their goals (Dirican and Erdil, 2016;Sheeraz et al., 2020).
The results in Table 4 also showed a significant negative association between OCB and WD. The se two factors are critical to employee behaviour, which have a vital role in the survival of each organisation, business, or industry. OCB consists of acts that help the organisation and its members, whereas WD comprises behaviours that negatively affect the workplace and personnel (Bennett & Marasi, 2015). Some researchers provided evidence that an organisation with positive citizenship behaviour enjoys a competitive advantage in this competitive work environment (Preenen et al., 2016). However, a recent study found that WD continues to be a pervasive issue and costly to organisations (Abbasi, Baradari, Sheghariji & Shahreki, 2020a).
Our results together provide empirical support to Hypothesis H3 (there is a negative relationship between OCB and WD) and are consistent with earlier studies (Haerani, Hakim & Putra, 2020;Rice et al., 2020). Furthermore, since researchers agree that OCB is a crucial factor in higher education and that there are significant influences between OCB and the performance of higher education (Abbasi et al., 2021;Rejeki et al., 2019), this research contributes to successfully emphasise the importance of OCB to reduce deviance in higher education.

Discussion and implications of the results
This study has examined the impact of organisational justice on organisational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance. Also, it has assessed the mediator effect of organisational citizenship behaviour between organisational justice and workplace deviance in the particular setting of higher education institutions in Malaysia. The proposed model and the findings obtained contribute to intriguing policy implications, as discussed below.
First, human resource managers in higher education institutions may utilise the result of this study to explain their efforts in designing performance improvement of faculty members to curtail workplace deviance. Since it is in organisations' best interests to have employees with high levels of OCB and justice, this study recommends that the managers elucidate justice between employees and encourage the culture of citizenship behaviour, which leads to lower employee deviant behaviours. Our findings provide insights to Malaysian higher education on improving OCB, reducing deviant behaviours, and persuading higher authorities within the administration of faculties and universities to ensure organisational justice prevails.
Second, our findings align with those discussed in the literature by researchers such as Ahmad and Jameel (2021). Their research on higher education in Iraq universities showed that the performance of faculty members improved when faculty deans practised fairness of resources allocation, payment and promotion. In the same vein, our findings also suggest that injustice in higher education may be appropriate and instrumental for the effective functioning of organisations. Specifically, our results demonstrate that a low level of OJ can impact individual efficiency and organisational outcomes. Once faculty members perceive a high level of justice, they are likely to put in the necessary effort at challenging tasks, have higher levels of identification with the authorities, and make positive expectations about achieving organisational goals, thereby lowering the probability of deviant behaviours.
Third, a growing body of literature recognizes that OCB is observed by being self-motivated and intentionally aware. It is neither indirectly nor explicitly predicted by the formal incentive system of an organisation but, in general, enhances function (Nielsen et al., 2009). Results of the current study show that higher education employees can increase efficiency if they observe and practice the dimensions of citizenship behaviour. This outcome implies that if higher education employees in Malaysia feel justice and fairness, they are more likely to engage in OCB over the long term. According to some research in Turkish and Malaysia higher education institutions, if faculty members' perception of OJ were high, they would be motivated to exhibit OCB and would support the students, colleagues, department, and university to achieve their vision (Dirican & Erdil, 2016;Sheeraz et al., 2020).
Finally, existing researches have paid little attention to the role of OCB as mediating effect since there is a lack of empirical studies that have employed OCB as a mediator variable on workplace deviance. Although some have used OCB as moderators (Hakim & Fernandes, 2017), the researchers opine that a review of OCB literature as a mediator indicates not much work on OCB. Hence, with scant research that underlie these relationships, this research has successfully addressed the gap by testing a model of OCB as a mediator of OJ and WD.

Concluding remarks
This research examined the relationship between organisational justice and workplace deviance with mediating effect of organisational citizenship behaviour. Results of the study show that organisational justice is considered a vital predictor of workplace deviance. Organisational citizenship behaviour presents a significant predictor of workplace deviance behaviours, and a growing body of literature recognises its importance. So, selecting employees with more substantial concern and belief in their abilities might be a good starting point for human resources to improve personnel efficiency and reduce workplace deviance. Also, performance improvement is a function of choosing proactive individuals and assigning such people to jobs where they have more freedom to show how they can do tasks. As not every individual could be disposed and inclined to participate in job crafting, it is a way to increase employee's awareness of how they can influence their job in terms of their work context. These employees might be encouraged to think about changing their work environment with relatively simple adaptations. It may be a signal that the organisation welcomes employees who have these active traits.
Several limitations exist and pave the way for future direction. First, this research only focused on organisational justice on deviance in the workplace. Therefore, some unique factors may be relevant to predict workplace deviance. Second, although data were collected only once and took almost two months, it might be affected by some unequal distribution during the sixty days. Future studies would collect data over a period longer than two months to analyse the different reactions of employees to managers' decisions or behaviour. Third, this study focuses on higher education faculty members in Malaysia and academic staff or high-level employees to cover opinions from a specific higher education with a varied profile. Future research can investigate whether education level in universities can influence workplace deviance. Last but not least, the prospective study can separate academic and non-academic staff employees and compare the workplace deviance between the different groups to avoid any potential biases in the result.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
We received financial support from Faculty of Business Administration and Accountancy KhonKaen University, Thailand for publish of this manuscript.