Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (2.29) (2018) 602-606 International Journal of Engineering & Technology Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET Research paper Relationships Between Trust, Organizational Justice and Performance Appraisal Satisfaction: Evidence from Public Higher Educational Institution in Malaysia Saraih, U. N. 1* , Mohd Karim, K. 2 , Irza Hanie Abu Samah 3 , Amlus, M. H. 4 , Aida Nazima Abashah 5 1,3,4,5 School Of Business Innovation And Technopreneurship, Unimap, 01000 Kangar, Perlis 2 College Of Law, Government And International Studies, UUM, 06010 Sintok, Kedah *Corresponding Author E-Mail: * Ummi@Unimap.Edu.My Abstract The main objective of this present study is to reveal the role of trust as a mediator in the relationship between organizational justice and performance appraisal satisfaction. This study is carried out by distributing questionnaire among 340 staffs. In this research, the questionnaire is administered to staffs from various schools in one of the Malaysian Public Higher Educational Institution (PHEI). Data are analysed by using the PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). As a result, a significant effect of organizational justice on performance appraisal satisfaction with trust as the mediator F(2, 337)=.396, p<.01, R 2 =.7016, β=.7813, t(337)=21.29, p<.01 is found in this study. A Sobel test is conducted and found a mediation on the model (z=3.2447, p=.00, K 2 =.0213). Therefore, it is found that trust mediated the relationship between organizational justice and performance appraisal satisfaction. Cultivating the degree of trust among staffs towards the performance appraisal satisfaction; and creating a conductive environment for staffs to improve their perceived organiza- tional justice are the best strategies to achieve the goal for performance appraisal satisfaction in this institution. Theoretical and prac- tical implications based on the results of this study are highlighted. In this line, few suggestions for the institution management are provided. Keywords: Performance appraisal satisfaction; organizational justice; trus t 1. Introduction Performance appraisal satisfaction is a crucial factor in organiza- tion because it can lead to a positive behaviour of employee, which in turn can contribute to the improvement in organization performance. Therefore, to ensure that performance appraisal can positively affect employee behaviour and future improvement towards the organizational performance, employee must first has a satisfied reaction towards the process and output of the perfor- mance appraisal. Performance appraisal has been referred by (1) as a critical human resource practices in most of organizations. Previous authors (2) added that performance appraisal is important in identifying, rewarding, and disciplining employees based on their performance; hence developing the appropriate activities are salient in managing a good human resource management. In the local context, performance appraisal system in the govern- ment sector is determined by fulfilling the Annual Work Perfor- mance Report (AWPR), which also can be said as one of critical process in delivering the human resource practices. For example, recent empirical works (3) indicates that even though the process of performance appraisal tries to quantify the subjective elements in measuring employees’ performance into the standard evaluation AWPR form, however the process is still complicated and hard to be fairly accepted by employees. This may be because the em- ployees are varies towards the subjective elements towards what has been provided by the organization. For instance, the differ- ences may be due to the elements of organizational justice percep- tions among employees in the institutions. In addition, performance appraisal could be perceived as critical because the employees might have different assumptions towards the process. Therefore, when the employees assume performance appraisal is a just process, they will display a positive attitude in return. In contrast, when the employees assume performance ap- praisal is not a just process, they will display a negative attitude in return. Given that, organizational justice is become salient in pre- dicting the satisfaction of employees in the implementation of performance appraisal. (4) model of organizational justice is the most intimate factors that can be used in measuring employees’ perceived justice towards the implementation of performance appraisal system in the organization. The four factors of (5) model included of the procedural, distributive, informational and inter- personal justice. Walsh (2003) stated that the four factors based on (5) model can clearly analyzed the social (employees) opinions towards organizational justice in the evaluation or appraisal pro- cess. This was supported by other authors (6) who presented that organizational justice is significantly related to performance ap- praisal satisfaction. Existing literature revealed that trust was also a key factor of satis- faction for employees towards the performance appraisal system. First and foremost, trust may be said as an important determinant in the human resource practices particularly when involving the process of performance appraisal. Trust can influence the percep- tion and reactions between the assessors (supervisors) and assesse (employees) upon the process of performance appraisal. Second, trust also a meaningful consequence of organizational justice. For example, results of (7) presented that organizational justice and trust is significantly related. Hence, trust was the other factor that