Effects of human resources management practices and organizational justice perceptions on organizational cynicism: A research on municipalities in a developing country

Article history: Received: October 14, 2019 Received in revised format: November 29 2019 Accepted: January 15, 2020 Available online: January 18, 2020 Organizational cynicism is one of the key factors that should be monitored in an organization since it is largely due to organizational reasons and it can be expressed that some of the most important reasons are human resources management (HRM) practices and organizational justice concepts. Although there are some researches on the bilateral relations of these variables with each other, in the literature, no study that examined the relationships and effects between these three concepts, at the same time, has been observed. Therefore, this study focuses on the relationship between perceived HRM practices and organizational cynicism with the mediating role of perceived organizational justice. In this study, descriptive approach was applied and to test the research model; a quantitative method and questionnaire-based survey were conducted. The survey data were collected from the employees across local administrations (municipalities) in a developing country, Northern Cyprus, by using convenience sampling method. In order to test the conceptual framework, SPSS v24, Hayes Process v3.4 and Amos v22.0 Programs were used. In this context, in SPSS program, exploratory factor analyses and linear regression analysis were performed. Besides, Amos Program was used for confirmatory factor analyses. In addition, Hayes Process analysis was applied to determine the mutual relationships between variables and the direct and indirect effects between each other. According to the results of the analysis, it is observed that the perceived organizational justice mediates the relationship between perceived human resources management practices and organizational cynicism. In other words, the results proved that effective application of contemporary HRM approaches boosts the perception of organizational justice and at the same time helps to reduce organizational cynicism and also high perceived organizational justice reduces organizational cynicism. In addition, in this study, the scale developed by Singh (2004), which was widely used in the measurement of HRM practices in the literature, was further developed by the addition of work conditions, and at last it has been transformed into a more comprehensive scale that can be used in both public and private sectors. Thus, it has been made more appropriate for today's HRM practices and theory. Consequently, this study contributes to the relevant theoretical literature and has some important implications for managers. © 2020 by the authors; licensee Growing Science, Canada


Introduction
Organizations aim to achieve certain organizational goals. In order to achieve these goals, members of the organization are expected to share the objectives of the organization, to strive to work effectively and efficiently, and even to make sacrifice when necessary. Moreover, employees need to have a high level of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. That is why, modern management theories impose responsibilities for managers to develop their employees' loyalty, satisfaction and performance levels (Gül et al., 2008). It is confirmed in many scientific studies that these concepts and employee outcomes are related to organizational cynicism. Cynicism, for example, causes a decrease in organizational commitment, low job satisfaction and also work alienation (Abraham, 2000;282). According to some other researches, it has been found that organizational cynicism is the reason of low productivity (Kanter & Mirvis, 1989) and low job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Dean et al., 1998). In another study by Reichers et al. (1997), it is found that cynical employees are less likely to cooperate with organizational change efforts. Besides, organizational cynicism is mediating the relationship between hope and behaviors and sympathy and behaviors (Eaton, 2000). Consequently, organizational cynicism is one of the key factors that should be monitored in an organization since it is largely due to organizational reasons.
That is why, it is important to determine the predecessors of organizational cynicism. The problems experienced in the management processes, the attitude of the managers and many similar factors may cause cynicism. In literature, organizational justice is one of the reasons of cynicism. If the employees have the perception of injustice, it is inevitable for them to act according to their perceptions and to show their cynic behaviors, even if it is claimed that everything is managed fairly and legitimately in the organization. It is observed that positive attitudes and behaviors arise when the employees' perception of organizational justice is high, and negative attitudes and behaviors appear when it is low and there is a significant and negative relationship between organizational justice perception and organizational cynicism (Purtul, 2018;Yazıcıoğlu & Gençer, 2017;Naktiyok et al., 2015). In this context, in the literature there are some findings that there is a statistically significant, positive and very strong relationship between employee perceptions of human resources management and perceptions of organizational justice, and also HRM practices play an important role in achieving organizational justice (Bayramlı, 2017). That is why, HRM practices of an organization should be efficient and effective.
As a summary, it is important to examine the relationships between the concepts of "HRM Practices", "Organizational Justice" and "Organizational Cynicism" and determine the predecessors of these organizational variables. Although there are some researches on the bilateral relations of these variables with each other, in the literature, no study that examined the relationships and effects between these three concepts, at the same time, could be found. In other words, there is no study in which these three variables were investigated in a holistic approach.

Research Aim and Objectives
The main purpose of this study is to determine whether human resource management practices affect organizational cynicism through perceived organizational justice. Furthermore, another purpose is to examine the cause and effect relations between these organizational variables. In this context, as relevant to the study, the following objectives were identified.
 To investigate the relationships between the concepts of "HRM Practices", "Organizational Justice" and "Organizational Cynicism".  To investigate the effects of HRM Practices and Organizational Justice perceptions of individuals on Organizational Cynicism.  To examine the cause and effect relations between these organizational variables.

Research Model
In order to reveal the relationships between the variables, "HRM Practices", "Organizational Justice" and "Organizational Cynicism", a research model is developed which is shown in Fig. 1. The interaction of variables is tested with this research model.

Research Questions
This study focuses on the following research questions:


Does HRM practices have an impact on the perception of organizational justice?  Does HRM practices have an impact on organizational cynicism?  Does organizational justice perceptions have an impact on organizational cynicism?
 Is there an indirect (mediating) effect of organizational justice on the perceptions of HRM practices and organizational cynicism?

Research Hypotheses
Basic assumptions on which the research is based are the following: H1: HRM practices affect organizational justice positively.

H4:
Organizational justice plays a mediating role between HRM practices and organizational cynicism.

Human Resources Management (HRM) Practices
Physical assets, financial assets, intangible assets and human resources are the sources that affect organizational performance in all organizations, and in this context. While the importance of all these assets varies according to the organizations, human resources are like a "glue" that holds all other assets together (Mathis & Jackson, 2008). Therefore, human resources are considered the most important asset of an organization, but very few organizations are able to fully harness its potential (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). That is why, in and order to achieve organizational goals, human resources management activities play an important role. Human resources management is the process that an organization motivates and activates all of its employees in order to attain its organizational goals effectively and efficiently (Bayraktaroğlu, 2008). Besides, it is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating employees, and of attending to their labor relations, health and safety, and fairness concerns (Dessler, 2014). Consequently, the main purpose of HRM is to achieve the highest level of efficiency by placing the right people in the right time to the right jobs, and to achieve organizational goals in time (Solaklar, 2003). According to Dessler (2014), the main functions of HRM are as follows: • Conducting job analyses (determining the nature of each employee's job) • Planning labor needs and recruitment.
• Orienting and training new employees.
• Training employees and developing managers.
• Career planning and development.
• Providing incentives and benefits.
When the scientific researches in the literature are examined, it is observed that effective human resources management enhances employees' job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational justice feelings, and also their positive feelings towards the organization. For example, a study by Ergün and Kesen (2014), shows that positive behaviors and attitudes, extensive training, training in multiple functions and incentives are negatively affecting organizational cynicism. It has also been found out that there is a statistically significant, positive and very strong relationship between employee perceptions of human resources management and perceptions of organizational justice (Bayramlı, 2017). In another research by Rençber (2014), there are significant and severe relationships were determined between HRM practices, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Additionally, the findings, by Warsame (2015), set up that there were positive relationships between HRM practices and organizational commitment. Besides, the research, by Nwachukwu and Chladková (2017), shows that a significant positive association exists between human resource planning, training and development, employee compensation and employee satisfaction. Moreover, having an effective management of HRM functions increases both employee performance and organizational effectiveness in various ways. One of the studies on this subject by Singh (2004) was conducted on 82 Indian firms indicates that there is a significant relationship between the two human resources practices, namely, training and compensation, and perceived organizational and market performance of the firm. In another research by Huselid (1995) it is concluded that these practices have an economically and statistically significant impact on both intermediate employee outcomes (turnover and productivity) and short-and long-term measures of corporate financial performance.

Organizational Justice
In literature, there are many definitions of organizational justice. Cropanzano et al. (2007) defines that organizational justice is the perception of individuals about moral and ethical behaviors of an organization. Folger and Cropanzano (1998), in their book which is known as "Organizational Justice and Human Resources", described organizational justice as an expression that is related to individuals' employment conditions that led them to believe in fair or unfair behaviors. The studies on justice, which means oughtness or righteousness, begins with Adams' Equity Theory. This theory is related to the equity or inequity that employees perceive by comparing them with the benefits of the other employees (Luthans, 1981: 197). As a result of this comparison, employees and managers who think that they are in favor of equity develop positive behaviors related to their jobs; in case of inequity, they develop negative behaviors. This situation reveals the employee's justice perceptions. In general terms, organizational justice is the employees' justice perception that is related to practices in an organization (Greenberg, 1996: 24). Organizational justice; has an important role in organizations. Employees will exhibit negative emotions and behaviors when they perceive unfair behaviors and practices in the distribution of outputs in the workplace (Latham & Pinder, 2005:485-516). Employees request their superiors, other representatives of the organization and their colleagues to be fair to them. Fair behaviors at work are necessary to work together efficiently (Cropanzano et al., 2007). Researches on organizational justice has shown that the perception of justice at work can affect the work attitudes and behaviors of employees (Colquitt et al., 2001). Perceived organizational justice has a significant impact on employees' behaviors and attitudes, that is, such behaviors and attitudes may cause negative consequences for employees depending on their perceptions. When employees' perception of organizational justice is low, their performance and job satisfaction may reduce; moreover, they can show harmful and aggressive behaviors. As a matter of fact, the perceived organizational justice affects the behaviors and attitudes of the employees working in different positions within the organization. For example, depending on organizational justice perceptions, employees' organizational commitment and trust in the organization decrease, the intention to leave the organization increases, the level of organizational citizenship does not reach the desired level, the health conditions of the employees are deteriorating and a general feeling of tiredness and boredom is observed (Çağ, 2012).
There are many researches on organizational justice in management literature. In these studies, organizational justice is divided into dimensions in order to be understood better. In this study, organizational justice is addressed as interactional justice which consists of the combination of interpersonal and informational justice dimensions, as many researchers and theorists do today, and also distributive justice and procedural justice.

Distributive Justice
Distributive justice is considered as the justice of the distribution of outputs. Homans (1961), who had used the term distribution justice for the first time in the literature, defined distributional justice as social behaviors in the exchange of material and intangible goods, that are expressed as promotion or symbols of respect. Employees will probably be more angry and unhappy when they feel that there is unfairness in the rules of distributive justice. Leventhal (1976) stated that individuals should not only be affected by the distribution of achievements, but also pay attention to procedural justice which means that information about the distribution is shared with the relevant units. Folger and Cropanzano (1998) define procedural justice as justice matters related to procedures, mechanisms and processes utilized in the distribution of achievements. The fairness of the processes can be achieved by applying the six justice rules. In this context, processes must be unbiased, true, correctable, representable, moral, ethical and without prejudice (Leventhal et al.,1980). Procedural justice affects organizational commitment, intention to stay in the organization, organizational citizenship, trust in superiors, satisfaction with decisions, labor and performance positively (Skarlicki & Foyger,1997).

Interactional Justice
Bies &and Moag (1986) express interactional justice as the characteristics of interpersonal behaviors during the implementation of organizational procedures. They also argue that interactional justice is separate from procedural justice. Because, while procedural justice refers to the process of expressing the structural nature of the decision-making process, interactional justice refers to a social change between the two sides. Additionally, Niehoff and Moorman (1993: 527-556) define that interactional justice is the sense of fairness that employees feel in the implementation of the methods and decisions used in the decisionmaking process. In this study, interactional justice was accepted as a third dimension of organizational justice.

Organizational Cynicism
In the context of the organization, the concept of cynicism began to develop in the 1980s and became the subject of interdisciplinary field such as organizational behavior, public relations, human resources management, and business management (James, 2005). Therefore, there is no consensus on a universal definition of the concept. According to Dean et al. (1998), organizational cynicism includes negative beliefs and feelings of the employee against the organization in an explicit or hidden manner. According to some researchers, organizational cynicism is defined as a situation that occurs when employees think that the organization, they work at is not honest (Johnson & O'Leary-Kelly, 2003). Kannan-Narasimhan and Lawrence (2012) describe organizational cynicism as negative feelings of employees against the organization such as despair and frustration. According to another definition, organizational cynicism is a result of the frustrations and unfair organizational processes in the organization (Wilkerson et al., 2008). As can be seen from the definitions, the concept of cynicism is a negative concept in general terms and reflects the undesired thoughts. There are various factors that cause the organizational cynicism. In literature, these factors are examined from two aspects as personal and organizational factors. Personal characteristics such as gender, marital status, age, educational status and duration of service are considered as factors affecting the genesis of organizational cynicism. Besides, some other factors such as violation of psychological agreement, organizational policy, perceived organizational support, role conflict, and perception of injustice within the organization are stated as organizational factors that play a role in the formation of organizational cynicism (Karacaoğlu & İnce, 2012: 77-92). In the literature, important findings have been observed in the studies related to the relationship between organizational justice and organizational cynicism. In studies by (Bernerth et al., 2007;Bommer et al., 2005;Efeoğlu & İplik, 2011;James, 2005) it was concluded that organizational cynicism attitudes decrease when the justice perceptions of employees towards their organizations increase. From the aspect of organizational outcomes, cynicism brings about many negative results that can cause significant damage, such as reducing the efficiency and effectiveness of organizations. These results can be expressed as the decreasing of organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship, organizational trust, organizational justice; and the increasing of organizational exhaustion and work alienation (Abraham, 2000;Andersson & Bateman, 1997;Bommer et al., 2005;Eaton, 2000;James, 2005;Johnson & O'Leary-Kelly, 2003;Naus, 2007;Wanous et al., 1994). The concept of organizational cynicism, which is defined as a negative attitude towards the organization, consists of three dimensions as cognitive, affective and behavioral (Dean et al., 1998). That is why, in this study, organizational cynicism is examined in three dimensions.

Cognitive Dimension
In the cognitive dimension, it is emphasized that the institution and the individuals working in the institution lack of honesty. It is observed that individuals with cynic attitudes have the following beliefs (Brandes, 1997:30;Brandes & Das, 2006: 237;Dean et al., 1998: 345-346;Kalağan, 2009: 46).
• The practices in organizations are not based on principles.
• Official statements prepared by organizations are not taken seriously by employees.
• Human behavior in the organization is unstable and unreliable.
• Individuals in the organization may exhibit behaviors such as lying, and cheating.
• Relations within the organization depend on personal interests. Thus, employees can sacrifice values such as sincerity, honesty and accuracy for the sake of their interests and behave out of conscience and morality.

Affective Dimension
The affective dimension of organizational cynicism includes strong emotional reactions such as disrespect, anger, distress and embarrassment (Abraham, 2000, p.269). For example, cynic individuals may feel a sense of contempt and anger against the organization, or they may feel pain, disgust, and even shame when they think of the organization. Therefore, cynicism is associated with all manner of negative emotion (Brandes, 1997:31;Dean et al., 1998:346).

Behavioral Dimension
According to the behavioral dimension, employees who perform cynic behaviors may tend to make pessimistic predictions about the events occurring within the organization (Dean et al., 1998:346). Moreover, from time to time, employees may exhibit behaviors such as complaining, teasing and criticizing. In organizations, cynic behaviors can be also demonstrated by non-verbal behaviors (Brandes & Das, 2006:240).

Participants and Procedure
In this study, in order to achieve the research objectives and to maximize the validity of results, quantitative research method was utilized. The survey data were collected from employees across local administrations in Northern Cyprus through a questionnaire. The research model was intended to be tested on a convenient sample. That is why, this study was based on the non-probability sampling technique and the convenient sampling type. The method convenience sampling was used for the reasons of convenience and accessibility of the participants. Consequently, the population of the research was determined as the employees in municipalities in Northern Cyprus. Considering the "Local Administrations Report (2017)" of Northern Cyprus State Planning Organization, the total number of employees in municipalities is 3350. As a result of the survey conducted within the scope of this research, 366 convenient questionnaires were acquired after the elimination of faulty questionnaires. According to Yazıcıoğlu and Erdoğan (2004: 49-50), the sample size of 5000 population by the reliability of 0.95 and by the sampling error of 0.05 should be 357. That is why, it is considered that a sample of 366 individuals is adequate and it may help achieving the purpose of the study.

Measurement Scales
In order to measure three variables ("HRM Practices", "Organizational Justice", and "Organizational Cynicism) of the study, the scales developed by some researchers in the literature were utilized. In the study, the scales about organizational justice and organizational cynicism were used from previous researches and tested these scales in advance. Additionally, Singh's "HRM Practices" scale has been further developed and adapted. Details about the generation of the scales are presented below.

HRM Practices Scale
The scale for HRM practices has been quoted from mostly a scale developed by Singh (2004). This scale was also used in the studies by Absar et al. (2010), Bakalcı (2010) and Hırlak (2015). Singh's scale consists of 7 dimensions and has 36 expressions totally. These dimensions are as follows; selection, training, performance appraisal, career planning, employee involvement, job description and compensation. In the survey prepared for the research, compensation dimension of Singh's scale was extracted, because it is not a suitable for the local administrations (municipalities). However, considering that the expressions on compensation are not suitable for the municipalities and the public sector, four expressions about the compensation dimension which are prepared by Demo et al. (2012) have been imported into this dimension instead of the expressions of Singh's (2004) compensation dimension. Additionally, it was also considered that it would be appropriate to include "work conditions" developed by Demo et al. (2012) as a new dimension for this scale. Three of the six expressions about "work conditions" dimension of Demo et al. (2012) were used in this scale. As a result, the HRM Practices scale consists of 8 dimensions with 38 expressions as shown in Table 1.

Organizational Justice Scale
In order to measure the perception of organizational justice, the scale, developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993), was used. This scale consists of 3 dimensions and 20 items as shown in Table 2. The translation of the scale into Turkish and the validity and reliability studies had been performed by Yıldırım (2002). The dimensions are distributional justice, procedural justice and interactional justice.

Organizational Cynicism Scale
In order to measure the perception of organizational cynicism, the scale, developed by Brandes et al. (1999), was used. In this scale, there are 3 dimensions and 13 items as shown in Table 3. The dimensions are cognitive, affective and behavioral ones. It is noteworthy that this scale is frequently preferred in the literature (Qian & Daniels, 2008;Cole et.al, 2006;Kalağan, 2009;Özler & Atalay, 2011;Efeoğlu & İplik, 2011;İnce & Turan, 2011). The Turkish version of this scale was firstly used in the study by Kalağan (2009). Furthermore, the validity and reliability of Turkish version of this scale had also been carried out by Karacaoğlu & İnce (2012). Behavioral (4) 10,11,12,13

Empirical Results
The data were analyzed by using SPSS v24, HAYES PROCESS v3.4 and AMOS v22.0 programs. In this context, in SPSS program, exploratory factor analyses and linear regression analysis were performed. Besides, AMOS program was used for confirmatory factor analyses. In addition, HAYES PROCESS analysis was applied to determine the mutual relationships between variables and the direct and indirect effects between each other.

Normality Test
After the data obtained from the questionnaires, at first, the normality test was performed to determine whether the data obtained from the sample group were suitable for the normal distribution. In a statistical study, the distribution should be normal or close to normal for many tests to be performed. If the data is far from the normal distribution, the results of the analysis will be incorrect. For social researches, Tabachnick and Fidell (2013) argue that the distribution is normal, if the skewness and kurtosis values are between +1.5 and -1.5. In this context, when the data set of the study was examined, it was found that the kurtosis and skewness values of all variables were within these limits. Therefore, in this study, there was not any hindrance to carry out the analyses which need normal distribution.

Reliability Analyses
To examine the reliability of the scales, the reliability tests were performed by using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient. According to Hair et al., (2010), it is expected that the value of the alpha coefficient is higher than 0.60 so that it can be said that the scale is reliable. As a result, reliability levels of the scales are very high as it is shown in Table 4.

Validity Analyses
In this study, the validity of the scales was considered in the context of construct validity. For construct validity of the scale, firstly exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and then confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed. In the related literature, there is consensus that factor analysis is one of the most widely used statistical methods in determining the construct validity (Çokluk et al., 2010, 185). In many scale adaptation and validation studies, both exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used together. It is preferable to perform exploratory factor analysis first and then confirmatory factor analysis (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993).

HRM Practices Scale
By exploratory factor analysis, it was found that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy value was 0,968 and chi-square value of Bartlett's test was 13684,497 while p = 0 and the lowest factor loading value was 0,412. Kaiser method, where only eigenvalues greater than "1" are considered significant, is considered an extremely conservative approach by Joliffe. Joliffe recommends evaluating eigenvalues greater than "0.7" as a factor Dunteman (1989( , Can, 2018. When the number of factors was determined according to the Joliffe criterion, the resulting factor structure was found to be consistent with the theory and the predictions at the beginning of the research. Therefore, the results indicated that the data set was suitable for factor analysis. As a result of this analysis, it was not necessary to extract any variables and it was found that 38 items were grouped under 8 factors. Moreover, it is explained around 78,5% of the construct's total variance. After the first level one-factor confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), it was seen that most of the model fit statistics were well and some of them were at acceptable levels as it is emphasized in Table 5. In addition to Cronbach's alpha coefficient values, construct validity analysis also performed and it was found that composite reliability (CR) values for all constructs were higher than 0.80, provided support for good reliability. Average variance extracted (AVE) values were higher than the value of 0.50 for every construct, thus confirmed the convergent validity of the scale (Table 6). As a result, it was confirmed that HRM Practices Scale's 38 items indeed have theoretical support, greatly corresponding to the literature reviewed throughout this research. Ultimately, a multifactorial instrument with 38 items, distributed across 8 factors, explaining around 78,5% of the construct's total variance, was developed in agreement with the performed literature review, with high-reliability and construct validity.

Organizational Justice Scale
As it was explained above, in order to measure the perception of organizational justice, the scale which was developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) and which consists of 3 dimensions and 20 items was used. However, it was considered that it would be appropriate to apply both EFA and CFA because the scale was applied in different culture. Moreover, it was determined that organizational justice scale was factoring in 4 dimensions in some researches. That is why, it was preferred to make both EFA and CFA analyses. By exploratory factor analysis, it was found that Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy value was 0,961 and chi-square value of Bartlett's test was 7448,466 while p = 0 and the lowest factor loading value was 0,530. Therefore, the results indicated that the data set was suitable for factor analysis. As a result, it was found that 20 items were grouped under 3 factors and scale is explained around 76,108% of the construct's total variance. Therefore, the findings were consistent with previous studies. Besides, when the results of the CFA were examined, it was seen that all model fit statistics were well as shown in Table 7. Moreover, according to construct validity analysis, it was determined that composite reliability (CR) values for all constructs were higher than 0.80, average variance extracted (AVE) values were found higher than the value of 0.50 and also higher than the maximum shared values (MSV) for every construct, and thus confirmed the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale (Table 8). As a result, it can be stated that the factor structure of the organizational justice scale determined by exploratory factor analysis is consistent with the data obtained in this study.

Organizational Cynicism Scale
In the same way as applied for organizational justice scale, firstly, exploratory factor analysis and then confirmatory factor analysis were performed for validity analysis of organizational cynicism scale. After exploratory factor analysis, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy value was 0,934 and chi-square value of Bartlett's test was 4688,857 while p=0 and the lowest factor loading value was 0,599. Then, the results have indicated that the data set was suitable for factor analysis. As a result, it was found that 13 items were grouped under 3 factors and scale is explained around 81,660% of the construct's total variance. Therefore, the findings were consistent with studies in advance. In the sequel, when the results of the CFA were examined, it was seen that all model fit statistics were well as shown in Table 9. Finally, according to construct validity analysis, it was determined that CR values for all constructs were higher than 0.80, AVE values were higher than the value of 0.50 and also AVE values are higher than the MSV values for every construct, and then outcomes confirmed the convergent and discriminant validity of the scale as shown in Table 10. Consequently, after confirmatory factor analysis, it can be expressed that the factor structure of the organizational cynicism scale determined by exploratory factor analysis is compatible with the data obtained in this study.

Hypothesis Testing Results
In order to test first three hypotheses (H1, H2 and H3), linear regression analysis method was applied in SPSS program. The research study has tested that HRM practices affect organizational justice positively (B= 0.771, p<0.001), HRM practices affect organizational cynicism negatively (B= -0.796, p<0.001), and organizational justice affects organizational cynicism negatively (B= -0.758, p<0.001). Thus, H1, H2, H3 are supported as seen in Table 11.

Mediation Effect
For the other hypothesis (H4), Model 4 existed in Andrew F. Hayes' PROCESS was used in SPSS program. This software program tests various model types and indirect (mediating) effects of the mediating variables (Hayes, 2013). The PROCESS software uses the bootstrap method to measure the mediation effect of the mediating variable, and in this respect, they have statistical advantages compared to causal models and Sobel test. That is why, it is argued that bootstrapping is an appropriate method for testing the mediation, especially if studies involve sequential mediators (Lau & Cheung, 2012;Hayes, 2009;Preacher & Hayes, 2008). By using Model 4 of HAYES PROCESS with 5,000 bootstrap samples and 95 percentile confidence levels, it was estimated the path coefficients (based on ordinary least squares (OLS) regression) and confidence intervals in relation to direct and indirect paths between HRM practices (HRM), Organizational Justice (OJ) and Organizational Cynicism (OC) variables. -0,4339 0,0941 -0,6189 -0,2508 *BootLLCI stands for bootstrapped accelerated lower limit confidence interval and BootULCI for bootstrapped accelerated upper limit confidence interval.
In accordance with the outcomes of H4 hypothesis test in Table 12, perceived organizational justice plays a mediating role between HRM practices and organizational cynicism. The results of this test indicate that H4 is supported.

Conclusion and Discussion
This research primarily aimed to reveal the relationships and effects between human resource management practices, organizational justice perceptions and organizational cynicism. For this purpose, the research was conducted with the data collected from 366 municipal employees through survey method. The research results can be summarized as follows. The effective application of contemporary HRM approaches boosts the perception of organizational justice and at the same time helps to reduce organizational cynicism (in accordance with the outcomes of H1 and H2 hypotheses tests). High perceived organizational justice reduces organizational cynicism (in accordance with the outcome of H3 hypothesis test). Perceived organizational justice plays a mediating role between HRM practices and organizational cynicism (in accordance with the outcome of H4 hypothesis test). Therefore, the results obtained in the study were found to be consistent with previous studies in the literature. For example, the results of our study are consistent with findings of Bayramlı (2017) that there is a statistically significant, positive and very strong relationship between employees' perceptions of human resources management and organizational justice and that HRM practices play an important role in achieving organizational justice. Likewise, the findings of this study quite comply with the findings of some other researches that determine the positive attitudes and behaviors appear when employees' perceptions of organizational justice are high, negative attitudes and behaviors emerge when employees perceptions are low and there is a significant and negative relationship between organizational justice perception and organizational cynicism (Purtul, 2018;Yazıcıoğlu & Gençer 2017;Naktiyok et al., 2015). Consequently, the results of this study offer us strong supports for our hypotheses and also this study stresses that HRM practices was indirectly and negatively related with organizational cynicism which is mediated through organizational justice perceptions. As results related to scales, in this study, the scale developed by Singh (2004), which was widely used in the measurement of HRM practices in the literature, was adapted and improved. However, the statements regarding the compensation dimension of this scale are more focused on the private sector. As this research was carried out in the public sector, the compensation dimension was reorganized to be applicable both in the public and private sectors. In addition, Singh's scale did not have the factor of "work conditions" to be considered in contemporary HRM practices. For this reason, Singh's scale has been further developed with the addition of work conditions and at last has been transformed into a more comprehensive scale that can be used in both the public and private sectors. As a result, it has been made more suitable for today's HRM practices and theory.
The results of organizational justice scale give us important clues about the applicability of the scale developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) to participants from different cultures and socio-economic levels. These findings indicate that the scale is a powerful and sufficient measurement tool. As a result, the Turkish version of the organizational justice scale was found to be valid and reliable enough for the local administration employees. The scale used in the research is a scale that can be conveniently used due to the low number of items, its ease of application and comprehensibility. From now on, researches that will use this scale for different and wider sample sizes will make a significant contribution to the measurement power of the scale. Additionally, the Turkish version of the organizational cynicism scale was found to be valid and reliable enough for the local administration employees. These results underline that about the feasibility of the scale developed by Brandes et al. (1999) to participants from different cultures and socio-economic levels. These findings indicate that the scale is a powerful and sufficient measurement instrument. The results of this research coincide with the findings of Kalağan (2009) and Karacaoğlu and İnce (2012) and also consolidate their findings. The scale used in this research is a scale that can be conveniently used due to the low number of items, its ease of application and comprehensibility. From now on, researches that will use this scale for different and wider sample sizes will make a significant contribution to the measurement power of the scale.

Theoretical Contributions and Managerial Implications
This research study offers a theoretical model for explaining the link between HRM practices, organizational justice and organizational cynicism and provides empirical evidences for cause and effect relationships between these concepts. In this context, by means of this research, it is verified that the effective application of contemporary HRM approaches boosts the perception of organizational justice and at the same time helps to reduce organizational cynicism, and finally, highly perceived organizational justice reduces organizational cynicism. According to the findings of this study, HRM practices play a pivotal role in fostering organizational justice perceptions and decreasing organizational cynicism. In other words, organizational justice perceptions of the employees, who work in an organization with effective and efficient Human Resources Management (HRM) practices, will be positively affected. Besides, in an organization where employees have positive perceptions of organizational justice, the organizational cynicism, which is shortly defined as the employees' feelings of frustration, hopelessness, mistrust against the organization, will be low. Therefore, this study contributes to the relevant theoretical literature and has some important implications for managers. As managerial implications, it has been observed that the main underlying causes of the problems in local governments stem from HRM issues. Therefore, in the municipalities, the concepts related to HRM should be considered in all aspects and the requirements of these concepts should be fulfilled. In addition, in the municipalities, a merit-based recruitment system that is free of political concerns should be established, programs for continuous training and development of employees should be implemented, contemporary performance evaluation and fair reward systems should be developed. Furthermore, an organizational climate should be established in which professionals do not have any political interest and concern and only work effectively and efficiently.

Limitations and Future Research Directions
Like other studies, despite the fact that this study extends the existing knowledge and makes some contributions to the literature, it includes some limitations and provides some implications for further researches. First, the data obtained to test the hypotheses were collected by a single measurement tool and the data reflect only respondents' own assessments. That is why, this research may involve common method bias. For future researchers, it is suggested that they can investigate the causal sequencing of this mediation model by collecting the data at different time intervals. Additionally, they may design discrete questionnaires for independent and dependent variables to collect data from various sources. Second, the cross-sectional nature of the research limits its generalizability. In other words, the data collected by method used may represent the views of a specific group, not the entire population and trends can be identified but results cannot be generalized. To overcome this problem, future researchers are recommended to conduct a replication of this study with longitudinal design where data will be collected over repeated observations which are believed to bring more powerful arguments in relationships of variables mentioned. The third but certainly significant limitation is that this research study was conducted in Northern Cyprus which has distinctive status in international area and where regulations and standards, HR policies and national culture are different from those in developed countries. Although, conceptual model of the research is theoretically strong, the strength of the relationships of variables discussed in this study may differ in context of developed countries or other cultural environments. Therefore, in order to obtain more generalized results, further researches can revise our model in different cultures or countries. Some of other organizational variables such as corporate governance practices, organizational performance, organizational health, organizational vigor, customer/citizen satisfaction, employees' job performance, organizational commitment, organizational burn-out, employee empowerment, organizational trust, organizational citizenship, organizational silence, job satisfaction, job alienation, intention to quit job and employee turnover rates may be looked into as areas of future studies to investigate the influence of HRM practices on these variables. Consequently, this research has given an empirical approval to the role of HRM practices in the organizational cynicism concept and at the same time, it has prepared the field for further researches to understand the effect of HRM practices much better.