Purpose: This manuscript investigates the impact of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviour and workplace deviance and examines the mediator effect of organizational citizenship behaviour between organizational justice and workplace deviance.Design/methodology/approach: This study utilizes a quantitative method to investigate four hypotheses using PLS3-SEM on 185 respondents from five research universities in Malaysia.Findings: Findings of this study reveal the positive impact of organizational justice on organizational citizenship behaviour and the negative effects of organizational justice on workplace deviance. Further, the study confirms the mediating effect of organizational citizenship behaviour between organizational justice and workplace deviance significate, especially in higher education. These findings will be helpful guidance for decreasing deviance and eventually increasing employees’ efficiency.Research Limitation: This research focuses on organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviour on workplace deviance. Future study should research some other unique factors relevant to reducing workplace deviance. Although data was collected only once and took almost two months, unequal distribution during the sixty days may affect the accuracy of findings. Future studies should collect data over a period longer than two months to analyze the different reactions of employees to managers’ decisions or behaviorsPractical implications: This study guides and supports managers and employees in putting organizational mechanisms towards improving organizational citizenship behaviors.Originality/value: These research findings expand knowledge on workplace deviance behavior by providing evidence for the different impact of organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviour on workplace deviance.Keywords: Social exchange theory (SET), workplace deviance (WD), organizational justice (OJ), human resource (HR), organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB).