BRIARCLIFF MANOR, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Corporate fairness has little or no meaning for nearly a third of U.S. workers, a university research study released Monday shows.

Employees with low self-esteem, accounting for up to 30 percent of U.S. workers, are indifferent to "organizational justice," the study by University of Texas, Austin, psychology and management Professor William Swann Jr. found.

By contrast, workers with high self-esteem do see high value in company fairness and organizational commitment, the study, published in the Academy of Management Journal, found.

Swann -- who carried out the research with Batia Wiesenfeld of New York University, Joel Brockner of Columbia University and Caroline Bartel of the University of Texas, Austin -- said the research shows workers with high self-esteem tend to express significantly greater commitment to a company when they perceive the restructurings are fair than when they see them as unjust.

This contrasts with workers with low in self-esteem, who tend to express about the same level of company commitment whether they think the restructurings are handled fairly or not, the study found.

The professors urged managers to go beyond "the blanket application of procedural justice as a commitment-building strategy" by "communicating to workers that they are known and understood."