8: When is Procedural Justice Most Important?
See Brockner and Weisenfeld (1996), from which the figure is adapted (see p. 191). Main Point: Procedural Justice is more important when the outcome was unfavorable. Or, alternatively, the favorability of the outcome matters more when procedures are perceived as unfair.
A good way of summarizing this plot is that “the means justify the ends.” That is, even if the outcome is unfavorable, people will still react well if the procedure was fair.
Example of actual research on procedural justice (Brockner et al., 1994, study 3):
Brockner et al. (1994) studied 147 employees who knew they were about to be laid off from a “large unionized manufacturing facility in the south central United States.” They were surveyed two months after they found out they were told about the layoff, but one month before they actually stopped working.
The positivity / negativity of the outcome was assessed by asking the employees to consider how much other support they had to meet their needs (e.g., unemployment insurance, severance pay, company help with finding another job). The “Reactions” measured in this study was a measure of Organizational Support (questions such as “I am proud to tell others I am a part of ____,” “I would have no problem recommending ______ as an employer to a friend or relative”).
The interaction between procedural justice and outcome favorabliity was found (see slide).
Note, however, that this graph is specific to reactions to the organization. A related, but different, pattern, exists for the interaction between PJ and Outcome on perceptions of the self (see Brockner, 2002). For instance, people with a negative outcome gained through a process perceived to be fair will experience lower self-esteem than people who receive a negative outcome through an unfair process.
9: Interactional Justice
There is some evidence that these two components of interactional justice could be separated into two separate dimensions of justice (e.g., Colquitt, 2001).
Bies (2001) provides an in-depth discussion of many factors that could be considered interactional justice (such as the deception of employees or the use of abusive words or actions).
10: Research Example (Greenberg, 1990)
See Greenberg (1990) for the report of this interesting study. The pay cut was temporary (about 10 weeks). The inventory of such items as tools and supplies was collected unobtrusively, and factors such as normal use were taken into account.
There was also a third plant in the study that served as a control. Theft did not change in this plant over time. Before and after the pay cut, theft in all three plants was similar. It was only while the pay cut was in effect that differences in theft appeared. Note that theft in both plants returned to normal after the pay was returned to normal.
12: Improving Fairness Perceptions
In order to improve distributive fairness perceptions, employers can make sure that the situation is perceived as equitable – is the right allocation rule being applied? Will employees see their outcomes/input ratio as equal to others’?
In order to improve procedural justice perceptions, employers can make sure that none of the various rules of procedural justice are violated (see slide #8).
In order to improve interactional justice perceptions, employers can make sure that employees are given adequate explanations, and that they are treated with sincerity and respect (see slide #10).
For the second point (change perceptions of fairness), note that perceptions of fairness can be inaccurate. It is hoped that this line of research can be used to adjust employees’ incorrect perceptions of justice, although this line of research could conceivably be used to make employees think their situation was fair when it actually wasn’t.
Additional supplemental points:
Folger and Cropanzano’s (1998) Fairness Theory provides a more complex discussion of the mechanisms by which perceptions of justice might be changed (see Chapter 7).
The social psychological literature on attribution theory can be integrated here if desired. Some organizational justice researchers (e.g., Ployhart & Ryan, 1997) have begun to look at how attribution theory plays a role in justice judgments and in reactions to organizational decisions.
Additionally, students might be interested in how one might measure perceptions of organizational justice in the workplace. Several different scales of organizational justice perceptions exist – see Colquitt, 2001, for an example.
For a discussion of justice issues related to layoffs, students may wish to read a recent article in the APA Monitor (Murray, 2002).
SAMPLE TEST QUESTIONS
Multiple-Choice Questions:
1._________ refers to the study of perceptions of fairness in the workplace.
a.Organizational justice
b.Compensatory studies
c.Parity
d.Synchronization
2. If particular decisions in an organization are made without bias, and are made using the same criteria every time, employees are likely to have positive perceptions of which component of justice?
a. Distributive
b. Procedural
c. Informational
d.Interactional
3. If I wanted to maximize the interactional justice in a situation, what would I do?
a.Make my employees talk to each other more
b.create a peer review system for promotions
c. treat my employees with warmth and consideration
d. elevate self-awareness
Short Answer Question:
Your department at work has decided to create the position of Workgroup Leader, which would oversee the employees in each work group and would report to the plant manager. The manager has asked you to create the procedures that would be used to select this new person. Given what you know about Procedural Justice, briefly describe the procedures that you would use. Then, discuss how your procedure used at least three of the components of procedural justice discussed in class.
Procedural Justice Exercise
Imagine that you are the human resources director at a company that manufactures different types of baseball bats. The company employs approximately 300 people to work on the different machines that produce the varieties of bats. Employees work in groups of about 5-10 people under the supervision of a line manager.
Recently, the line managers have been complaining to you about a problem with many employees. Employees haven’t been respecting the line manager – they give snide or rude answers to questions, and they’ve been arriving at work late more often than usual (some people are just not showing up for work). The line managers have asked you to hire employees who have more respect for authority.
However, you suspect that the hiring process isn’t the problem. You noticed that these reports of deviant employee behavior first started three months ago. That was right about the time that all employees were given the results of their annual performance review. Thus, you think it’s possible that these employee behaviors may be linked to their reactions to the performance appraisal process, and decide to review the company’s policies on performance appraisal.
The current performance appraisal system was put in place 15 years ago. At that time, the company only made one type of bat and only used one kind of machine to do it. Thus, even though employees worked in different groups, they all did exactly the same thing. The company wrote up a single, detailed job description based on how employees were supposed to do their jobs. The performance appraisal is based on this job description. Each step in the job description is used as one part of the performance appraisal process – that is, every employee gets a rating on his or her performance at each step. The appraisals are conducted by the line managers, who rate each of their employees on a 1-5 scale based on how well the employee performs that particular task.
In recent years, however, the company has expanded its market into different kinds of baseball bats, which use different machines and processes to produce. Thus, different groups of employees are performing slightly different tasks. Thus, parts of the performance appraisal form don’t always match up to what employees are actually doing. In these cases, the line managers have been told to do the best they can assign ratings on those parts of the form. In order to get employees to take the ratings seriously, all ratings are considered ‘final.’
Questions for Discussion:
• Which procedural justice rules might employees perceive to have been violated?
• What would you recommend that the organization do to improve perceptions of the fairness of this process?
Organizational Justice Perceptions Notes To Accompany Powerpoint Slides II
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