Survivor reactions to reorganization: Antecedents and consequences of procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice.

This study tested a model of survivor reactions to reorganization, which incorporated multiple predictors and consequences of procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. The 3 justice types had different correlates: all 4 antecedents (employee input, victim support, implementation, and communication quality) predicted interpersonal fairness, implementation and communication quality were associated with informational fairness, and employee input was the sole predictor of procedural justice. Procedural justice was strongly related to all 4 outcome variables, and interpersonal and informational justice added unique variance to the prediction of trust in management. The reorganization effort was still predictive of employee outcomes, although primarily through procedural justice approximately 1 year after its completion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Event justice perceptions and employees' reactions: Perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator.

Building on 2 paradigms in organizational justice research and on fairness heuristic theory, the author argues that employees' perceptions about the fairness of social entities (their supervisor and their organization) moderate the relationship between their perceptions about the fairness of specific events and their reactions. A survey of 265 supervisor-employee pairs in 4 companies was conducted to test this argument. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses showed that when employees perceived their organization to be generally fair, this perception moderated the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their reactions to the organization (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). In addition, employees' perceptions of the fairness of their supervisor were found to moderate the relationship between the perceived justice of a particular event and their supervisor-directed responses (trust in managers and supervisor-directed citizenship behavior) and their organization-directed responses. The results suggest that employee attitudes and behavior can be better understood when both event justice perceptions and social entity justice perceptions are considered together. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

If you feel bad, it's unfair: A quantitative synthesis of affect and organizational justice perceptions.

Whereas research interest in both individual affect/temperament and organizational justice has grown substantially in recent years, affect's role in the perception of organizational justice has received scant attention. Here, the authors integrate these literatures and test bivariate relationships between state affect (e.g., moods), trait affect (e.g., affectivity), and organizational justice variables using meta-analytically aggregated effect sizes. Results indicated that state and trait positive and negative affect exhibit statistically significant relationships with perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in the predicted directions, with mean population-level correlations ranging in absolute magnitude from Mρ? = .09 to Mρ? = .43. Correlations involving state affect generally were larger but not significantly different from those involving trait affect. Finally, the authors propose ideas for investigations at the primary-study level. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Grouping error and interpersonal affect: a correction.

The writer acknowledges his in using an inflated in N in the statistical analysis of a previous study published (see 26: 3912). A reanalysis shows that the original finding that interaction induces positive feeling among group members is confirmed, although at a much lower level of significance than previously reported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An actor-focused model of justice rule adherence and violation: The role of managerial motives and discretion.

Research on organizational justice has focused primarily on the receivers of just and unjust treatment. Little is known about why managers adhere to or violate rules of justice in the first place. The authors introduce a model for understanding justice rule adherence and violation. They identify both cognitive motives and affective motives that explain why managers adhere to and violate justice rules. They also draw distinctions among the justice rules by specifying which rules offer managers more or less discretion in their execution. They then describe how motives and discretion interact to influence justice-relevant actions. Finally, the authors incorporate managers’ emotional reactions to consider how their actions may change over time. Implications of the model for theory, research, and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure.

This study explores the dimensionality of organizational justice and provides evidence of construct validity for a new justice measure. Items for this measure were generated by strictly following the seminal works in the justice literature. The measure was then validated in 2 separate studies. Study 1 occurred in a university setting, and Study 2 occurred in a field setting using employees in an automobile parts manufacturing company. Confirmatory factor analyses supported a 4-factor structure to the measure, with distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice as distinct dimensions. This solution fit the data significantly better than a 2- or 3-factor solution using larger interactional or procedural dimensions. Structural equation modeling also demonstrated predictive validity for the justice dimensions on important outcomes, including leader evaluation, rule compliance, commitment, and helping behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dual processing and organizational justice: The role of rational versus experiential processing in third-party reactions to workplace mistreatment.

The moral perspective of justice proposes that when confronted by another person's mistreatment, third parties can experience a deontic response, that is, an evolutionary-based emotional reaction that motivates them to engage in retribution toward the transgressor. In this article, we tested whether the third party's deontic reaction is less strong when a rational (vs. experiential) processing frame is primed. Further, we tested whether third parties high (vs. low) in moral identity are more resistant to the effects of processing frames. Results from a sample of 185 French managers revealed that following an injustice, managers primed to use rational processing reported lower retribution tendencies compared with managers primed to use experiential processing. Third parties high in moral identity, however, were less affected by the framing; they reported a high retribution response regardless of processing frame. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice, interactional justice, perceived organizational support, and supervisory trust.

Organizational justice researchers recognize the important role organization context plays in justice perceptions, yet few studies systematically examine contextual variables. This article examines how 1 aspect of context--organizational structure--affects the relationship between justice perceptions and 2 types of social exchange relationships, organizational and supervisory. The authors suggest that under different structural conditions, procedural and interactional justice will play differentially important roles in determining the quality of organizational social exchange (as evidenced by perceived organizational support [POS]) and supervisory social exchange (as evidenced by supervisory trust). In particular, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between procedural justice and POS would be stronger in mechanistic organizations and that the relationship between interactional justice and supervisory trust would be stronger in organic organizations. The authors' results support these hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research.

The field of organizational justice continues to he marked by several important research questions, including the size of relationships among justice dimensions, the relative importance of different justice criteria, and the unique effects of justice dimensions on key outcomes. To address such questions, the authors conducted a meta-analytic review of 183 justice studies. The results suggest that although different justice dimensions are moderately to highly related, they contribute incremental variance explained in fairness perceptions. The results also illustrate the overall and unique relationships among distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice and several organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, evaluation of authority, organizational citizenship behavior, withdrawal, performance). These findings are reviewed in terms of their implications for future research on organizational justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why managers should care about fairness: The effects of aggregate justice perceptions on organizational outcomes.

This work examines the aggregation of justice perceptions to the departmental level and the business-unit level, the impact of these aggregate perceptions on business-unit-level outcomes, and the usefulness of the distinction between procedural and interpersonal justice at different levels of analysis. Latent variables analyses of individual-level and department-level data from 4,539 employees in 783 departments at 97 hotel properties showed that the 2 justice types exercise unique paths of impact on employees' organizational commitment and thus on turnover intentions and discretionary service behavior. Business-unit-level analyses further demonstrate paths of association between aggregate justice perceptions, aggregate commitment levels, and the business-unit-level outcomes of employee turnover rates and customer satisfaction ratings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Subjective Quality of Social Justice: The Role of Affect as Information in the Psychology of Justice Judgments.

This article argues that it is not uncommon for people forming justice judgments to lack information that is most relevant in the particular situation. In information-uncertain conditions, people may therefore construct justice judgments by relying on how they feel about the events they have encountered, and justice judgments may hence be strongly influenced by affect information. Findings show that in information-uncertain conditions, the affective states that people had been in prior and unrelated to the justice event indeed strongly influenced their justice judgments. These findings thus reveal that in situations of information uncertainty, people's judgments of justice can be very subjective, susceptible to affective states that have no logical relationship with the justice judgments they are constructing. Implications for the social psychology of justice and the literature on social cognition and affect are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of computer surveillance on perceptions of privacy and procedural justice.

Electronic workplace surveillance is raising concerns about privacy and fairness. Integrating research on electronic performance monitoring, procedural justice, and organizational privacy, the author proposes a framework for understanding reactions to technologies used to monitor and control employees. To test the framework's plausibility, temporary workers performed computer/Web-based tasks under varying levels of computer surveillance. Results indicated that monitoring job-relevant activities (relevance) and affording those who were monitored input into the process (participation) reduced invasion of privacy and enhanced procedural justice. Moreover, invasion of privacy fully mediated the effect of relevance and partially mediated the effect of participation on procedural justice. The findings are encouraging for integrating theory and research on procedural justice and organizational privacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

AVA as a predictor of occupational hierarchy.

High and low status male groups in industry were used to determine whether AVA can distinguish the 2. A Fisher 2-group discriminant analysis was applied to the data as well as a simple procedure using an AVA analyst. "Both methods proved to be highly successful… confirm existence of differences in temperament characteristics of personnel in higher and lower echelons… confirm power and efficiency of AVA in measuring these differences." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Two flavors of aesthetic tasting: Rasa and savoring a cross-cultural study with implications for psychology of emotion.

A comparative analysis suggested that two indigenous theories of aesthetic emotions, the Indian rasa and the Chinese notion of savoring, share in common the two defining characteristics of emotion refinement—detachment and self-reflexivity (Frijda & Sundararajan, 2007), but that these two aesthetic traditions differ in ways that correspond to the ontological/epistemological divide between the ancient Greeks (and other Indo-European languages) and the Chinese as predicted by Nisbett (2003). Implications of this investigation for theory and research on emotions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotions and Classroom Talk: Toward a Model of the Role of Affect in Students' Experiences of Classroom Discussions.

To understand the role of affect in classroom discussion, the authors asked 16 students taking a 3-hr seminar to participate in a semester-long grounded theory inquiry. Coding of classroom observations, stimulated recall interviews, and self-ratings from each class meeting resulted in a model of affect as a catalyst in students' experience of classroom discussion, both moment by moment and cumulatively across the semester. Influenced by personal and contextual factors, four main actions--attending, listening, talking, and tuning out--constituted the experience of discussion, with affect playing a key role. The consequences of this dynamic system of affect, cognition, and action in discussion were that students learned content, became more aware of social aspects, experienced different affective states, and changed their motivation to talk in future discussions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Justice as a dynamic construct: Effects of individual trajectories on distal work outcomes.

Despite an amassing organizational justice literature, few studies have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on important work outcomes. Drawing from Gestalt characteristics theory (Ariely & Carmon, 2000, 2003), we examine the concept of justice trajectories (i.e., levels and trends of individual fairness perceptions over time) and offer empirical evidence to highlight the value of considering fairness within a dynamic context. Participants included 523 working adults who completed surveys about their work experiences on 4 occasions over the course of 1 year. Results indicate that justice trends explained additional variance in distal work outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions) after controlling for end-state levels of justice, demonstrating the cumulative effects of justice over time. Findings also reveal that change in procedural justice perceptions affected distal work outcomes more strongly than any other justice dimension. Implications for theory and future investigations of justice as a dynamic construct are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distributive justice, procedural justice, and psychological distress: The moderating effect of coworker support and work autonomy.

Recent research has demonstrated that the perception of injustice at work may increase psychological health-related problems. The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of coworker support and work autonomy on the relationships between both distributive and procedural justice and psychological distress. Results, on the basis of responses to questionnaires given to 248 prison employees, show that coworker support moderates the relationships between both forms of justice and psychological distress. Specifically, these relationships are weakened when employees benefit from a high level of coworker support. Furthermore, work autonomy moderates the relationship between procedural justice and psychological distress but not the relationship between distributive justice and psychological distress. Thus, procedural injustice is less likely to increase psychological distress when the level of work autonomy is high. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Work gets unfair for the depressed: Cross-lagged relations between organizational justice perceptions and depressive symptoms.

The organizational justice literature has consistently documented substantial correlations between organizational justice and employee depression. Existing theoretical literature suggests this relationship occurs because perceptions of organizational (in)justice lead to subsequent psychological health problems. Building on recent research on the affective nature of justice perceptions, in the present research we broaden this perspective by arguing there are also theoretical arguments for a reverse effect whereby psychological health problems influence perceptions of organizational justice. To contrast both theoretical perspectives, we test longitudinal lagged effects between organizational justice perceptions (i.e., distributive justice, interactional justice, interpersonal justice, informational justice, and procedural justice) and employee depressive symptoms using structural equation modeling. Analyses of 3 samples from different military contexts (N? = 625, N? = 134, N? = 550) revealed evidence of depressive symptoms leading to subsequent organizational justice perceptions. In contrast, the opposite effects of organizational justice perceptions on depressive symptoms were not significant for any of the justice dimensions. The findings have broad implications for theoretical perspectives on psychological health and organizational justice perceptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A trickle-down model of organizational justice: Relating employees' and customers' perceptions of and reactions to fairness.

This study developed and tested a trickle-down model of organizational justice that hypothesized that employees' perceptions of fairness should affect their attitudes toward the organization, subsequently influencing their behaviors toward customers. In turn, customers should interpret these behaviors as signals of fair treatment, causing them to react positively to both the employee and the organization. The model was tested on a sample of 187 instructors and their students. The results revealed that instructors who perceived high distributive and procedural justice reported higher organizational commitment. In turn, their students reported higher levels of instructor effort, prosocial behaviors, and fairness, as well as more positive reactions to the instructor. Overall, the results imply that fair treatment of employees has important organizational consequences because of customers' attitudes and future intentions toward key service employees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Impact of Justice Climate and Justice Orientation on Work Outcomes: A Cross-Level Multifoci Framework.

In this article, which takes a person-situation approach, the authors propose and test a cross-level multifoci model of workplace justice. They crossed 3 types of justice (procedural, informational, and interpersonal) with 2 foci (organization and supervisor) and aggregated to the group level to create 6 distinct justice climate variables. They then tested for the effects of these variables on either organization-directed or supervisor-directed commitment, satisfaction, and citizenship behavior. The authors also tested justice orientation as a moderator of these relationships. The results, based on 231 employees constituting 44 work groups representing multiple organizations and occupations, revealed that 4 forms of justice climate (organization-focused procedural and informational justice climate and supervisor-focused procedural and interpersonal justice climate) were significantly related to various work outcomes after controlling for corresponding individual-level justice perceptions. In addition, some moderation effects were found. Implications for organizations and future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)