Brian C. Holtz

Fair Today, Fair Tomorrow? A Longitudinal Investigation of Overall Justice Perceptions

Most work on organizational justice has been cross-sectional and focused on specific justice dimensions rather than perceptions of overall justice. As a result, little is known about how overall justice perceptions unfold over time. This study attempts to bridge gaps in the literature by examining overall organizational and overall supervisory justice perceptions of 213 individuals over 3 points in time. Results showed significant variability in overall justice perceptions across time. Specifically, within-person variance accounted for 24% and 29% of the total variance in overall organizational and supervisory justice, respectively. Further, compared with specific justice dimensions, trust emerged as a particularly strong predictor of within-person and between-person variance in overall justice perceptions. Implications for the justice literature and organizational practice are discussed.

Interpersonal Justice and Deviance The Moderating Effects of Interpersonal Justice Values and Justice Orientation

Research suggests that employees who perceive interpersonal injustice in their workplace are more likely to engage in workplace deviance. However, researchers have seldom considered the role of personal values in shaping behavioral reactions to perceived injustice. This article investigates the moderating influence of justice-related values on reactions to perceived injustice. Results suggest that employees with strong interpersonal justice values, or justice orientations, are unlikely to engage in workplace deviance, regardless of their interpersonal justice perceptions. Results were consistent across two operationalizations of justice values and consistent across self-reported and coworker-reported workplace deviance.

Trust Primacy A Model of the Reciprocal Relations Between Trust and Perceived Justice

Management scholars have historically framed trust as a consequence of organizational justice that develops slowly over time. However, theory and empirical research outside of the management literature suggest that trust is inevitably present prior to the initiation of exchange relationships. For instance, neuroscientific evidence suggests that the human brain has evolved mechanisms capable of automatically evaluating the trustworthiness of potential exchange partners without conscious deliberation. This article presents a new theoretical model suggesting that trust forms rapidly and exerts significant influence on employee perceptions of justice. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Dynamic interplay between merger process justice and cognitive trust in top management: A longitudinal study.

This study examines two fundamental concerns in the context of organizational change: employees’ perceptions of merger process justice and cognitive trust in the top management team. Our main purpose is to better understand the nature of reciprocal relations between these important constructs through a significant change event. Previous research, building mainly on social exchange theory, has framed trust as a consequence of justice perceptions. More recently, scholars have suggested that this view may be overly simplistic and that trust-related cognitions may also represent an important antecedent of justice perceptions. Using 3-wave longitudinal survey data (N = 622) gathered during a merger process, we tested reciprocal relations over time between cognitive trust in the top management team and perceptions of the merger process justice. In contrast to the conventional unidirectional notion of trust or trust-related cognitions as outcomes of perceived justice, our results show positive reciprocal relations over time between cognitive trust and justice. Our findings also revealed that the positive influence of cognitive trust on subsequent justice perceptions was slightly more robust than the opposite direction. By examining cross-lagged longitudinal relations between these critical psychological reactions, this study contributes across multiple domains of the management literature including trust, justice, and organizational mergers.