Robert Folger

Effects of Procedural and Distributive Justice on Reactions to Pay Raise Decisions

We conducted a survey to examine the impact of distributive and procedural justice on the reactions of 217 employees to decisions about pay raises. Distributive justice accounted for more unique va...

Retaliation in the Workplace: The Roles of Distributive, Procedural, and Interactional Justice

The authors investigated the relationship between organizational justice and organizational retaliation behavior—adverse reactions to perceived unfairness by disgruntled employees toward their employer—in a sample of 240 manufacturing employees. Distributive, procedural, and interactional justice interacted to predict organizational retaliation behavior. A relation between distributive justice and retaliation was found only when there was low interactional and procedural justice. The 2-way interaction of distributive and procedural justice was observed only at a low level of interactional justice, and the 2-way interaction of distributive and interactional justice was observed only at a low level of procedural justice.

Procedural Justice, Participation, and the Fair Process Effect in Groups and Organizations

The vast body of theory and research on justice in groups and organizations has focused primarily on issues of distributive justice (Homans, 1961), that is, the manner in which resources are distributed, and on responses to these distributions (for recent reviews, see Freedman & Montanari, 1980; Greenberg, 1982). Another fundamental type of justice manifest in groups and organizations, but one that has received considerably less attention, concerns the rules and processes through which resources are allocated, that is, procedural justice (Leventhal, 1976; Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Tyler & Caine, 1981). For example, in considering the fairness of pay raises, workers may not only take into account how much pay they receive relative to others, but also such procedural factors as who made the decision, and what criteria were taken into account (see Lawler, 1971). Concerns of this type, focusing on the process of allocation, rather than on the outcome of allocation per se, fall into the domain of procedural justice.

Unfairness and resistance to change: hardship as mistreatment

Proposes that organizational fairness is a psychological mechanism that can mediate employee resistance to change. Focuses on resentment‐based resistance as a subset of all possible resistance behaviors. Uses referent cognitions theory to explain why organizational change not only increases employees’ sensitivity to fairness, but also why change is frequently perceived as a loss. Recent theoretical and empirical research is presented that suggests if researchers and managers focus on the effects of any one of these three types of justice (i.e. distributive, procedural or interactional justice), they might fail to address resistance adequately. Examines how the three forms of justice interact to predict resistance to change, and provides some implications of this interaction effect for change managers.

Relative deprivation and referent cognitions: Distributive and procedural justice effects

Abstract In the terms of referent cognitions theory, high-justification procedures are those sufficiently appropriate to inhibit resentment regardless of the outcomes they produce. With low-justification procedures, however, resentment is predicted to increase the more unfavorably actual outcomes compare with those that would have resulted from using other procedures instead. The ordinary-context conditions of an experiment in which subjects had been instructed that their responses were used merely to index typical reactions to experiments produced such results. But within endorsement-context conditions in which subjects thought their responses were used to determine whether their experimenter would be hired as someone placed in charge of conducting research subjects expressed uniformly greater resentment in the low-justification conditions than in the high-justification conditions regardless of how favorable their outcomes might have been otherwise. The results are discussed in terms of reasons why the appropriateness of procedures sometimes becomes a predominant concern.

Microjustice and Macrojustice

If every individual in a society has been fairly rewarded, does this guarantee that rewards have been fairly distributed in the society as a whole? Surprisingly, it does not. It is our contention that people use different criteria to assess microjustice (the fairness of rewards to individual recipients) and macrojustice (the aggregate fairness of reward in a society).

Rethinking Equity Theory

Equity theory (Adams, 1965; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1973) seems to have outlived its usefulness. Can it—should it—be revised or recon-ceptualized? This chapter argues that there is a basis for rethinking equity theory and that such an enterprise is a worthwhile precursor to further research on the psychology of injustice.

Intergroup Cooperation and Intergroup Attraction: The Effect of Previous Interaction and Outcome of Combined Effort.

The present study investigated the conditions that determine when intergroup cooperation will result in increased intergroup attraction. In the first phase of the study groups were led to believe that they were either competing, cooperating, or having no interaction with a second group. The results indicated that competition led to the least intergroup attraction. In the second phase of the study, the two groups were combined and worked cooperatively on two tasks. They received feedback that their combined effort had either succeeded or failed. Intergroup attraction scores were taken after the second phase of the study. When groups had previously competed, failure on the combined effort resulted in decreased intergroup attraction while success yielded increased attraction. However, for groups that had previously cooperated, both success and failure on the combined effort increased intergroup attraction. The results were interpreted as showing that both previous interaction and success of combined effort are important variables in determining when intergroup cooperation will increase intergroup attraction.

The Impact of Community Violence and an Organization's Procedural Justice Climate on Workplace Aggression

This study contrasts community violence and an organizations procedural justice climate (or lack thereof) as explanations for employee-instigated workplace aggression in the geographically dispersed plants of a nationwide organization. The findings showed that violent crime rates in the community where a plant resided predicted workplace aggression in that plant, whereas the plants procedural justice climate did not.

When Push doesn't Come to Shove Interpersonal Forgiveness in Workplace Relationships

This article develops the construct of workplace forgiveness by drawing from several relevant literatures. Forgiveness is defined as a process by which an offended worker cognitively acknowledges the wrongfulness of an injurious act and deliberately chooses to release negative emotions and inhibit the desire for revenge. In contrast to revenge, forgiveness may repair damaged workplace relationships in the aftermath of a personal offense. The authors conclude with a research agenda in the form of objectives that provides researchers with a plan for investigating forgiveness.