Organizational Justice, Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility

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CHAPTER 2 • ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE, ETHICS, AND CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY 45 procedural justice People’s perceptions of the fairness of the procedures used to determine the outcomes they receive. only how much of various outcomes you receive (i.e., distributive justice) but also the process by which those outcomes are determined—that is, procedural justice. Specifically, procedural justice refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the procedures used to determine the outcomes they receive. Again, let’s consider as an example the formal appraisals of an individual’s job performance. Workers consider such ratings to be fair to the extent that certain procedures were followed, such as when raters were believed to be familiar with their work and when they believed that the standards used to judge them were applied to everyone equally. 9 As you might imagine, matters of procedural justice take a variety of different forms and are involved in many different situations. Let’s consider an illustration. A few years ago, New York City cab drivers went on strike to protest then-Mayor Giuliani’s imposition of new safety rules. 10 As it worked out, the drivers had few gripes with the rules themselves. However, they felt it was unfair for the mayor to impose the rules without consulting them. In their eyes, fairness demanded having a voice in the decision-making process. This too is a major consideration when it comes to judging procedural justice. For a more complete list of some of the principal factors that people take into account when forming judgments about procedural justice, see Table 2.1. Maintaining procedural justice is a key concern of people in all types of institutions. In legal proceedings, for example, cases may be dismissed if unfair procedures are used to gather evidence. And, in organizations, people also reject decisions based on unfair practices. In fact, following unfair procedures not only makes people dissatisfied with their TABLE 2.1 Procedural Justice Criteria In forming judgments of procedural justice, people take different factors into consideration. Some of the major ones are identified here, along with descriptions and examples of each. Criterion Description Example •Voice in the making of Perceptions of procedural Workers are given an decisions justice are enhanced to the opportunity to explain their extent thatpeople are given feelings about their own work a say in the decisions to a supervisor who is affecting them. evaluating their performance. • Consistency in applying To be fair, the rules used as A professor must use the same rules the basis for making a exact standards in evaluating decision about one person the term papers of each student must be applied equally to in the class. making a decision about someone else. • Accuracy in use of Fair decisions must be based A manager calculating the information on information that is amount of overtime pay a accurate. worker is to receive must add the numbers accurately. • Opportunity to be heard Fair procedures are ones in Litigants have an opportunity to which people have a readily have a judge’s decision available opportunity to reconsidered in the event that correct any mistakes that an error was made in legal have been made. proceedings. (See also the instant replay rule used by the NFL as described in the Preview Case.) • Safeguards against bias A person making a decision Lottery drawings are held in must not have any such a manner that each opportunity to bias the number is selected in a results. completely random, unbiased fashion. Source: Based on information in Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005; see Note 1.
46 PART 1 • INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR outcomes (as in the case of distributive justice), but leads them to reject the entire system as unfair. 11 Not surprisingly, as shown in Figure 2.1, procedural justice affects people’s tendencies to follow organizational rules: Workers are not inclined to follow an organization’s rules when they have reason to believe that its procedures are inherently unfair. And, of course, when this occurs, serious problems are likely to arise. Accordingly, everyone in an organization—especially top officials—would be well advised to adhere to the criteria for promoting procedural justice summarized in Table 2.1. interpersonal justice People’s perceptions of the fairness of the manner in which they are treated by others (typically, authority figures). informational justice People’s perceptions of the fairness of the information used as the basis for making a decision. group-value explanation (of organizational justice) The idea that people believe they are an important part of the organization when an organizational official takes the time to explain thoroughly to them the rationale behind a decision. Interpersonal Justice. Imagine that you were just laid off from your job. You’re not happy about it, of course, but suppose that your boss explains this situation to you in a manner that takes some of the sting out of it. Although your boss cannot do anything about this high-level corporate decision, he or she is very sensitive to the harm this causes you and expresses concern for you in a highly sensitive and caring manner. Research has shown that people experiencing situations such as this tend to accept their layoffs as being fair and hold positive feelings about their supervisors (see Figure 2.1). Importantly, such individuals are less inclined to sue their former companies on the grounds of wrongful termination than those who believe they were treated in an opposite manner—that is, an insensitive and disrespectful fashion. 12 The type of justice demonstrated in this example is known as interpersonal justice. This refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the manner in which they are treated by others (typically, authority figures). Informational Justice. Imagine that you are a heavy smoker of cigarettes and learn that your company has just imposed a smoking ban. Although you may recognize that it’s the right thing to do, you are unhappy about it because the ruling forces you to change your behavior and break an addictive habit. Will you accept the smoking ban as fair and do your best to go along with it? Research suggests that you will do so only under certain circumstances—if you are given clear and thorough information about the need for the smoking ban (e.g., the savings to the company and improvements to the health of employees). 13 The form of justice illustrated in this example is known as informational justice. This refers to people’s perceptions of the fairness of the information used as the basis for making a decision. Because detailed information was provided about the basis for implementing the smoking ban, informational justice was high, leading people to accept the fairness of the smoking ban. A key explanation for this phenomenon is that informational justice prompts feelings of being valued by others in an organization. This is known as the group-value explanation of organizational justice. 14 The basic idea is that people believe they are considered an important part of the organization when an organizational official takes the time to explain thoroughly to them the rationale behind a decision. And people experiencing such feelings may be expected to believe that they are being treated in a fair manner. In Figure 2.2 we referred to KFC as adhering to distributive justice. This company also is very sensitive to interpersonal justice among its employees. According to Adonis Chapel, a KFC manager, the trick is not only in “doing chicken right,” as its advertising slogan goes, but also “treating people right.” 15 Relationships Between Various Forms of Justice Although we have been describing the various forms of organizational justice separately, it would be misleading to assume that they are completely independent of one another. In fact, researchers have found some well-established relationships between the various forms of justice. The Interactive Relationship Between Distributive Justice and Procedural Justice. Imagine once again that you have received either an excellent grade or a poor grade in a class. Given that most of us tend to perceive ourselves more positively than others see us (we will discuss such perceptual biases in Chapter 3), you are likely to believe that a high grade is more fairly deserved than a low grade. In other words, the positive outcome is likely to be perceived as being more distributively just than the negative outcome. (The
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