Delivering bad news fairly: Higher construal level promotes interactional justice enactment through perspective taking

Abstract

SummaryHow can managers deliver bad news with greater interactional justice? We propose a novel cognitive pathway: Construing the activity at a higher (vs. lower) level increases actors' other‐oriented perspective taking, which in turn promotes the enactment of interactional justice. Three studies provide support. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated a beneficial effect of construal level on interactional justice enactment when explaining a hypothetical bad news decision. Study 2 also showed that other‐oriented perspective taking is the mechanism through which construal level promotes interactional justice enactment. Study 3 replicated and extended these findings with a different paradigm and the addition of a moderator variable (trait perspective taking), providing a converging test of the proposed mechanism. Overall, the present research suggests that how managers think about delivering bad news—whether at higher or lower levels of construal—affects the extent to which they think from the recipient's perspective, and in turn how they communicate the news. Our research generates novel avenues for future research on justice enactment, construal level theory, and perspective taking. It may also have implications for better understanding downstream consequences of interactional justice enactment for bad news deliverers themselves.