Observers’ fairness perceptions change with contrasting information for employee reprimands

Abstract

In the current experiment, participants portrayed the role of third-party employees who witnessed a supervisor reprimanding a subordinate for ordering a part from the wrong company. Information was provided to participants conveying whether or not the reprimanded employee was responsible for the ordering error and then participants made ratings related to fairness. Subsequently, employee responsibility either changed or did not change (Time 2) and participants again provided the same ratings. Compared to the no-change condition, observers’ final (Time 2) perceptions of fairness were very extreme for the responsible and the not responsible conditions when participants received contrasting information about employee responsibility. These data suggest that employee reprimands affect the perceptions of their co-workers, such that contrasting information generates dissonance arousal in observers, which can be damaging to work environments. Therefore, supervisors need to establish the facts before they openly reprimand employees or they should take strong steps to avoid such displays.