The difficulties in ensuring justice in temporary teams – managers’ perspective

Abstract

Purpose: The paper aims to assess difficulties in ensuring justice in temporary teams. Three research questions were asked: do managers think that ensuring justice in temporary teams is difficult?; which determinants of a sense of justice in temporary teams do managers consider the most difficult/easiest?; is the degree of difficulty associated with ensuring each of the four types of justice in the work of the temporary team the same? Design/methodology/approach: The survey was carried out in June and July of 2021. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney U test was used to assess the statistical significance of differences in the difficulty level in ensuring justice in temporary teams. Findings: Managers ranked distributive justice as the most difficult to provide, followed by procedural justice, informational justice and interpersonal justice, respectively. Respondents ranked 4 factors as the most difficult to provide: the information needed for the work of the temporary team is provided just in time; each member of the temporary team is appreciated (tangibly and intangibly) according to their contribution to the team, the task team (as a whole) is appreciated, tangibly and intangibly, according to the effort put into the task and a temporary team leader will customize communication to suit the individual needs of members of the temporary team. Research limitations/implications: The first limitation is related to the research sample. Entities from a few selected industries were included. The second limitation is related to the fact that temporary teams differ, and sometimes these differences are significant. Another limitation is the composition of the research group. It included managers. In order to fully recognize the situation, it would be necessary to know the opinions of other employees. Practical implications: The results of the research may be helpful for managers in various types of organizations. They allow for a better understanding of temporary teams' regulations. In addition, they indicate those issues that should be given special attention in order to manage such teams reasonably. Originality/value: Although the topic of teamwork appears in academic publications, only a few relate justice in temporary work teams. This paper deals with this topic and focuses on difficulties with fair team management. Keywords: organizational justice, temporary teams, teamwork. Category of the paper: Research paper.