“When Good Intentions Meet Tough Decisions…” – How Managers Grapple with Justice Conundrums

Abstract

Managers tasked with change must typically make and implement tough decisions whereby each choice implies undeserved negative outcomes for at least one of those affected and is likely to be perceived as unfair – a conundrum for justice enactment. Drawing on longitudinal interviews, we noted that although managers uniformly stressed the importance of justice in change management, their patterns of grappling with justice conundrums differed. A first group of managers struggled with the moral implications and their inability to act upon their intentions and left the organization. A second group of managers wrestled with their attempts to execute changes perceived as unfair and sought to meet various stakeholder expectations, leading them to change their roles. A third group focused on the business strategy and appeased their moral concerns by conceptualizing fairness from the company perspective and by morally disengaging. These managers remained in their roles. Our findings culminate in an integrative model that extends the current literature by illustrating 1) the dynamics of how managers grapple with the conundrums involved in justice enactment; 2) the role played by cognitive mechanisms in such dynamics; and 3) the intertwined influence of moral emotions and the circle of moral regard on justice enactment