Perceptions Of Procedural Fairness Research Articles

Leaders' fairness and followers' conflict handling style

PurposeThe present paper aims to identify an important moderator of the effect of leader's fairness on the conflict handling style adopted by followers. Based on the uncertainty management model the authors hypothesize that the motivation to reduce uncertainty, reflected by individual differences in need for cognitive closure, moderates the use of constructive conflict handling style as a response to variation in leader's perceived procedural fairness.Design/methodology/approachA correlational study was conducted on a sample of 175 Italian public employees. Each participant filled out a questionnaire. Data analysis was carried out performing a series of multiple regression analyses.FindingsConsistent with previous research, regression analysis showed that perceived leader's fairness promoted a more constructive approach to manage conflict with leaders. More importantly this relationship was stronger under high rather than low need for cognitive closure.Practical implicationsPresent results suggest that in order to favor a solution‐oriented conflict handling style, leaders should promote perceptions of procedural fairness, especially among those with high need for closure.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies that looks at a moderator of the relationship between leader's fairness and constructive conflict management. It integrates literature on procedural fairness and cooperation. Furthermore, as the current research focuses on need for closure, it has important implications with regard to the uncertainty management model.

In the Eyes of the Beholder? The Role of Dispositional Trust in Judgments of Procedural Fairness

Previous research on the antecedents of procedural fairness judgments has focused primarily on situational factors. We suggest that dispositional tendencies also affect perceptions of procedural fairness. Converging evidence from three studies showed that people’s general propensity to trust others was positively related to their fairness perceptions. Study 3 also found that the positive relationship between dispositional trust and perceived procedural fairness emerged even when participants received identical procedural fairness information, suggesting that the relationship between dispositional trust and fairness was not simply explained by the possibility that those who are more trusting were actually treated more fairly. Study 3 also showed that dispositional trust in particular was predictive of procedural fairness perceptions whereas other individual difference variables reflecting positivity were not.

Why feed the hand that bites you? Perceptions of procedural fairness and system support in post‐communist democracies

AbstractThere is widespread agreement that bad governance and corruption represent daunting threats to new democracies and developing countries. Nonetheless, mainstream research on system support and political legitimacy has to a large extent overlooked the crucial importance of public perceptions of procedural fairness for fostering public support and regime legitimacy. Taking its departure in the theory of procedural fairness, this article challenges the conventional wisdom of earlier research by arguing and demonstrating that public perceptions of procedural fairness and impartiality on behalf of the authorities are the most important determinants of system support in the post‐communist European Union Member States. The empirical analysis lends strong support to the fact that perceptions of fairness and the extent of corruption exercise a strong effect on public support for the performance of the political system and approval of regime principles.

Behavioral and Emotional Reactions to Voice Unanswered

People are influenced profoundly by the extent to which they perceive social situations as fair or unfair. Numerous studies have found that people perceive procedures that allow them an opportunity to voice their opinions as fairer and as more satisfying than procedures that do not allow them such an opportunity. However, people feel more frustrated when they receive low outcomes in procedures that include voice. This phenomenon is known as the “frustration effect”. Aims: In ultimatum and dictator games with voice, we tested the recipients’ reactions to having their voice disregarded. Method: In the control condition, participants played in the role of recipient in a one-period ultimatum, or dictator game, with or without voice. In the voice condition they could also send short pre-decisional messages to the allocators. In addition, they answered a post-experimental questionnaire pertaining to their levels of satisfaction and perceptions of outcome and procedural fairness. Results: 1. In the ultimatum game rejection rates of low offers were significantly higher in the voice condition. 2. The detected effect was stronger among male participants. 3. Feelings of anger, frustration and insult were higher in the voice, than in the no-voice condition, particularly in the ultimatum game. 4. Recipients’ dissatisfaction from low offers was more pronounced in the ultimatum than in the dictator game. 5. In both games, low offers were perceived as less fair in the voice, than in the no-voice condition. Main conclusions: Our findings lend strong support to the “frustration effect”. In addition, they suggest that a “deaf ear” to voice is more frustrating when the recipient has structural power (i.e., in the ultimatum game). The detected voice X gender effect could be attributed to the persisting discrimination against women, who, as consequence, are less affected by having their voice disregarded.

The antecedents of a ‘chilly climate’ for women faculty in higher education

The literature on women’s under-representation in academia asserts that faculty women face a ‘chilly climate’, but there are few theoretically based studies examining this proposition. Relational demography, organizational justice, and social network theories all identify possible antecedents of ‘chilly climate’. Using survey data of faculty at a private Midwestern US university, we test whether the perception of exclusion (chilly climate) is influenced by demographic dissimilarity, and perceptions of fairness and gender equity. We find that faculty women perceive more exclusion from academic departments with a low representation of women, consistent with relational demography. Perceptions of procedural fairness and gender equity are powerful factors that foster inclusion and warm the climate for both men and women. The ‘chilly climate’ for women faculty is a complex phenomenon with multiple causes. Policies that fail to address these multiple causes are unlikely to be effective.

The Process is the Reality: Perceptions of Procedural Fairness and Participatory Democracy

To (re)connect and (re-)engage citizens with their governing institutions, many advanced industrial democracies have adopted innovative reforms designed to ‘transform’ the way citizens interact with public institutions. This article assesses the extent to which the Scottish Parliament's petitioning system, a reform designed to connect the Scottish public with its parliament, influences broader trust in the political system. Using structural equations to model data from a survey of Scottish Parliament petitioners, the article finds that process evaluations far exceed outcome evaluations in influencing petitioner trust in political institutions. Hence simply adopting reforms that allow for ‘civic engagement’ is not enough to improve public support for the political system. Great care must be taken in adopting transformative reforms to ensure that those members of the public who do choose to ‘engage’ with political institutions see procedures as fair and politically neutral.

Are Self-Evaluations Helpful or Harmful When Employees are Unaware of Their Marginal Contribution to Firm Welfare?

This study examines whether eliciting self-evaluations from employees in a compensation setting context leads to higher or lower employer welfare when employees are not aware of their marginal contribution to firm welfare. The literature suggests that providing employees with a voice in the compensation setting process leads to greater employee satisfaction with compensation and higher productive employee effort due to such factors as increased employee perception of procedural fairness. Contrary to this position I propose that providing employees a voice in the compensation setting process when employees are not aware of their marginal contribution to firm welfare has the unintended effect of leading to less employee satisfaction with compensation, which results in lower employer welfare. Such an effect is due to self-evaluations leading to greater employee overconfidence in their performance resulting from a motivated reasoning process. I present experimental evidence from comparing a control condition without self-evaluations to three different self-evaluation reporting conditions, finding evidence consistent with the premise that self-evaluations lead to lower employer welfare. Data on employee perception of performance when self-evaluations are elicited supports the proposed motivated reasoning process. My findings show a cost to self-evaluations that thus far has not been sufficiently considered in the literature and provide an explanation for why this cost occurs.

Modeling patient perceptions of service recovery: The effects of perceived fairness on health center repatronage

Repatronage intentions towards Taiwanese health centers that had received patient complaints and implemented service recovery were investigated. Valid samples (N = 168) were collected from the complaint behavior of patients resulting from their experiences of service failures in health centers. Results indicate that perceptions of distributive fairness and procedural fairness in health centers were related to repatronage intentions. In contrast, interactional fairness did not have the anticipated relationship with repatronage intentions. Consequently, health centers personnel should identify themselves with patients' concerns and take a caring and sympathetic attitude towards them so as to encourage people to revisit the health centers.

The Moderating Effect of Personality on Employees’ Reactions to Procedural Fairness and Outcome Favorability

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine how personality moderates the interactive effect of procedural fairness perceptions and outcome favorability on employees’ job attitudes.

Practising what we preach: justice and ethical instruction in management education

Building on organizational justice research, we extended the study of classroom justice to management education. In the first study, we identified the criteria that business students use to define distributive, procedural, and interactional fairness. In a second study, we found that management students’ perceptions of both procedural and interactional fairness were significant and unique predictors of their evaluations of instructional effectiveness. However, procedural justice was the only significant predictor of overall evaluations of the course. Results of this study will aid management educators in implementing procedures and treatment that students perceive as fair and also to serve as ethical role models for managers of the future.

Gender as a Moderator of the Fair Process Effect

This paper examines gender as a moderator of the fair-process effect in an ultimatum game setting. Results from games with 112 German high-school students support the hypothesis that fair procedures can decrease rejection behavior in unfair human allocation decisions. Furthermore, procedural fairness results in a statistically significant difference for women in accepting an unfair distribution. In contrast, procedural fairness appears to have no significant impact on men’s rejection behavior. However, we found no significant gender differences in the perception of procedural fairness. We conclude that, although men perceive procedural fairness similarly to women, this aspect is less important for determining their subsequent behavior.

Moral Convictions Often Override Concerns About Procedural Fairness: A Reply to Napier and Tyler

Napier and Tyler (this issue) question whether moral convictions about outcomes really override the influence of procedural fairness (PF) on fairness judgments and decision acceptance. The empirical answer to this question is “yes.” When people have strong moral convictions about outcomes, perceptions of outcome fairness and decision acceptance are primarily shaped by whether the morally “correct” outcomes are achieved. Pre-decision perceptions of PF have surprisingly little or no effect on these judgments. That said, pre-outcome perceptions of PF sometimes predict post-outcome perceptions of PF, even when people have morally vested outcome preferences. We provide further details supporting the validity and superiority of our data analytic approach and argue that our original conclusions were justified.

How leader prototypicality affects followers' status: The role of procedural fairness

Building on theoretical accounts like fairness heuristic theory, we argued that strongly identifying group members view leaders who are prototypical of the group as procedurally fair. Because procedural fairness affects group members' self-perceived status, leader prototypicality should also enhance strongly identifying followers' self-perceived status. Study 1 was an organizational field study. Employees high in organization identification viewed prototypical leaders as procedurally fair and thought higher of their own status in the organization. Moreover, perceptions of the leaders' procedural fairness mediated the effect of leader prototypicality (among high identifiers) on employees' self-perceived status. These results were replicated in Study 2, a scenario experiment, in which leader prototypicality and group identification were manipulated orthogonally. These studies further highlight the role of procedural fairness in the social identity analysis of leadership and more generally, the importance of studying issues of fairness and leadership in their connectedness.

Procedural Justice and Identification with Virtual Teams: The Moderating Role of Face-to-Face Meetings and Geographical Dispersion

We investigated the previously unstudied relationship between proce- dural justice and identification within virtual teams, with a particular focus on how two features of virtual teams, namely frequency of face-to-face meetings and geographical dispersion, moderate that relationship. We argue that these two vari- ables are sources of uncertainty, which in turn makes virtual team members more sensitive to perceptions of procedural fairness as essential cues in the identification process. In this study, we used cross-sectional survey methodology and data aggregated to the team level (N = 39). As predicted, our results showed that the link between procedural justice and identification was stronger when there were few face-to-face meetings and when teams were highly dispersed.

Fairness of performance evaluation procedures and job satisfaction: The role of outcome‐based and non‐outcome‐based effects

Prior management accounting studies on fairness perceptions have overlooked two important issues. First, no prior management accounting studies have investigated how procedural fairness, by itself, affects managers’ job satisfaction. Second, management accounting researchers have not demonstrated how conflicting theories on procedural fairness can be integrated and explained in a coherent manner. Our model proposes that fairness of procedures for performance evaluation affects job satisfaction through two distinct processes. The first is outcome‐ based through fairness of outcomes (distributive fairness). The second is non‐outcome‐based through trust in superior and organisational commitment. Based on a sample of 110 managers, the results indicate that while procedural fairness perceptions affect job satisfaction through both processes, the non‐outcome‐based process is much stronger than the outcome‐based process. These results may be used to develop a unified theory on procedural fairness effects.

Test‐Taker Reactions to the Selection Process: Effects of Outcome Favorability, Explanations, and Voice on Fairness Perceptions

This study examined the effects of providing an explanation and voice on fairness perceptions and reactions of test takers under favorable and unfavorable selection decisions. Participants took either a cognitive ability test or an overt integrity test in a simulated selection situation. Then, the voice manipulation was introduced. Participants were informed of the hiring decision with or without an explanation. Results showed that type of test had effects on procedural fairness perceptions such that these reactions were more positive when a cognitive ability test was used. The results of voice and explanation manipulations on fairness perceptions indicated that providing an explanation had a positive effect on perceptions but, surprisingly, face‐validity perceptions were less favorable when participants had voice opportunity.

Applying Procedural Justice Theory to Law Enforcement's Response to Persons With Mental Illness

Applying Procedural Justice Theory to Law Enforcement's Response to Persons With Mental Illness

Does Fairness Matter More to Some than to Others? The Moderating Role of Workplace Status on The Relationship Between Procedural Fairness Perceptions and Job Satisfaction

Three field studies explored the relations among status, procedural fairness, and job satisfaction in the workplace. Study 1 revealed that status differences moderated the relationship between procedural fairness and job satisfaction such that there was a stronger relationship between procedural fairness and job satisfaction for individuals with higher perceived status than for those with lower perceived status. Study 2 examined a possible underlying psychological mechanism for the moderating effect of perceived status—the importance of procedural fairness deservingness—and found that higher levels of perceived status were associated with a greater sense of deservingness for procedural fairness. Extending the results of the first two studies, Study 3 found that procedural fairness deservingness mediated the moderating effect of status on the relationship between procedural fairness and job satisfaction. This research contributes to theories of fairness by further illuminating the role of status in affecting reactions to procedural fairness. This research also contributes to our understanding of status in organizations and shows that perceived status can lead to an increased sense of deservingness.

Due Process Model of Procedural Justice in Performance Appraisal: Promotion versus Termination Scenarios

In a laboratory study, 318 student participants (148 male, 169 female, and one who did not report sex; M age 25.0, SD = 6.0) in introductory organizational behavior classes responded to scenarios in which performance appraisal resulted in either employee promotion or termination. Each scenario had varying levels of three procedural justice criteria for performance appraisal. For both promotion and termination outcomes, analysis showed that, as the number of criteria increased, perceptions of procedural fairness increased. A comparison between the two outcomes showed that perceptions of fairness were significantly stronger for the promotion outcome than for termination.

Procedural Justice and the Assessment of Civil Justice in Japan

In analyzing the data from a structured interview survey with Japanese litigants of civil trials, we examined the relationships between their perceptions of outcomes and process of the trials, responses to the trials, and evaluation of the judicial system. The results showed that both favorability of trial outcomes and procedural fairness of trials increased satisfaction with the trial outcomes and evaluation of the judicial system. Satisfaction was largely determined by perceived favorability, while the evaluation of the judicial system was largely determined by perceived procedural fairness, suggesting a justice bond effect that justice fortifies people's societal commitment. Consistent with procedural justice theories, the perception of procedural fairness was increased by the sense of control and the appraisal of relational factors, though both were affected by favorability.