Perceptions Of Unfairness Research Articles

Electoral Integrity and Support for Democracy in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine

The expansion of democracy following the collapse of communism in 1989–1990 led many to believe that democratic institutions would rapidly take root. However, over the past decade, electoral malpractice has become widespread, casting doubt on democratic consolidation. This paper examines the causes and consequences of weak electoral integrity in Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine. Using a series of opinion surveys conducted since 2000, we show that public perceptions of electoral unfairness have their roots in seeing widespread corruption among public officials. By contrast, viewing elections as fair correlates with support for the incumbent government, and in watching television, the latter showing the importance to the regimes of control of the mass media. In turn, views about electoral integrity have a significant impact on satisfaction with democracy, especially in Belarus. The results suggest that only root and branch reform in the post-communist societies will substantially improve public perceptions of electoral integrity.

How Power States Influence Consumers' Perceptions of Price Unfairness

The present research explores how the power state interacts with comparative references in shaping consumer perceptions of price unfairness. Five experiments found that high-power consumers perceive stronger price unfairness when paying more than other consumers do, whereas low-power consumers perceive stronger unfairness when paying more than they themselves paid in previous transactions. The distinction occurs because consumers experience a threat to their self-importance from different types of disadvantaged comparisons depending on their power states. These results show that the state of power determines consumers' respective channels for maintaining their self-importance and alters the relevance of different comparative standards.

A study of expressive choice and strikes

The conventional explanation for strikes is that they are caused by an asymmetry of information about the profitability of the firm — union members are uninformed whereas management are informed. Instead, this paper builds a model of strikes where a perception of unfairness provides an expressive benefit to vote for a strike. The asymmetry of information is now reversed such that management are uninformed about the emotionality of union members. The model predicts that larger union size increases both wage offers and the incidence of strikes. An empirical test using UK data provides support for the predictions. In particular, union size is positively correlated with the incidence of strikes and other industrial actions, even when asymmetric information regarding profitability is controlled for.

What’s in it for Me? An Examination of Accounting Students’ Likelihood to Report Faculty Misconduct

Since there are so few controls over detecting and preventing faculty misconduct, one of the most common ways in which it is discovered is through student reports (in other words, whistleblowing). Given the importance of student reports in bringing to light faculty’s ethical lapses, this paper seeks to understand what factors influence students’ likelihood to report faculty misconduct. We develop an empirical model that integrates the decision process of the Prosocial Organizational Behavior (POB) Model with insights from the emotional perspective on whistleblowing. Specifically, we use an experimental survey to examine how students’ perceived unfairness of the faculty misconduct, feelings of anger, and the students’ self-interest in the situation in conjunction with situational “cues for inaction” lead to the intention to blow the whistle. Overall, the results from our structural model partially support our theoretical model. Interestingly, these findings demonstrate that, in the case of faculty member misconduct, anger and perceptions of unfairness play a greater role than the more rational cost-benefit process of the POB model. These results could aid in development of ethics education for students and could also inform the development of university policies that encourage students to come forward when faced with faculty misconduct.

Customers’ asymmetrical responses to variable pricing

This study investigates customer reactions to variable pricing (that is, being charged different prices for the same goods or services at one point in time across different markets) and finds that customers show asymmetrical responses to an increase in price difference. Specifically, customers who pay a higher price show stronger intentions to switch stores, to complain and to spread negative word-of-mouth when price difference gets larger, while the same amount of increase in price difference shows no effect on those who pay a lower price. In addition, negative emotions experienced by customers mediate the relationship between unfairness perception and behavioural responses. Results suggest that managers should exercise extra caution when introducing a relatively large price difference, and they should try to manage customers’ in-store emotional state to reduce the negative effects of variable pricing.

Individual Perceptions of Distributional Fairness in China

In the wake of China’s enormous success transitioning to a market economy there is a widely held belief among researchers and policymakers that the country’s income distribution has become excessively unfair. Previous authors have argued ‘the perception of inequality is one of the key elements of the attitudes toward reforms’. We hypothesize that reform ‘winners’ (educated, high income, higher ranking Party officials) will express less dissatisfaction with the current income distribution and reform ‘losers’ (less educated, lower income, lower ranking Party members) will express greater dissatisfaction with the current income distribution. To test this hypothesis we use two unique data sets, the 2002 Chinese Household Income Project and the World Values Survey. We find that the perception of unfairness is highly correlated with actual or perceived income, current prospects, attitude toward corruption, and status of Party membership.

Unfair wahrgenommene eigene Entlohnung, Arbeitszufriedenheit und Kündigungsabsicht: Empirische Evidenz auf Basis des SOEPs

Abstract In this paper, we use data of the German socio-economic panel (SOEP) for the years 2005, 2007, and 2009 in order to analyze the impact of subjective fairness perceptions of own labor income on job satisfaction and quit intentions of male and female employees. In pooled cross-section and in panel estimates with person specific fixed effects, we find that unfair wage perceptions are of statistical and economic significance. Gender specific differences are small. Workers with unfair wage perception report on average lower job satisfaction by about 4 to 6 percent and higher quit intentions by about 15 to 23 percent. Zusammenfassung In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir mit Daten des Sozio-okonomischen Panels (SOEP) fur die Jahre 2005, 2007 und 2009 den Einfluss der subjektiven Gerechtigkeitsbeurteilung des eigenen Arbeitseinkommens auf die Arbeitszufriedenheit und die Kundigungsabsichten von mannlichen und weiblichen Arbeitnehmern. Wir finden sowohl in unseren gepoolten Querschnittschatzungen als auch in...

Gender Differences in Perceived Domestic Task Equity

Despite inequalities in domestic work, a majority of couples perceive this arrangement as fair. Our study addresses this paradox by examining whether and why married lawyers perceive domestic work arrangements as unfair to themselves or their spouse. Our results reveal that predictors of perceived equity to self and spouse differ substantially and that the antecedents of perceptions of unfairness vary by gender. That is, women working longer hours are more likely than men to perceive the distribution of tasks as unfair to their spouse. Furthermore, the association between spouse’s time-based conflict and perceived task equity is greater for men than women at lower levels of spouse’s time-based conflict, though the effects converge for men and women at higher levels of time-based conflict. Our findings highlight the value in taking a more nuanced approach to studying perceived inequity in the distribution of domestic tasks among men and women.

Work Is Not a Game

As a very modern manager and reader of RTM , you know that your business teams would benefit from more diverse, timely, and expert knowledge than they could possibly have internally ( Spencer 2013 ). So you've tried using social media methods (either within the company or outside of it, or both), but frankly, not that many people seem to care. There's a flurry of activity after each announcement of a new challenge, but it dies out quickly. You've heard about gamification, a fast and easy way to get more involvement. But what is it? How can you use it? Should you?Gamification is the application of some of the attributes of video games (points, badges, and leaderboards) to a voluntary business process to encourage participation. When done thoughtfully and in moderation, it may be helpful. However, it is not a substitute for real, sustainable motivation-and in some cases, it may actually be demotivating. Done poorly or without thought, gamification can promote selfish and competitive behavior over cooperation and generate antipathy or perceptions of unfairness among the low-participating majority. And overdone, it may distract from the real business purpose of the project and drive unwanted behavior.The Immutable Pattern of Voluntary ParticipationBecause gamification is intended to increase participation, it's important to note the completely different signatures of mandatory versus voluntary participation. In a traditional, appointed business team, we generally expect everyone to contribute comparably, each according to his or her relevant knowledge: there should be no total slackers, and neither should one or two individuals dominate. Voluntary online forums have an entirely different signature-a long tail of participation, in which a few people contribute many times and a very large number contribute just once or twice or not at all. This holds true whenever participation is voluntary, in every industry, at every scale ( Spencer and Woods 2010 ; Spencer 2012 ).The important thing to note is that this long-tail pattern is normal and universal. About 75 percent of content in such a forum will come from those who contribute just one, two, or three times. There is nothing wrong with this pattern, and people are not being lazy; in fact they're exercising a choice over where to spend their limited time and attention. In other words, participation in voluntary forums can't be judged by the same standards applied to conscripted teams. The pattern is intrinsic, and it doesn't matter if the motivation is altruistic or tangible: participation in Innocentive, whose challenges have payouts in the thousands of dollars, has the same long-tail form as altruistic challenges ( Spencer 2012 ). This pattern will not be changed by gamification.Motivation, Demotivation, and EngagementIn the century since Frederick Taylor, Henry Ford, and Alfred Sloan invented the modern corporation, there has been an active, research-driven literature about motivation at work; researchers have generated considerable consensus around what motivates us. Herzberg (1987) and the huge Gallup studies on engagement (see Buckingham and Coffman 1999 ; Coffman and Gonzales-Molina 2002 ) capture the key points:* Motivating factors and demotivating factors are different from each other. For knowledge workers, for instance, money is not a strong motivator but, if it is perceived to be given unfairly, it can be a strong demotivator.* Perceived unfairness in policies and procedures is strongly demotivating. Fairness (or its lack) is recognized as a powerful force that may override economics in decision making ( Kahneman 2011 , 308).* The strongest motivator for knowledge workers is the belief that one's contributions matter, that they make a difference and serve a useful purpose.Daniel Pink's (2009) comprehensive review of motivation reinforces these points, concluding that knowledge work is driven by the desire for autonomy, mastery, and purpose. …

Laboratory Staff Evaluation Process

Objectively evaluating laboratory staff is a very difficult task. Variations in supported equipment, student performance, and process sensitivity prevent the use of direct, objective criteria in employee performance measurement. These factors are multiplied in research facilities, where equipment uptime and process performance measurements are not easily determined. Supervisors, therefore, must apply more subjective techniques in staff evaluation, which often results in the perception of inequity. This paper presents a rigorous evaluation process that utilizes significant employee participation to address this issue of perceived inequity. The process utilizes five areas of evaluation: Goals and Accountability; Job Performance; Individual Characteristics; Aspirations and Assistance; and Employee Feedback. These areas, applied through an employee self-evaluation followed by direct interaction between employee and supervisor, serve as discussion points as well as a means of performance documentation. While still primarily subjective in nature, the process significantly reduces any perception of unfairness and allows the employee to document issues for future reference. Introduced six years ago at the Birck Nanotechnology Center at Purdue University, the process has undergone numerous tweaks and enhancements leading to the version documented in this paper.

Perceptions of Price (Un)Fairness in a Channel Context

This article extends prior research on perceptions of price (un)fairness by attempting to disentangle where in the marketing channel (un)fairness inferences lie. Extant research in this area overwhelmingly considers (un)fairness perceptions with respect to the pricing action only, ignoring attributions aimed at specific channel actors. This article illustrates differences in (un)fairness inferences with respect to retailers and manufacturers given price increases accompanied by decreased product supply, increased demand, or increased variable costs. We show that a retailer is considered relatively more unfair than a manufacturer given a price increase accompanied by a demand increase, as well as when no explicit reason is given for the price increase. Conversely, a manufacturer is considered relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a supply decrease. Both channel entities are considered equally fair given a price increase accompanied by a channel (both retailer and manufacturer) or manufacturer cost increase, while a retailer is deemed relatively more unfair given a price increase accompanied by a retailer cost increase. This research generally suggests that inferences of causality for specific pricing actions may differentially skew toward upstream or downstream channel entities depending on the particular economic circumstances of the price change.

Perceptions of Unfairness in the Management of Bullying Complaints: Exploring the Consequences

This exploratory study aimed to examine why some bullied workers submitted compensable injury claims for psychological injury after they had made a workplace bullying grievance, and others did not. This study was carried out using a mixed methodology. Forty-four participants who had complained about bullying at work completed a survey about their experiences, and 31 were interviewed. A thematic analysis of the interview data was undertaken. Those participants who submitted workers’ compensation claims were found to be significantly more depressed than those who did not submit workers’ compensation claims, although no significant differences were found between the anxiety and stress scores of all participants. Results also indicated that participants who submitted a workers’ compensation claim perceived less organisational justice in the way their complaint of bullying was managed than those participants who did not submit a claim. These results were endorsed by the qualitative aspects of the study where themes of frustration and unfairness were closely linked with the decision to submit a workers’ compensation claim. This is one of the few studies that have examined the effect of an organisation’s response to workplace bullying allegations on an employee’s decision to claim workers’ compensation for psychological injury.

Organizational injustice: Third parties’ reactions to mistreatment of employee

Research on organizational injustice has mainly focused on the victim's perspective. This study attempts to contribute to our understanding of third parties' perspective by empirically testing a model that describes third party reactions to mistreatment of employees. Data were obtained from a sample (N = 334) of Spanish employees from various organizations, nested into 66 work-groups, via a survey regarding their perceptions of organizational mistreatment. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The proposed model had a limited fit to the data and it was re-specified. Organizational mistreatment, employee performance, and employee organizational commitment explained internal attributions blaming the organization. Moreover, coworkers' organizational identification showed a positive impact on external attributions of responsibility. Lastly, supportive organizational climate and internal attributions accounted for a large percentage of variance in coworkers' perceptions of organizational unfairness. The final model explains the perceptions of injustice on the basis of internal attributions of responsibility in the face of organizational mistreatment of employees.

Implementing price increases in turbulent economies: Pricing approaches for reducing perceptions of price unfairness

Consumer frustration over having less money in their pockets and, at the same time facing higher prices for products and services in the marketplace, arises during turbulent economic times (e.g., post-2007). Sellers suffer increased costs and pass along increases by raising prices to consumers. The current article discusses trends in the pricing literature and in practice that sellers utilize in limiting perceptions of price unfairness, particularly when increasing price in turbulent economic times. Specifically, engaging in transparency in pricing by revealing information about price changes to the consumer during poor economic times potentially reduces perceptions of price unfairness. Using industry-common price-setting practices, shrinking product volume, providing automatic rebates promotions, or offering price-matching promotions also likely reduces perceptions of price unfairness.

Diversity and Community Trust in Swedish Local Communities

This article analyses the effect of immigration-related diversity on different forms of trust through the hierarchical analysis of three levels of approximately 5,000 respondents nested in over 800 neighbourhoods and 33 municipalities. The data set is based on a unique survey that was specially designed to measure different forms of trust and to test the effects of context. Building on previous findings about the effect of diversity on various forms of trust in Sweden, we discuss three mechanisms through which diversity may drive down community trust in diverse settings – dissimilarity, perceptions of unfairness and asymmetry of information and norms – and explore these empirically. In particular, we examine under which conditions asymmetry of information and norms and perceptions of unfairness affect community trust, and how it interacts with diversity. Our analysis reveals that norm asymmetry and perceptions of unfairness affect community trust negatively but the negative effects are more pronounced in the most diverse local communities.

My Wage is Unfair! Just a Feeling or Comparison with Peers?

This paper descriptively analyzes the nexus between income comparisons and perceptions of unfair pay. A German household survey reveals that individuals who perceive their wages as unfair earn significantly lower wages than fairly paid individuals with similar characteristics. This suggests that unfairness perceptions with respect to wages are based on sound income comparisons with peers. When asked about a subjectively fair amount in Euros, individuals tend to claim much higher wages than fairly paid individuals with identical characteristics.

Understanding the Nature and Effects of Police-Citizen Encounters in Social Context: The Road Less Traveled

Aggressive policing tactics have been identified as contributors to declining crime rate trends in urban, culturally diverse neighborhoods. They encompass stop and frisk practices which have spawned negative public opinion that contrasts with its justification by criminal justice officials as an effective means for the control and prevention of crime. The issue, however, begs deeper questions not readily addressed: how does the nature of police-citizen suspicion-based encounters influence the attitudes and behavior of both stakeholders; and does it contribute to effective crime control and prevention? Based on an analysis of theoretical and empirical research in the field, this article argues that a sense of shame and perception of fairness or unfairness are endemic to face-to-face suspicion-based encounters between police officers and the public, and have significant implications for the experience of justice, control and prevention of crime, and policy initiatives to promote community safety.

The Democratization of Rent Seeking in Greece

We describe the evolution of the power struggle in Greece among key economic and political stakeholders, who have tried, via strategic positioning and rent-seeking activities, to influence economic policy outcomes during the postwar decades. We split the postwar decades in three periods: the catching-up period, the overt populism period of 1973-1993, and the 1993-2008 of stealth populism. In each period, we identify the important players to see how they managed to forge a sustainable wining coalition, and to understand how they shaped policies. The three periods vary substantially in terms of the inherent degree of economic inefficiency they brought about; the first one was characterized by a concentration of rent-seeking mainly among the economic and political elite, whereas the middle period exemplifies the “democratization” of rent-seeking. The middle period’s proliferation of rent seeking received some legitimacy by large segments of the population due to widespread, and often ideological, perceptions of long-lasting unfairness in the distribution of economic and political power. The covert populism of the last period used an unsustainable expansion of foreign borrowing to allow for an intensification of rent seeking while providing a semblance of fiscal rectitude.

Jihad as justification: National survey evidence of belief in violent jihad as a mediating factor for sacred violence amongMuslims inIndonesia

Many factors have been used to explain sacred violence. Regardless of the abundance of theories, two issues have emerged: lack of national‐level evidence and lack of attention to the justification factor for the violence. We argue that belief in violent jihad serves as justification for sacred violence, and conducted two studies to address the issues. The first study provides narratives on violence justification. The second quantitatively tests the mediating role of belief in violent jihad on sacred violence. It was found that only violent jihad, but not religiosity, fundamentalism, support for Islamic law, or perceptions of unfairness predicted sacred violence.

Exploring foreign undergraduate students’ experiences of university

Although international students are an important source of income to universities in the UK, the emotional impact of their experiences may be ignored and unacknowledged. This study explored the personal experiences of international students studying for an undergraduate degree in the UK. Semi-structured interviews with five participants were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, which aimed to capture the personal perceptions of these participants. Two analytical themes are presented: “adaptation and identity”, which reflects the difficulties in acculturation, adaptation and development of identity in a foreign country; and “us and them”, which pays close attention to the perception of disconnectedness, unfairness and exclusion encountered in trying to integrate into a different way of life. Findings are discussed in relation to the impact that participants’ experiences have had on their self-worth, confidence and ability to engage with domestic individuals.