Perceptions Of Unfairness Research Articles

Can a merger of equals truly exist?

Purpose Between 1985 and 2001, only 45 of 90,480 total European mergers and acquisitions were identified as a merger of equals (Zaheer et al., 2003). This indicates that there were less than 1 per cent of the M&A deals that could actually be categorized as a merger of equals. This paper aims to analyse two recent mergers and assess to what extent they are “of equals”. Design/methodology/approach The paper takes a multi-case study approach looking specifically at the Lafarge-Holcim and DuPont-Dow Chemical mergers. Findings Zaheer et al. (2003) point out that in the case of a merger of equals emotions run usually high, perceptions of fairness and unfairness are strongly related to identification with their former organizations, and the very idea of “equality” can backfire, as integration can never be equal in all its aspects. It remains to be seen if the Lafarge-Holcim and the DuPont-Dow Chemicals will truly be equal. Practical implications The paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Tend to Compare and Tend to Be Fair: The Relationship between Social Comparison Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity.

Social comparison is a prerequisite for processing fairness, although the two types of cognition may be associated with different emotions. Whereas social comparison may induce envy, the perception of unfairness may elicit anger. Yet, it remains unclear whether people who tend to have a strong sense of fairness also tend to compare themselves more with others. Here, Study 1 used a modified ultimatum game (UG) and a social comparison game (SCG) to examine the relationship between justice sensitivity and social comparison sensitivity in 51 young adults. Study 2 examined self-reported social comparison and justice sensitivity in 142 young adults. Both studies showed a positive correlation between social comparison sensitivity and justice sensitivity. We reason that social comparison and justice sensitivity have an important positive correlation in human decision-making. The rejection of self-disadvantageous inequality offers may be due to the social comparison effect, which suggests that the tendency to compare oneself with others may contribute to having a strong sense of justice. Our findings suggest that the predictions of game theory may vary depending on the social culture context and incorporating notions of fairness and social comparison tendency may be essential to better predict the actual behavior of players in social interactive situations.

Perceived unfairness of prices resulting from yield management practices in hotels

This study analyzes the consumer perception of yield management (YM) with an example in the hotel sector. Hotels use these practices in order to increase their incomes. However, the dual entitlement theory suggests that customers perceive YM practices as unfair when they are not the result of cost increase or external factors. This study explores four YM practices that might be suitable in the hotel context through an empirical study of the behavior of 1010 customers. The study consists of non-parametric tests to analyze the perception of YM practices and Anova tests to identify relationships between the variables that may explain customer behavior. The results show that the manner of presenting the YM practices to consumers (positive or negative frame) has a considerable influence on their perception. Lastly, loyal customers perceive price changes the YM introduces as more unfavorable. From this point of view, firms can use several managerial levers in the communication of tariff practices and management of loyalty programs to avoid or reduce customers' perception of unfairness.

Consumer envy during service encounters

Purpose This paper aims to explore consumer envy in the context of service encounters. Envy-elicited cognitive appraisals, emotions, interpersonal and organizational consequences were examined. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was used to collect 311 actual episodes of consumer envy. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were used to answer the research questions. Findings This research identified five different triggers of consumer envy during service encounters, each associated with distinct cognitive appraisal patterns. Moreover, envious customers might experience three qualitatively different shades of envy labeled as “blue envy”, “red envy” and “green envy”. Actions taken by service providers are found to be a major cause of consumer envy, and they elicit emotions associated with complaining, negative word of mouth, lower encounter satisfaction and lower repurchase intention. Research limitations/implications While significant contributions are made, this study relied on self-reported data. Given that envy is considered a private and sensitive emotion, participants may have withheld from sharing some of the more socially undesirable details of their envy episodes. Practical implications The results stress the importance for service providers to avoid a perception of unfair preferential treatment. This perception of service unfairness is associated with hostility directed at service employees and negative organizational consequences. Originality/value This study is among the first to examine consumer envy in the context of service encounters.

How fitting! The influence of fence-context fit on price discrimination fairness

Price discrimination fairness research demonstrates that the level of familiarity consumers have with a price discrimination tactic influences their fairness judgments. In this paper, the authors empirically demonstrate that these findings are not universal. Specifically, the findings indicate that the fit between the (a) variables upon which the price discrimination tactic focuses and (b) the decision criteria by which products or services offered by the firm are judged (i.e., fence-context fit) moderates the impact of the familiarity on price discrimination fairness judgments. Two experiments examine how the factors of fence-context fit and familiarity lead to different price discrimination fairness judgments and provide process evidence of a critical affective component of consumer response to price discrimination tactics based on suspicion. The findings provide implications for managers to carefully consider price discrimination policies by taking adequate precautions in an effort to reduce perceptions of unfairness.

Procedural Injustice, Risky Lifestyles, and Violent Victimization

Participation in risky lifestyles is a well-established predictor of victimization. Several variables have been identified as key predictors of risky activities (e.g., low self-control) but there may be additional sources not considered in the literature to date. We argue that perceptions of procedural unfairness represent a break in social control, thereby opening the door for participation in risky lifestyles that are conducive to victimization. Using three waves of data from the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, we demonstrated that police procedural injustice was positively associated with risky lifestyles, which partially mediated the relationship between procedural injustice and violent victimization. This study advances the literature by demonstrating that our understanding of victimization is enhanced by including procedural injustice into its explanation.

Assessment of Anger-Related Cognitions of People with Intellectual Disabilities.

Interventions for anger represent the largest body of research on the adaptation of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for people with intellectual disabilities. The extent to which the effectiveness of these interventions reflects the behavioural or cognitive components of CBT is uncertain. This arises in part because there are few measures of anger-related cognitions. The Profile of Anger-related Cognitions (PAC) is built around interpersonal scenarios that the participant identifies as personally anger-provoking, and was designed as an extension of the Profile of Anger Coping Skills (PACS). A conversational presentational style is used to approach ratings of anger experienced in those situations and of four relevant cognitive dimensions: attribution of hostile intent, unfairness, victimhood, and helplessness. The PAC, and other measures, including the PACS, was administered to (i) people with ID identified as having problems with anger control (n = 12) and (ii) university students (n = 23); its psychometric properties were investigated and content analyses were conducted of participants' verbal responses. In a third study, clinicians (n = 6) were surveyed for their impression of using the PAC in the assessment of clients referred for help with anger problems. The PAC had good consistency and test-retest reliability, and the total score on the four cognitive dimensions correlated significantly with anger ratings but not with impersonal measures of anger disposition. The predominant cognitions reported were perceptions of unfairness and helplessness. People with ID and university students were in most respects very similar in both the psychometric analyses and the content analyses of their verbal responses. The PAC had high acceptability both to people with ID and to clinicians. The PAC may be a useful instrument for both clinical and research purposes. Personal relevance and the conversational mode of administration are particular strengths.

A rural myth? Sources and implications of the perceived unfairness of carbon taxes in rural communities

Since British Columbia's carbon tax was implemented in 2008, local interest groups and municipal politicians have claimed that the tax places an unfair burden on rural communities. We investigate the sources of this perception of unfairness and its implications for policymaking. We examine the distributive effects of British Columbia's carbon tax using a computable general equilibrium model of the Canadian economy. We find that the rural population would indeed have experienced a disproportionate burden had the carbon tax been introduced without redistributive measures, but that the revenue recycling program introduced in parallel with the tax was sufficient to balance the inequity. Hence, the Northern and Rural Homeowner Benefit Program, a transfer program introduced later in response to public protests, was unnecessary. Additionally, analysis of polling data shows that the new program failed to increase support for the carbon tax in rural communities, despite making these households better off on average than households in large urban centers. We therefore conclude that this ongoing opposition is based on a rural myth. Policymakers should carefully investigate distributive impacts of carbon policies and address evidential inequities. Yet, before overcompensating groups that still feel disadvantaged, policymakers should address the myth of unfairness at its source.

Maximin Fairness-profit Tradeoff in Project Budget Allocation

Companies typically select those projects that maximize their profit as the primary criterion, within the limited budget at their disposal. This criterion may lead to some company departments getting an exceedingly large share of the overall budget and induce a negative perception of unfairness among the less favourite ones. We investigate how profit optimization can be sought after while achieving the desired level of fairness at the same time. Adopting a maximin approach to fairness and using an Integer Linear Programming solver, we show that a linear trade-off is possible, since fairness and profit exhibit a nearly perfect linear anticorrelation. Fairness can be improved by even a relatively small reduction of profit, especially in large companies (i.e., managing a large number of projects).

Anger and perception of unfairness and harm: Cultural differences in normative processes that justify sanction assignment

Drawing on moral foundation theory, the author found that in response to an infringement of intellectual property rights, both US and Chinese samples reported anger and evaluated the infringement negatively. The results also highlight the importance of considering cultural factors in moral decision-making. Apparently, in Chinese culture, moral decisions tend to be norm-based, even when people are assigning sanction to a transgression of the ethics of autonomy. In contrast, in American culture, moral decisions tend to be preference-based. Furthermore, although people tend to express their anger through punishment and contempt and disgust with social exclusion, in the American context, due to its relatively high mobility, to express their moral anger, individuals prefer to sanction wrongdoing by socially isolating the wrongdoer.

Utility-based two-stage models with fairness concern

This paper studies the impact of social comparison and fairness concerns on the efficiency of a two-stage process. The decision maker of each stage cares about not only the absolute score of his efficiency, but also the relative status when comparing with the other. By incorporating the utility theory and the concept of fairness, an efficiency-based Neumann–Morgenstern cardinal utility is defined to compose of basic utility from his self-efficiency and additional utility from the fairness concern of the other’s efficiency. Utility-based two-stage models are proposed to optimize the utilities of the stages rather than only the efficiencies instead. We characterize the concern of fairness as advantageous and disadvantageous inequity based on equitable outcome comparison. By investigating the non-cooperating relationship between two stages, we show that the stage dominating the process has the incentive to optimize his efficiency without ignoring that of the other, which is contrary to the conventional situation. In addition, the coefficients of equitable outcome and inequity significantly affect the efficiencies of both stages. We further investigate the cooperation between two stages and find that the efficiencies of the stages vary with the coefficients of unfairness perceptions. Numerical analysis verifies the validity of the proposed models and identifies the impacts of the coefficients of equitable outcome and inequity on the stages’ and overall efficiencies.

호텔 봉사료 제도에 따른 선택권 박탈감과 불공정성 지각이 전환의도에 미치는 영향

The service charge system of most hotel enterprises in Korea does not have clear standards, and causes controversies as it requires improvement in terms of execution and distribution. This study referred to the preceding studies to suggest the deprivation feeling of right to choose and the unfairness perception as the two negative factors that the customers can perceive about the current service charge system in Korea, and clarified the impact of these factors on the switching intention that can be negative to the hotel enterprises. It also verified the perceived employees’ service attitude for more meaningful findings. For this purpose, it selected the domestic customers who have visited hotel guest rooms and restaurants in Korea within the last 6 months as the parent population and surveyed 292 of them through a professional research service agency from March 24, 2014 to March 28, 2014 for the analysis. As a result, it was found that both the deprivation feeling of right to choose and the unfairness perception have a significant positive impact on the switching intention and significantly modulate perceived employees’ service attitude.

A New Look at Individual Differences in Perceptions of Unfairness: The Theory of Maximally Unfair Allocations in Multiparty Situations

Previous research has demonstrated that unfairness judgments of resource allocations become more complex when there are more than two recipients. In order to explain some of this complexity, we propose a set of psychological mechanisms that may underlie four different choices of maximally unfair resource allocations (MUA): Self-Single-Loser, Self-One-Loser-of-Many, Self-Single-Winner, and Self-One-Winner-of-Many. From this psychological theory, several predictions are derived and tested in vignette studies involving a total of 708 participants recruited online using MTurk. As predicted by our theory, (1) choices of MUA where there is a single loser were much more common when the allocated resource was of negative rather than positive valence, and (2) the amount of egoistic bias individuals exhibited when judging the unfairness in receiving a small rather than a large share in a non-extreme multi-party allocation was predicted by their choices of MUA. These findings suggest that an individual’s choice of MUA reveals some generally relevant principles of how unfairness is perceived in multi-party allocations. This opens up new lines of inquiry, especially regarding research on social dilemmas and social value orientation.

여행상품 유통경로의 갑-을 관계에 대한 갈등해결행동 분석

This study analyzed the relation between the unfairness perception of retail travel agency workers(RTAW) and their conflict perception. Also this research examined in what ways the conflict perception of RTAW impacts on their patterns of behavior in terms of the conflict solving strategies. The result shows that the unfairness perception of RTAW correlates with the conflict perception of RTAW. It is also revealed that the conflict perception of RTAW profoundly affects and functions their specific behavior patterns when they choose the conflict solving strategies. The result shows that they, the retail travel agency workers, are likely to evade the conflicts or they adapt themselves to the given settings. Individual efforts, in turn, can hardly contribute to the unfairness that has been deeply embedded in the distribution channels of travel products. Future research works related to this issue are expected to make a detailed suggestion that can contribute to reconstruct the market of travel agencies in terms of fairness issues.

A laboratory exploration for multi-period perishable food pricing

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to put forward a multi-period dynamic pricing strategy for perishable food considering consumers’ price fairness perception. The impacts of the multi-period retail price, food freshness and inventory shortage risk on consumers’ heterogeneous willingness to pay (WTP) and their strategic purchasing behaviours are studied. Design/methodology/approach – The authors present a price optimization model for perishable food, and conduct a laboratory experiment to justify the theoretical model. The data collected are analysed by correlation analysis and nonparametric test. Findings – The results obtained reveal, first, food freshness and inventory shortage risk have effect on consumers’ heterogeneous WTP. Second, different retail prices lead to consumers’ strategically purchasing behaviours. Finally, consumers’ intertemporal price fairness perception and the food retailer’s long-term utility maximization can be achieved by developing multi-period dynamic pricing strategy. Practical implications – This study suggests the perishable food retailer to apply a step-by-step price markdown strategy. It aims at eliminating price unfairness perceptions caused by loss of freshness and high shortage risk of the perishable food in the subsequent selling periods within the shelf life. Some valuable managerial insights towards perishable pricing for food retailers are discussed. Originality/value – This study serves as the first step to utilize a laboratory experiment to dig out consumers’ intertemporal WTP towards perishable food. It also presents a novel way for describing consumers’ intertemporal price fairness perception by equalizing consumers’ average utilities considering consumer surplus, food freshness and shortage risk at different selling periods. The line of research on dynamic pricing concerning consumers’ price fairness perception is quite new in academic research, and has arisen due to its importance for food retailers of maximizing their long-term revenues and also of constructing mutual benefit and lasting connections with the consumers.

Unfairness in consumer services: Outcomes of differential treatment of new and existing clients

In a consumption context, there is a growing interest in understanding unfair behaviour of firms towards customers. Our research focuses on unfairness perceptions driven by differential treatment, particularly through price discrimination, i.e. the practice of charging differential prices to different customers. Our purpose is to investigate the consequences of these practices for unfairness perceptions, satisfaction, trust and patronage, showing a dual perspective: the perceptions of new vs existing clients when they face the advantaged or disadvantaged conditions. A survey-based experimental design approach was used. We conclude that unfairness perception is stronger for existing than for new clients, prompting negative attitudinal and behavioural consequences when the former are exposed to disadvantaged conditions in relation to the latter. Our study aims to provide marketers with a perspective on the pitfalls related to differential treatment between present and prospective clients, with implications in terms of design and implementation of customer management strategies.

Motivation, rébellion, fuite et injustice à l’école

The aim of the study, with 9th grade students (14 and a half years old), is to analyze two new concepts in the motivation field: rebellion and escape as an alternative to amotivation. Factorial analyzes, exploratory and confirmatory, confirm rebellion (i.e., “school as it is makes me want to break everything”) but show two factors concerning escape: escape (students want to leave the school system) and avoidance (i.e.; “to go to the infirmary”). These motivations looks like amotivation: they are related to a lack of autonomy (constraint) and low perception of competence. But the rebels students feel more competent than amotived students. The hypothesis made is that the perception of unfairness in class could characterize those concepts. A scale of injustice is constructed and exploratory and confirmatory analysis show three dimensions: humiliation, teacher's indifference and unfairness. Only amotivation is linked to humiliation whereas teacher's indifference is linked to rebellion; unfairness, in the running of a classroom is linked to all “negative” motivations. These results provide some indications for educational interventions in order to make student motivation more positive.

Cognitive Computation of Jealous Emotion

The computational role of jealous emotion has been proposed in a model of emotion, in which the desirable gain (or loss) is used as a measure for computing the emotional feedback that assesses the discrepancy between what an individual wants and gets. The jealous emotion is elicited when the perception that the other individuals have more than one has, or that the desire of wanting what others have, but cannot get. Such self-identified error measure is used as an internal measure to monitor the incongruence between model prediction and actual outcome, such that the accuracy of predictions by the brain can be assessed. Jealousy can serve as a motivating signal to an individual to self-correct errors that may exist. This error signal signifies the incongruence between the desirable and the actual outcomes. This (unhappy) jealous emotion provides the necessary feedback to self-correct any potential source of errors, which may originate from the errors in (input) perception, (output) execution or (internal) model. An ultimatum game (UG) paradigm is used to elicit self-generated emotion. Results showed that the emotional intensity of jealousy is inversely proportional to perceived gains (and proportional to the perceived losses). Subjective jealousy biases are represented by shifting of the emotional stimulus-response function. This suggested that jealousy can be resolved by correcting (1) the perception of unfairness (perceptual error), (2) wrong decision (execution error) and (3) faulty assumption of entitlement (model prediction error) in this experimental UG paradigm. The results confirmed the hypothesis that self-regulated jealousy is processed cognitively in proportional to the perceived loss, when one wants to gain something that one cannot get. Implications on emotional intelligence are also addressed.

Rational Decision-Making Process Choosing Fairness Over Monetary Gain as Decision Criteria

Objective: This study tests the hypothesis that the decision-making process in humans is often based on the fairness rather than the monetary gain/loss, when they are confronted with a choice between fairness and monetary gain/loss. Methods: The classical Ultimatum Game (UG) is used as the experimental paradigm to quantify the threshold crossover-point to switch the decision from rejection to acceptance. The fairness stimulus-response function is used for quantifying the decision threshold and the co-variation relationship between fairness and monetary gain/loss. Results: The results show that the level of fairness perception is always 27.5% lower for the rejection decision than the acceptance decision, irrespective of the offer-ratio (i.e., monetary gain/loss) or the baseline level of fairness for that decision. The data also show a co-variation relationship between fairness and offer-ratio (monetary gain/loss), but such proportionality relationship is decoupled at the even-split singularity point. The analysis shows that the decision crossover threshold is located at a slightly unfair perception, indicating tolerance to some unfairness in the decision. This suggests that a rejection decision is made when the unfairness perception threshold is reached. Conclusion: These analyses validated the hypothesis that the decision to accept/reject the monetary offer is logically consistent using the fairness criterion as the threshold for decision along the fairness-axis — even for accepting inequitable offers or rejecting hyper-equitable offers, irrespective of the amount of monetary gain/loss. The apparent decision based on the monetary gain/loss criterion is only a side effect of the co-variation between fairness and monetary gain.

THE PHENOMENON OF THE LATENT HOSTILITY OR LACK OF INFORMATION? SOME RESULTS OF PILOT RESEARCH

The article is devoted to the problem of identifying the presence or absence of latent hostility to measures of national and cultural policy of the Russian Federation among representatives of the youth in the North Caucasus. Some results of a pilot study conducted by the method of questioning among the representatives of the Northern Caucasus – the young generation of the Circassians are discussed. The results of the research, the subject of which was built around the problem of evaluation of the organization and place of holding of the XXII winter Olympic games in Sochi in 2014, showed that the position of the young generation of the Circassians, who participated in the research, determine weak awareness of specific measures taken by the Olympic Committee of the Russian Federation for the promotion of Circassian culture, inclu-ding the invitation of the official delegation of the Circassian Diaspora to participate in the opening and closing ceremony of these Olympic games. It is established that there are deeply ingrained in the historical consciousness of traumatic perceptions of unfairness in the use of the former settlement of Circassians. The results of the research indicate a high level of ethnic identity and solidarity with clearly presented affective component and a reduced level of ethnic tolerance, which indicates the presence of conflict potential of youth.