This chapter provides a general review of the research conducted over the past two decades on individuals’ conceptions of equity and distributive justice and their reactions to inequity. Various theoretical formulations are identified and important topics for further theoretical development and empirical investigation are discussed. In conclusion, the authors suggest that micro-level concepts of distributive justice have certain limitations. Consideration of more macrolevel concepts suggests possibilities for integrating equity and distributive justice theories with sociological theories of power, conflict, and collective action. This integration, if achieved, would bring notions of justice to the forefront in the analysis of social change.

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Previous research demonstrates that both procedural justice and distributive justice are important predictors of work attitudes. This research, however, fails to examine conditions that affect the relative importance of each type of justice. Here we argue that prior experiences with regard to downsizing shape individuals' workplace schemas, which in turn affect the relative salience of each type of justice for organizational commitment. We test hypotheses using data from a nationally representative sample of workers. Only distributive justice predicts organizational commitment among victims of downsizing, while procedural justice is the stronger predictor among survivors of downsizing and unaffected workers. Comparisons across models indicate that procedural justice is a more important predictor of organizational commitment for survivors and unaffected workers than for victims, while distributive justice is more important for victims than for either survivors or unaffected workers. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of our findings.