Are organizational justice rules gendered? Reactions to men’s and women’s justice violations.

Abstract

Research has shown that gender role prescriptions can bias reactions to men's and women's work behaviors. The current work draws upon this idea and extends it to consider violations of procedural and interactional justice rules. The results of four experimental studies demonstrate that men and women receive differential performance evaluation ratings and reward recommendations when they violate those organizational justice rules that coincide with the content of prescriptive gender stereotypes. Specifically, women were rated less favorably than men when they exhibited interactional injustice (Study 1 and Study 4), but not when they engaged in procedural injustice (Study 2). Findings also indicate that interactional justice violations (e.g., being impolite, not caring about the well-being of subordinates), but not procedural justice violations, are deemed less acceptable for female managers than male managers (Study 3). Overall, the findings suggest that reactions to injustice can be influenced by expectations of how men and women should behave. (PsycINFO Database Record

When distributive justice and gender stereotypes coincide: Reactions to equity and equality violations

“…Although past research has found measures of performance and rewards to adequately capture reactions to norm-violating women (Caleo, 2016;Heilman & Chen, 2005), measures that are more proximally related to gender norm violation offer a closer route through which to test the current ideas. A second study was conducted to address this option.…”

“…Second, it is possible that the dependent measures used in Study 1 failed to capture sufficient movement for women because they are closely aligned with success, an outcome that is tied to male stereotypes of agency (Abele, ). Although past research has found measures of performance and rewards to adequately capture reactions to norm‐violating women (Caleo, ; Heilman & Chen, ), measures that are more proximally related to gender norm violation offer a closer route through which to test the current ideas. A second study was conducted to address this option.…”

“…The measure of performance ratings, which consisted of four items, was identical to the one used by Caleo (): “Overall, how would you rate the employee's performance over the past year?” “In your opinion, how likely is it that this employee will advance in the company?” “Give your assessment of the individual's likelihood of success,” and “To what extent do you think this employee is a valuable asset to the organization?” Each of the items was answered on a 7‐point scale that ranged from poor (1) to excellent (7) for the first item, very unlikely (1) to very likely (7) for the second and third items, and not at all (1) to very much (7) for the final item. The reliability for the scale was α = .93.…”

“…The measure of performance ratings, which consisted of four items, was identical to the one used by Caleo (2016): "Overall, how would you rate the employee's performance over the past year?" "In your opinion, how likely is it that this employee will advance in the company?"…”

“…Still, scholars have begun to explore this question by examining other facets of justice. Caleo () found that women are evaluated more negatively than men when they violate interactional justice—a type of justice that necessitates stereotypically female characteristics, such as kindness and interpersonal sensitivity. However, no differences emerged when men and women violated procedural justice, a justice facet that does not appear to require any gender stereotypical behavior.…”