Interactional Justice-related Bias and Its Impact on Appraiser’s Decision-making Process: An Experimental Approach

Abstract

Interactional justice refers to the fairness in interpersonal treatment received by an individual both before and after the decision-making. Violation of interactional justice leads to the negative consequences. Literature on organizational justice has already identified the influence of gender on interactional justice. Current research is based on Indian context, where numerous intergroup relations create a different group dynamics. In India, apart from gender, religious stereotyping also plays a significant role in social context. The present experimental study investigates how appraiser's decision on performance rating and reward recommendation is influenced by interactional justice-related stereotype. This study was conducted on Hindu (240) and Muslim (240) postgraduate students of Indian universities in two experimentations. Result reveals the influence of gender and religious bias on appraiser's decision-making on performance-based reward system. It has been observed that if there is a violation of interactional justice, female employees sharing the same religious group membership with the appraiser are subjected to the most unfavorable performance rating and reward recommendation. Again, in case of interactional justice adherence, this group is rewarded with the maximum benefit. The whole analysis reveals that performance evaluators expect interactional justice from female employee of their own religious group membership. If there is a violation, this group will be the maximum sufferer.