The social construction of fairness: social influence and sense making in organizations

Abstract

SummaryThis paper explores how the social relationships employees have with peers and managers are associated with perceptions of organizational justice. These relationships are theoretically modelled as the conduits for social comparison, social cues, and social identi®cation, which are sources of sense making about fairness`in the eyes of the beholder.' It is argued that perceptions of procedural and interactional justice are affected by this type of social information processing because: (1) uncertainty exists about organizational procedures; (2) norms of interpersonal treatment vary between organizational cultures; and (3) interpersonal relationships symbolize membership in the organization. A structural equations model of data from workers in a telecommunications company showed that an employee's perceptions of both procedural and interactional fairness were signi®cantly associated with the interactional fairness perceptions of a peer. In addition, employees' social capital, conceived as the number of relationships with managers, was positively associated with perceptions of interactional fairness. In the structural model, both procedural and interactional justice were themselves signi®cant predictors of satisfaction with managerial maintenance of the employment relationship. The discussion highlights the key role which the fairness of interpersonal treatment appears to play in the formation of justice judgements.

Perspectives on organizational justice: Concept clarification, social context integration, time and links with morality

“…Most of the research on vicarious justice experiences has not been conducted in organisational settings -examples are tests of the deontic theory of fairness (Folger 2001), research on the just world hypothesis (Lerner 1980), or research on the persistent injustice effect (Davidson and Friedman 1998). Yet first contributions in organisational contexts also indicate that the justice experiences and the justice judgments of one's peers do matter (Colquitt et al 2002;Lamertz 2002). For example, research showed that a person's reaction could be strongly influenced by social reports of others having received similar treatment survey and laboratory studies, support a main effect for others' procedural justice on one's own feelings and actions.…”

Equity issues in land acquisition: A source of delays in large construction projects in Vietnam

“…These findings support Lamertz (2002), Colquitt (2004), and Umphress et al (2003), and Boivie et al (2015) demonstrating that perceptions of justice of individuals are influenced by their relationships with the managers and other peers in their organisations, by investing how these relationships could affect equity judgement of land-acquired households and recognising that relationships is one of the most important moderators of equity judgement.…”

“…Social relationships (Colquitt, 2004;Lamertz, 2002;Umphress, Labianca, Brass, Kass, & Scholten, 2003) and culture (Kilbourne & O'Leary-Kelly, 1994;T.-Y. Kim & Leung, 2007;Leung & Stephan, 1998) are the social moderators that have influences on perceptions of equity.…”

“…Colquitt (2004) claims that the reactions of a person to perceived inequity, are influenced by the other team members, who could share information within their team. Lamertz (2002) also emphasises that responses to perceived inequity are influenced by relationships with their managers and their colleagues in a work setting.…”

Relação entre Percepção de Justiça Organizacional e Satisfação no Trabalho

“…Porém, independente do número de dimensões consideradas, as organizações atualmente estão preocupadas com o modo como seus empregados experimentam a justiça, não só no que se refere às recompensas que eles recebem da relação de emprego, mas também do modo como são tratados pelo sistema organizacional e por seus agentes (Lamertz, 2002). Essa preocupação, em parte, deve-se ao fato de que a literatura vem demonstrando que níveis mais elevados de percepções de justiça estão, de forma geral, associados a comportamentos mais positivos no local de trabalho (Rahim, Magner & Shapiro, 2000).…”