Procedural Justice in Organizations

Abstract

In previous chapters we have made reference to potential applications of procedural justice theory and research to organizational settings. Like courts and political institutions, organizations must make decisions concerning the evaluation of individuals and groups, the allocation of resources and outcomes, and the resolution of disputes. And like other social entities, organizations develop procedures that specify how information is to be gathered and used to make these decisions, who is authorized to make decisions, and how decisions are to be executed. We discuss in this chapter psychological reactions to organizational procedures. Research and theory to date show that, although some special considerations arise in procedural justice in organizations, by and large the same basic psychological processes occur here as in other procedural contexts. PROCEDURES IN ORGANIZATIONS It is likely that more people encounter formal decision-making procedures in the course of their work than in any other area of their lives. Procedures are a ubiquitous feature of organizations. Most of us have been exposed to organizational procedures for hiring new employees, for evaluating and rewarding performance, and for allocating organizational responsibilities and resources. Other common organizational procedures are those used to decide whether employees will be transferred among various offices and divisions of the organization, to decide whether an employee will be fired or laid off, to set goals for the future performance of individuals and organizational entities, and to manage conflict within the organization. 1 Procedural justice researchers have lBecause we have reviewed research on organizational dispute resolution procedures and practices in Chapters 4 and 5, we will focus here on organizational procedures other than those used to resolve disputes. This certainly does not mean that dispute resolution 173 E. A. Lind et al., The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice