Fairness at the Collective Level: A Meta-Analytic Examination of the Consequences and Boundary Conditions of Organizational Justice Climate

Abstract

This article uses meta-analytic methods (k = 38) to examine the relationship between organizational justice climate and unit-level effectiveness. Overall, our results suggest that the relationship between justice and effectiveness is significant (ρ = 40) when both constructs are construed at the collective level. Our results also indicate that distributive justice climate was most strongly linked with unit-level performance (e.g., productivity, customer satisfaction), whereas interactional justice was most strongly related to unit-level processes (e.g., organizational citizenship behavior, cohesion). We also show that a number of factors moderate this relationship, including justice climate strength, the level of referent in the justice measure, the hierarchical level of the unit, and how criteria are classified. We elaborate on these findings and attempt to provide a clearer direction for future research in this area. © 2012 American Psychological Association.