Procedural Justice, Participation, and the Fair Process Effect in Groups and Organizations

Abstract

The vast body of theory and research on justice in groups and organizations has focused primarily on issues of distributive justice (Homans, 1961), that is, the manner in which resources are distributed, and on responses to these distributions (for recent reviews, see Freedman & Montanari, 1980; Greenberg, 1982). Another fundamental type of justice manifest in groups and organizations, but one that has received considerably less attention, concerns the rules and processes through which resources are allocated, that is, procedural justice (Leventhal, 1976; Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Tyler & Caine, 1981). For example, in considering the fairness of pay raises, workers may not only take into account how much pay they receive relative to others, but also such procedural factors as who made the decision, and what criteria were taken into account (see Lawler, 1971). Concerns of this type, focusing on the process of allocation, rather than on the outcome of allocation per se, fall into the domain of procedural justice.