Organizational Justice Training

Jed Babbin

Outline

1. Development of organizational justice in the literature

2. Links to practical outcomes for organizations3. Opposition in the Literature4. Proposed Methodology5. Questions

Literature Review: Origin

• Justice is a philosophical idea• Organizational Justice started in law and

moved to psychology with Adam’s Equity Theory (1965)

• Voice (Folger, 1977)

Types of (OJ) Organizational Justice

• Distributive Justice • Procedural Justice• Interactional Justice– Informational Justice– Interpersonal Justice

• Four Factor Model: distributive, procedural, informational, interpersonal

Perception of Organizational Justice

• Perception is more important than actual outcomes (Thibaut & Walker, 1975)

Why should organizations care?

Negatives of Injustice

• Injustice is associated with increased likelihood of employee based litigation

• Higher levels of turnover occur when the employer is perceived as unjust

• Hindered innovation• Absenteeism likelihood and duration • Poor sleep quality-insomnia • Physical health, mental health, depression,

cardiovascular disease, heavier smoking, psychiatric disorders

The Positives of OJ

• In a large hotel chain, the hotels with highest OJ had lowest turnover and highest customer satisfaction. (Roberson & Simmons, 2003)

• Using OJ to communicate pay cuts resulted in lower theft and and turnover. (Greenberg, 1990b)– High OJ: 2% resigned 4% theft– Low OJ: 25% resigned 8% theft– Control: no resignations and 3% theft

Innovation!

• Innovation in product development and daily problem solving have been associated with OJ.– Tested in project teams and students for product

development (Janssen, 2004; Li, et al., 2007)– Daily problem solving on the job requires

employees to generate ideas, adapt them, and convince others of their worth….which doesn’t happen in a low OJ climate (Janssen, 2004).

Compliance

• Written communication utilizing interactional justice were found to increase compliance with the message

• This was tested with truant Australian taxpayer, using the standard short and authoritarian letter as the control condition.

How to make a difference?

Union Studies

• Three studies in Canadian unions increased organizational justice.

• Organizational Citizenship Behavior • Lower theft • Increased perception of disciplinary fairness• (unintended result) Those trained were more

likely to take leadership roles in the union

Hospital StudyNo Pay Cut

Pay Cut

Training

Control Group(No Training for these people)

Philosophical Opposition

• Organizational justice is more concerned with looking fair than being fair, and those who enact the change support the manipulation of management

• Judgment of fairness made from positions of individual privilege rather than impartiality

• Social Psychology focuses on what people perceive or believe is fair

• Management paying and being the client biases the interaction

Organizational Development (OD) Opposition

• Prior OJ trainings occurred during an OD events making OD Oppositions relevant

• OD Mindset• Element of Domination– Creation of uncertainty and ambiguity– Disbanding of groups and the shifting of the informal

organization– The reinforcement of the position and rights of

management– The entrenchment of management purposes

Methodology

Dependant Variables: • Organizational Justice–Distributive Justice–Procedural Justice–Informational Justice–Interpersonal Justice

Training

• Training managers on org justice during 2 sessions that are each 3 hours

• Training will include: role-plays, group discussions, case studies, and practice activities between sessions in addition to the traditional lecture approach

• Measurement will be the perception of org justice of managers direct reports

Focal ContentCategory Content Conceptual Basis

Interpersonal Treat others with politeness, dignity, and respect

Bies and Moag (1986)

Demonstrate emotional support Tyler and Lind (1992)

Avoid intimidation, manipulation, and degradation

Harlos & Pinder (2000)

Informational Provide thorough, accurate, and complete explanations, spending time needed to explain decisions

Greenberg (1993)

Communicate details in a timely manner and tailor them to individuals

Shapiro, Buttner, & Barry (1994)

Be accessible, provide ready access to oneself

Harlos & Pinder (2000)

Measure of Organizational Justice (Colquitt, 2001)

• This measure was validated in a two-part study using both students and a field sample.

• Corrected correlations among the factors ranged from .14 to .74 (average .44) in the field sample and .22 to .64 (average .46) in the student sample.

• Reliabilities for the four-factor model in the field sample ranged from .90 to .93 and .78 to .92 in the student sample (Colquitt & Shaw, 2005).

Continued: Measure of Organizational Justice (Colquitt, 2001)

• The measure uses items closely drawn from the seminal works in organizational justice literature offering a high level of content validity.

• Further results of two confirmatory factor analysis show that interpersonal justices and interactional justice were kept separate, thus a true four-factor model was used.

• Finally, as the measures author proclaims, it is adaptable to fit a number of particular events through simple modifications to the item stems (Colquitt & Shaw,

Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Direct reports of leaders who have training in organizational justice

will report higher levels of organizational justice following training than direct reports of leaders without training. This will be demonstrated by a significant between group difference, with the training group having higher post survey scores than the control group on the organizational justice survey.

Hypothesis 2-5: Direct reports of leaders who have training will report higher levels

of (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, informational) justice following training than direct reports of leaders without training. This will be demonstrated by a significant between group difference, with the training group having higher post survey scores than the control group on the (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, informational) justice survey.

Hypothesis 6: Direct reports of leaders who have training will report higher levels of all justice measures at time 2 versus time 1. This will be demonstrated by a significant within-subject effect for all dependent measures.

Repeated Measures MANOVA

• Mixed between-within-subjects – Within: same people over time (pre-test, post-

test)– Between: different participants (treatment and

control groups)

Sample Size

• 30 or greater needed• Respondents will be direct reports of

managers in the training (or control group)

• 10 cells so 50 – 100 respondents needed

OJ PJ DJ Info J Inter P

Control 1 2 3 4 5

Treatment 6 7 8 9 10

Questions?

Feedback! Ideas!