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Purpose – We offer a view of interpersonal justice climate in which the benefits of fair treatment might be stronger within some groups versus others, depending on characteristics of the supervisor, the group, and the organization in which the group is embedded. We further identify a potential silver lining that may be associated with low interpersonal justice climate. Overall, our intent of this chapter is to offer a more nuanced view of the topic to enhance our understanding of interpersonal justice within groups.

Design/methodology/approach – We review literature on status to support our propositions.

Findings – We examine how a supervisor's idiosyncrasy credits, a group's status, and an organization's emphasis on hierarchy will moderate the relationship between unfair interpersonal treatment from a supervisor and the group's perceived interpersonal justice climate. Also, we suggest that low levels of interpersonal justice climate may actually lead to greater affiliation among group members and ultimately enhance perceptions of group cohesion.

Originality/value – Previous literature on justice climate has largely focused on procedural justice, whereas generally ignoring interpersonal exchanges between a group and its supervisor. This chapter contributes to research on justice at the group level by examining the potential moderating effects of status on the generation of interpersonal justice climate. Further, and in contrast to previous research, we offer a potential positive outcome that may result from low interpersonal justice climate.

The purpose of this paper is to present and partially test the triangle model of fairness (TMF) by examining employee reactions to customer fairness.

A total of 217 undergraduate hospitality students at a US university participated in the study. Participants seated in a classroom were asked to take part in the study. Customer interpersonal justice was manipulated (high justice versus low justice) in a completely randomized between‐subjects design. The manipulation consisted of written scenarios that depicted interactions between a customer and an employee. Participants read the scenarios. Then, they were instructed to imagine they were the employee in the scenario and were asked to answer questions that assessed their reactions to the interaction with the customer.

Consistent with the predictions, the results of the study revealed that when employees experience interpersonally fair treatment from customers, they are more likely to engage in helping behaviors toward their organization and future customers.

The paper examines employee responses to fairness from customers, in terms of helping (or harming) the organization and future customers. As rationale for the study, the authors drew on the TMF. The study makes a contribution to research on services and organizational justice by being the first to empirically examine the TMF. Overall, this paper demonstrates that organizations need to be cognizant of the effects of customers' treatment on service employees, as customers' treatment can have serious effects on employees' subsequent behaviors.

As employers are purportedly becoming more receptive to tattoos, the question arises whether tattooed employees are nonetheless subject to unfavorable treatment. In this light, the purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of different tattoo characteristics on four outcomes: annual earnings, fair interpersonal treatment from supervisors, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. The specific tattoo characteristics were tattoo number, visibility and content.

Survey data from a sample of 162 tattooed hospitality employees were obtained from a Qualtrics research panel and analyzed using regression.

The results demonstrated that employees with a greater degree of dark tattoo content (content of a more threatening and intimidating nature) received less favorable treatment, as demonstrated by significant relationships with fair interpersonal treatment, perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. Tattoo number was related to increased perceived discrimination and perceived overqualification. At the same time, tattoo number was related to increased annual earnings, signaling a benefit.

Measures of tattoo characteristics and workplace outcomes were collected in a single survey. An analysis of data collected at different points would potentially provide a more definitive test of cause and effect.

On one front, organizations should establish grooming policies that specify what is acceptable with respect to tattoos. To help minimize personality-related tattoo stereotypes from influencing hiring decisions, organizations could use personality assessments to make the hiring process more objective. Moreover, diversity training could address tattoo-related stereotypes, bias and prejudice.

Even though prior studies have demonstrated that tattooed people are viewed as less suitable for employment, research focused on the relationship between tattoos and actual discrimination has been limited. The results from this study highlight that employees with tattoos may still be subject to maltreatment, despite the mainstreaming of tattoos.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which perceptions of one’s colleague’s fair treatment by an authority, termed vicarious justice, can affect an individual’s satisfaction with and cooperation toward the authority, after controlling one’s personal justice experience from the same authority figure.

In Study 1,172 employees filled out a survey about personal and vicarious justice experience at work. In Study 2,208 undergraduate students participated in an online scenario experiment that manipulated vicarious justice experience.

Across both studies, results indicated that, controlling for personal justice perceptions, vicarious justice perceptions positively influenced individuals’ satisfaction with the authority; the effect on satisfaction was stronger for individuals who saw themselves as more similar to the colleague. Results of the experiment also suggested that vicarious justice led to higher cooperation intentions, and such effect was moderated by similarity as well.

The current studies demonstrate that vicarious justice perceptions can influence individuals beyond the effects of their own treatment, and such influence depends on perceived similarity between the focal individual and the colleague.

The paper highlights the importance of managers’ treatment of other employees, especially when managing employees that are homogeneous in various characteristics.

The studies extend the current understanding on vicarious justice effects and underscore the role of similarity in moderating such effects. The combination of field survey and online experiment provides evidence for causal inference for the findings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the main and indirect effects of belongingness and interactional fairness on interpersonal citizenship behavior.

Field data were obtained from 141 subordinate-supervisor dyads from diverse occupations and organizations within Canada. The study was cross-sectional in nature.

Consistent with expectations the findings demonstrates that interactional fairness positively predicts employee sense of belongingness, and employees show more helping behavior (supervisor rated) when they have a stronger sense of belongingness at work. Belongingness partially mediates the relationship between interactional fairness and interpersonal behavior.

Future research could involve investigating a broader range of mediating mechanisms that might promote interpersonal citizenship behavior; for example, trust. As previously indicated, belongingness partially mediates the relationship between interactional fairness and interpersonal citizenship behavior, implying other possible mechanisms through which interactional fairness influences follower behaviors. Moreover, this research can be extended to include to other forms of prosocial behaviors (e.g. innovative behavior).

Satisfying employees’ need for belonging is an important aspect of organizational life and useful in promoting helping behaviors among coworkers, it is essential for organizations to, therefore, create a work culture of inclusiveness. It is prudent for organizations to also expend greater effort to maximize interactional fairness by introducing programs intended for training organizational leaders how to be fair.

Interpersonal citizenship behavior is important for group and organizational functioning; however, current psychological models are insufficient for understanding these behaviors. To advance the understanding, this study attempts to directly test individuals’ sense of belongingness as the psychological mechanism through which interactional justice can influence interpersonal citizenship behavior.

Organizational fairness has been shown to affect numerous employee outcomes, including organizational commitment and job satisfaction. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether an expatriate manager’s favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment affects the way they respond to subsequent treatment in the workplace, viewed in terms of organizational justice.

Data were gathered in two stages from 175 expatriate managers located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). To test the authors’ predictions, the authors analyzed organizational commitment and job satisfaction as a function of organizational fairness (distributive and interpersonal) and pre-departure opinion.

The results suggest that expatriate managers who express a higher degree of favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment appear less reactive to changes in organizational fairness. Meanwhile, expatriate managers who express a lesser degree of favorability toward accepting the foreign assignment appear more sensitive to workplace fairness, such that when they feel treated unfairly, they demonstrate worse outcomes than those who were in favor of the assignment, and when they feel treated fairly, they demonstrate better outcomes than those who were in favor of the assignment. The net effect of pre-departure opinion appears to be an amplification of the relationship between subsequent fairness and outcomes.

Expatriate managers with a less favorable view of their assignment may harbor deep questions about whether they want to be in this new job capacity, and may therefore be more sensitive to how they are treated. Alternatively, people with a more favorable view of their assignment may have already decided they want to be in the new capacity, and so may be more robust to workplace treatment.

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper constitutes the first investigation of the effects of expatriate pre-departure opinion (i.e. favorability toward accepting a foreign assignment) on job satisfaction and commitment within the context of organizational justice. Furthermore, the UAE is a highly relevant context to study expatriate behavior.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships among information‐seeking behavior, interpersonal communication, perceived procedural justice, and the reduction of job‐related uncertainty.

The sample consisted of 323 Japanese white‐collar workers who completed the questionnaires, with a usable sample of 295.

The results of covariance structure analysis (SEM) revealed that: there were not any direct relationships between information‐seeking behavior and the reduction of work‐related uncertainty; information‐seeking behavior induced a change of voice, explanation, and rational interpersonal communication from decision makers; the provision of voice, explanation, and social sensitivity from decision makers caused outcome recipients’ perception of procedural justice; and their perception of procedural justice caused the reduction of job‐related uncertainty.

There are some limitations of the present study that can be addressed in future research. First, the concept of uncertainty might have been used too broadly to have been applied to the concept of job‐related uncertainty. Second, the respondents in the present research were highly educated white‐collar workers and were selected to attend business school by their companies.

The results of the present study have some practical implications. Under a newly introduced managerial system of performance‐based personnel practices, Japanese companies need to establish a system by which workers can form judgements of fairness.

The paper suggests that one must exercise caution when generalizing the findings of the present study without taking into account the characteristics of the respondents.

Based on social exchange theory and the norm of reciprocity, interactional justice has been proposed to be an important construct in explaining individual performance. However, meta-analytic results have noted the relationship is modest at best. The present study extends the understanding of the justice-performance relationship by empirically examining how interactional justice and political skill interactively influence contextual job performance. Focusing on interpersonal aspects of justice and performance, the paper proposes that the existence of interactional justice will only lead to improvements in interpersonally facilitative behavior if employees recognize this situation as an opportunity to invest their skill-related assets into the organization. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Integrating research on political skill with social exchange theory, the current study contends that interactional justice stemming from the supervisor will likely lead to employees feeling obligated and/or wanting to help, cooperate, and consider others in the workplace. However, only employees with political skill will be able to recognize the conditions and act appropriately on these conditions. As such, this paper investigates the moderating role of political skill in the interactional justice-performance relationship. The paper used multi-source survey methodology and applied hierarchical moderated multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

Results from 189 respondents indicated that interactional justice was more strongly related to supervisor-rated interpersonal facilitation when employees possessed higher levels of political skill. This suggests that when both interactional justice and political skill are high, the potential for interpersonal facilitation is also high. Conversely, when one or both are low, interpersonal facilitation is less likely.

Previous articulations and evaluations of the relationship between interactional justice, political skill, and interpersonal facilitation have omitted either situational determinants of motivation or individual differences in job-related skills. With the current study, the paper sought to address these omissions by exploring the interactive effects of interactional justice and political skill on interpersonal facilitation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of coworkers’ interpersonal justice (defined as the extent to which one is treated by coworkers with dignity, courtesy and respect) on team citizenship behaviors. More precisely, the authors first test the mediating role played by both team-member exchange and team identification in this relationship. Further, they examine the moderating role of extraversion in these two mediating mechanisms.

Based on 134 subordinate–supervisor dyads, the authors conducted moderated multiple mediation analysis.

The results of this study showed that, for highly extraverted employees, coworkers’ interpersonal justice positively influences team citizenship behaviors because of an exchange relationship of better quality among the team members. In contrast, for employees with low or medium levels of extraversion, the positive effect of coworkers’ interpersonal justice on team citizenship behaviors is explained by their higher identification with the team.

This paper holds important implications for management practice in teamwork environment. Given coworkers' interpersonal justice role in determining team citizenship behaviors, the findings of this study highlight the importance of establishing a work culture where each employee treats others fairly.

Overall, these findings indicate that, depending on the level of employees’ extraversion, mechanisms grounded in the social exchange and the social identity perspectives act as complementary mechanisms in the team-focused justice–citizenship behaviors relationship.

Drawing on the social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the interactional justice of supervisors and the job performance of subordinates in an expatriate context. Specifically, the authors take a relational approach by introducing help intention directed to the supervisor (upward help intention) as the mediator. The moderating role of distributive justice in the relationship between upward help intention and job performance is also considered.

A survey was conducted among 232 service employees and their expatriate supervisors in multinational hotels in China. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted to test the proposed model.

The statistical results of this study supported the positive effect of interactional justice on job performance as well as the mediating effect of upward help intention. Meanwhile, it was also found that when the level of distributive justice is high, the relationship between upward help intention and job performance is strengthened, whereas the effect is leveled off when the level of distributive justice is low.

The findings of this study suggest that managers in the service industry should be sensitive in treating their subordinates, as it will lead to positive interpersonal relationship, which in turn, will stimulate job performance. Moreover, the fair organizational compensation system aids the managers in turning good interpersonal results into positive performance outcomes.

This study contributes to the literature on justice by revealing the relational mechanism between interactional justice and job performance, and the economic boundary of this relationship.