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In their chapter, Rupp, Bashshur, and Liao (this volume) have made an impressive contribution to the literature on multi-level justice. These authors have provided both a precise conceptual definition of justice climate and a measurement strategy (referent shift) that will greatly smooth the progress of future empirical inquiry. The goal of this commentary is to expand these important ideas by moving in two directions. First, we discuss what it means to be an individual when justice is experienced as a member of a team. Toward this end, we describe research on social identity theory and social categorization theory, emphasizing how these paradigms could further increase our knowledge. Second, we discuss two new manifestations of multi-level justice that have hitherto been neglected: intraunit justice (group perceptions regarding how team members generally treat one another) and interunit justice (perceptions regarding the way one group treats another). All of these multi-level justice concepts are organized into a new taxonomy.

Purpose – This chapter highlights that we do not know why justice climate is related to various unit outcomes and proposes a number of mechanisms.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter draws on the extant literature on justice climate, organizational climate, and a number of theories to link justice climate to unit outcomes.

Findings – We have little understanding of the mechanisms linking justice climate to unit outcomes and it is important to consider various mechanisms.

Research limitations/implications – The primary limitation of this chapter is that although we present several ideas for future research, we do not provide any new empirical findings. The primary implications have to do with specifying the theoretical mechanisms responsible for the effects of justice climate on unit outcomes.

Originality/value – The novel aspect of this chapter is that it questions why justice climate is related to several disparate outcomes and tries to take a theoretical approach to uncover the mechanisms.

Purpose: This study examines the relationship between gender, nationality, care responsibilities for children, and the psychological work climate of researchers.

Basic Design: Based on a dataset of approximately 2,900 cases, the main effects of gender and nationality, their interaction effect and the interaction effects of gender with care responsibilities for minor children, and with hierarchical position are considered in relation to work climate. Dummy regressions and t-tests were performed to estimate and compare the means and regression parameters of the perceived group climate and the view of leaders as evaluated by researchers. The dataset used was taken from a full survey of employees of the Max Planck Society, which is one of Germany’s largest research organizations with over 80 facilities and institutes in various disciplines and a focus on basic research.

Results: Gender differences concerning the evaluation of the work climate are particularly pronounced among doctoral candidates and researchers who have a non-EU nationality. Gender gaps increasingly level out with each successive career step. Additionally, a main effect of gender and a weak interaction of gender and care responsibility for minor children was supported by the data. A main effect of nationality on work climate ratings was found but could not be meaningfully interpreted.

Interpretation and Relevance: The interaction effect between gender and the position of a researcher can be interpreted as being a product of the filtering mechanism of the research system. With this interpretation, the results of the study can plausibly be explained in the light of previous research that concludes that female researchers face higher career hurdles than male researchers.

This chapter reviews research on multi-level organizational justice. The first half of the chapter provides the historical context for this issue, discusses organizational-level antecedents to individual-level justice perceptions (i.e., culture and organizational structure), and then focuses on the study of justice climate. A summary model depicts the justice climate findings to date and gives recommendations for future research. The second half of the chapter discusses the process of justice climate emergence. Pulling from classical bottom-up and top-down climate emergence models as well as contemporary justice theory, it outlines a theoretical model whereby individual differences and environmental characteristics interact to influence justice judgments. Through a process of information sharing, shared and unique experiences, and interactions among group members, a justice climate emerges. The chapter concludes by presenting ideas about how such a process might be empirically modeled.

Purpose – We outline a theoretical model of the emergence of justice climate in groups, teams, and organizations, and in doing so integrate multiple justice perspectives (e.g., affective events, fairness heuristic, deonance, justice integration, multifoci justice, overall justice).

Approach – In this theoretical paper, we propose that justice climate is spawned at the level of the event; individuals experience discrete events and then use their emotional reactions related to these events as information in forming fairness judgments. Cognitive processes explicated in justice integration theory, fairness heuristic theory, and fairness theory also play a role. Over time, these judgments about various perpetrators – which may include the evaluation of outcomes, procedures, information, and interpersonal treatment – are aggregated to form individual-level, stable judgments regarding the fairness of exchange partners with whom employees interact (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, and customers). Through socialization and social-information processing, and influenced by organizational structure and social networks, these individual multifoci justice perceptions merge to form multifoci justice climate, which over time lead to the formation of shared cognitions of overall justice climate.

Value – The chapter proposes a temporal model of how discrete events at the individual level merge to form individuals’ multifoci justice perceptions, shared multifoci justice climate, and ultimately overall justice climate. The chapter offers multiple propositions and concludes with recommendations for empirically testing the model.

Purpose – To investigate whether investor interest in climate issues affects the carbon behavior of the corporations in which they may invest (target corporations).

Methodology/approach – We developed the Finance and Climate Database, merging data on ownership, carbon disclosure, and investor climate interest from several sources, with 30,840 shareholder unit observations. We supplemented analysis of this with interviews.

Findings – Climate-interested investors (CIIs) account for well over a third of the ownership of the world’s very large corporations. More activist CIIs may make a difference to carbon behavior of target corporations where their shareholdings are large enough to enable them to exert power, at or above around 1.5 percent of a target company’s shares. Share price volatility also strongly affects carbon behavior, and the balance of power in investment presently favors the short term over the long term.

Research limitations/implications – More precise proxies for carbon interest and carbon behavior would benefit future research.

Social implications – There is potential for far greater influence by individual CIIs. The most important factor in shifting the balance of power from the short term to the long term would be global agreement on a carbon pricing system.

Originality/value of chapter – This is the first time such a database has been developed or used for this purpose.

Accumulating evidence suggests that Team-member exchange (TMX) influences employee work attitudes and behaviours separately from the effects of leader-member exchange (LMX). In particular, little is known of the effect of LMX differentiation (in-group versus out-group) as a process of social exchange that can, in turn, affect TMX quality. To explore this phenomenon, this chapter presents a multi-level model of TMX in organizations, which incorporates LMX differentiation, team identification, team member affect at the individual level, and fairness of LMX differentiation and affective climate at the group-level. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our model for theory, research, and practice.

This chapter seeks to integrate and expand on the ideas presented by Cropanzano, Li, and James (this volume), Ambrose and Schminke (this volume), and Rupp, Bashshur, and Liao (this volume). First, it summarizes and comments on the key insights made by each set of authors. It then presents five propositions, along with some preliminary evidence supporting each: (1) employees can and do make source-based justice judgments; (2) justice treatment is directed at different targets (including individuals and groups, both internal and external to the organization); (3) global justice climate may be a useful approach to studying justice once the relationship between more specific justice climates (e.g., interunit or intraunit justice climate) is better understood; (4) it is necessary to study both general and specific justice climates to understand the unfolding of justice reactions over time; and (5) a climate for justice can be behaviorally measured and trained.

In the context of the risks inherent in global warming, public libraries can partner with each other, community-based environmental groups and/or other institutions to enhance community resilience and sustainability. This chapter presents a case study of an ongoing experiment to address this opportunityand challenge. In April 2021, six Western MA libraries formed a collaborative in conjunction with a local citizens’ group, Voices for Climate [V4C], to expand public education opportunities relating to understanding, mitigating, and adapting to climate change. In its initial year, this effort yielded 13 separate programs serving more than 110 patrons, all within the 7 days of Climate Preparedness Week, a state-wide program held annually. Subsequently, this Pioneer Valley Library Collaborative [PVLC] has grown to 10 library partners and continues its close alliance with V4C. In describing the programs offered in the first year, the challenges met, limitations encountered, and lessons learned, the chapter provides one model for how libraries can jointly choose to become hubs of climate conversation and education as a means to promote their communities’ quality of life, sustainability, and resilience.