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Purpose – To develop a new model of restorative reparation that attempts to capture the dynamic role of shared identity perceptions.

Design/methodology/approach – Drawing on recent advances in restorative justice theory (Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, & Platow, 2008), we explore the theoretical proposition that a greater understanding of the identity relations between victims, offenders, and the groups in which they are embedded is key to understanding a victim's underlying motives toward justice, and thus, predicting when victims will react favorably to restorative justice processes and prefer them over traditional retributive justice interventions.

Findings – We argue that a perceived shared identity between the victim and the offender determines the extent to which the victim understands the transgression as requiring a revalidation of the rules, values, or morals undermined by the offense. Moreover, we propose that these identity relations are dynamic in that they both affect and are affected by the experience of injustice. Thus, identity is also shaped by the transgression itself through, inter alia, processes associated with positive social identity maintenance. Importantly, these shifts in identity determine how injustice victims are likely to respond to constructive approaches to conflict resolution such as restorative justice.

Originality/value – We offer a series of testable hypotheses aimed at engendering future research in the domain of constructive justice restoration in groups. Moreover, this work suggests that to develop effective resolution strategies, we must consider how an injustice event shapes the relations between the affected parties over time rather than simply assuming identity relations are static.

This chapter proposes and provides evidence for a conceptual framework for understanding the restoration of justice. Specifically, there is a fundamental distinction between two primary symbolic concerns that follow from transgressions: concern over the status/power relations between the involved parties, and over the violation of the values those parties expect to share. Recognizing these concerns is paramount to understanding the psychological needs of injustice victims, how they conceptualize the restoration of justice, and the processes by which various interventions instill feelings of justice. This framework also elucidates when alternative avenues towards justice might be more effective than traditional retributive responses.

To connect students with the real world of management practice, the purpose of this paper is to extend and operationalize the situated cultural learning approach (SiCuLA) through five learning processes occurring within communities of practice. These include integration of cultural contexts, authentic activities, reflections, facilitation, and the construction of a collaborative learning community.

To investigate the complex processes and principles of cultural learning, a multi-method approach is applied to an extensive comparative study of default and intervened cases within three management classes. Evidence is drawn from multiple sources of qualitative data including class observations, meeting minutes, focus groups, and group interviews with students and instructors.

Results indicated that in default cases, little explicit attention was given to a situated perspective of culture, or to the rich sources of cultural knowledge available among members of the classroom community. In contrast, following the intervention cases where SiCuLA was applied, there was strong evidence that much more attention was given to enhancing student contextual knowledge. Nonetheless, there were some challenges in applying these processes within the classroom context.

This is the first study to extend and operationalize SiCuLA in a classroom setting. More importantly, the evidence forms the empirical basis for deriving theoretical principles for cross-cultural management (CCM) education and training. It contributes to studying cultural contexts as sources of knowledge for learning through active co-participation. It also contributes to positive CCM learning with an emphasis on human agency that encourages students to take more responsibility and ownership of their cultural learning.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate a special type of unethical behaviors among frontline service employees – unethical pro-organizational behaviors (UPB). Building on social identity theory, the paper examines how social identifications with the organization and customers interactively affect employees' engagement in UPB. The paper also explores the underlying psychological mechanisms that explain this effect.

This study uses a multistage, sequential research design to test the hypothesized model. Studies 1A and 1B use scenario-based experiments with a randomized between-subjects design. Study 2 uses a survey design to replicate and expand the findings from Study 1 by collecting survey data from frontline service employees in various service sectors.

The results across two studies reveal that high organizational identification will motivate employees to engage in UPB when the opportunity arises, while employees who also identify with customers will more likely abstain from committing UPB. Findings from the survey study also show that this interactive effect on UPB is achieved by devaluing customers as tools or placing fault upon them.

This research provides a deeper exploration of the UPB at the organizational frontline. From a social identity theoretical perspective, this research examines how identification with customers and with the organization jointly shape frontline employees' engagement in UPB. In doing so, this research provides insight into the contextual limitations of existing UPB research while also offering practically relevant implications for managing UPB in frontline service contexts.

This paper examines how informal knowledge transfer processes unfold during the repatriation of Malaysian executives. The goal is to develop a repatriate knowledge transfer process model, explaining the informal process through which repatriates make decisions about and transfer newly acquired knowledge.

Given the unexplored nature of the informal knowledge transfer process the study investigates, this research adopts an exploratory qualitative research approach using interview data from 10 Malaysian corporate executives over a period of 14 months, covering prerepatriation and postrepatriation stages.

The findings indicate that from the repatriates' perspectives, the process flows during repatriates' knowledge transfer depend on the ability and motivation of repatriates, as well as their opportunity to communicate the newly acquired knowledge to their home country organization. We likewise learned that the repatriates' ability to overcome repatriate adjustment and knowledge transfer challenges is crucial in order for them to proactively initiate informal knowledge transfer.

This research is significant as it will assist current and future expatriates to plan and prepare for repatriation and eventual knowledge transfer. The findings will also be useful to organizations that employ repatriates in preparing action plans for repatriation rather than solely focusing on expatriation.

Research and practice formally argue that expatriates are expected to transfer knowledge from the home country organization to the host country organization. While on assignment, expatriates become exposed to various types of new knowledge during the assignment, setting them up to disseminate this newly acquired knowledge to their home country organization upon repatriation – however, knowledge transfer upon repatriation is largely informal. This paper examines how this informal knowledge transfer process unfolds in the repatriation context over a period of 14 months by qualitatively tracing the experiences of 10 Malaysian corporate executives.

Purpose – This capstone chapter introduces Amartya Sen's important and innovative theory of justice to researchers on fairness in groups and organizations. Here, I discuss how Sen's theory can provide grounding for both philosophical and social scientific work on justice and how social science research can inform and be informed by Sen's theory.

Design/methodology/approach – In this chapter, I discuss Sen's new book, A Theory of Justice, and explain the main aspects of Sen's theory of justice. I then draw conceptual linkages between Sen's theory and those introduced in each of the other chapters included in this volume.

Findings – I show that Sen's view of justice goes beyond social contract theories that attempt to identify ideal institutional arrangements to seek practical solutions that increase justice as experienced by actual people in the world. Rather than parallel endeavors, Sen's approach reveals philosophy and social science to be deeply connected to each other and to justice by providing a unifying theme by which various social scientific traditions are shown to study aspects of the same underlying phenomena. Further, I demonstrate how philosophy and social science together can increase justice in the world.

Originality/value – Sen's theory of justice, though influential in economic and policy circles, is largely unfamiliar to social psychologists and organizational scholars. I introduce these fields to Sen's theory of justice and show how it is useful for social psychological approaches to the study of fairness in groups and organizations.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of supervisor’s unfair treatment on follower’s retributive and restorative justice perceptions. The main goal is to find asymmetric nonlinear trajectories in the relationship between the severity of unfair treatment and employees’ orientation toward retributive/restorative justice.

Using an experimental policy-capturing design that varied five levels of transgression severity (none to very high) within supervisor–subordinate relationship injustice situations, 168 employees rated their retributive/restorative justice preferences. Latent growth curve modeling was used to fit the overall patterns of change.

As hypothesized, the trajectory of restorative justice was convex and progressed in a negative exponential shape, whereas the retributive justice trajectory was concave but followed a less steep positive exponential shape.

The main limitation is a threat to the external validity of the results. Scenario-based surveys may not fully generalize to actual organizational situations.

These findings help managers to understand how unjust treatment can shape employees’ expectations and, thus, address it adequately. This is important to retain qualified personnel and to minimize workplace disengagement in the aftermath of poor treatment.

Restorative justice is of great importance for minor and moderate violations of justice.

By illustrating different trajectories, this study extends research on restorative and retributive justice in organizations. The results help to understand when people expect restoration and are motivated to punish wrongdoers.

Purpose – This chapter reviews the authors’ research on group procedural justice and group-serving behavior. It makes the case that fairness and unfairness can both motivate group-serving behavior; the former makes group members feel good about their identity, leading them to “reward” the group, and the latter indicates a group shortcoming, leading members to “repair” the group.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter describes several studies published elsewhere. Correlational research with employees and students examines the relationship between group procedural fairness and group members’ positive affect, which should translate into group-serving behavior. Experimental research with students investigates whether group procedural unfairness can result in group-serving behavior (measured via self-report and observed helping). Complementary findings from other authors are briefly described and discussed in support of a developed theoretical model of group procedural justice and group-serving behavior.

Findings – Group procedural fairness was more strongly related to arousing positive affect for strongly identified group members. Separately, strongly identified group members engaged in more group-serving behavior when their group had unfair rather than fair procedures.

Research limitations/implications – Possible boundary conditions for the motivating effects of unfairness are discussed (e.g., group permeability, time frame, and anonymity of unfairness). Suggestions for future research are proposed (e.g., examine the effect of justice information on group-serving behavior when group members can also modify group procedures).

Practical implications – Better understanding the effects of group procedural unfairness should influence how organizations and societies promote group-serving behavior.

Originality/value – Research on the motivating effects of both group procedural fairness and unfairness are synthesized into one theoretical model.