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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 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.

The objective of this chapter is to explore the experience of EU companies in the environmental protection sector in China focusing on their difficulties and the mitigating strategies mobilized.

We adopt a qualitative, case study approach, using interview data to explore the liability of foreignness (LOF) experienced by the companies studied and the strategies adopted to overcome LOF.

We found examples of all categories of LOF identified by Eden and Miller (2004), among our case study companies, but the most problematic and persistent were discrimination hazards. Companies adopted various strategies to cope with LOF, including maximizing the use of local employees, developing relationships with local and national government actors, and establishing partnerships with local companies. None had chosen a combative legalistic approach to the unfair treatment they had suffered.

The relatively small number of cases (six) limits the generalizability of our findings. However, we are convinced that the size of our case companies and their long experience in China mean our findings are well grounded, although more research is needed.

The experience of our case study companies can help to inform the strategy of companies interested in entering and developing the Chinese market.

Very few studies have explored LOF through a case study-based qualitative approach. This research therefore helps to supplement findings from more large-scale quantitative analyses. In addition, there is little research on the LOF of foreign companies in China. Given the growing importance of the market, we believe the question merits further analysis.

A grievance may be defined as any dispute that arises between an employer and employee, which relates to the implied or explicit terms of the employment agreement (Britton, 1982:12). The validity of a grievance depends upon whether or not there is “just cause” or reason for such complaint. Certain tests are used in determining whether a company had just cause for disciplining an employee (BNA Editorial Staff, 1959‐1987:1). Anyone having an affiliation with an organisation can file a grievance on behalf of or against that organisation. Some of the most common complaints by employees include unfair treatment by the employer, broken employment agreement, and employer communications and defamation. The most common employers’ complaints are absenteeism, insubordination, misconduct, substance abuse, unsatisfactory performance, and safety and health violations. For grievance handling to be effective, the employer has to follow certain guidelines. In disciplining employees, management should mainly use penalties such as warnings, suspensions, and discharge (BNA Editorial Staff, 1959‐1987:11).

Although research on insurance frauds has found that deductible amount influences customers’ attitudes toward insurance frauds, very little work has further investigated the roles of deductible-premium ratios and insurance experiences. Building on the foundations of Adams' equity theory, the authors examined the impact of the deductible-premium ratios on customers' attitudes toward insurance frauds. The authors also studied the relationship among the experience of applying claims, the reasons customers accept insurance frauds, and customers' intentions to carry out frauds. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Survey was used, and the sample of this study comes from the full-time civil servants at the Agricultural Research Institutes in Taiwan.

The results showed that the deductible-premium ratios may relate to the responders’ perceptions of insurance frauds. In addition, the reasons customers accept frauds were also the influential predictors of the customer frauds.

Previous studies found that an unfair treatment by an insurer (e.g. an unfair deductible amount) may enhance customer insurance frauds. However, the “fairness and fraud” problems should involve the consideration of insurance premium because a high deductible amount is usually associated with lower premium. The other discussions of perceived fairness also accept that perceived fairness was often rooted in a social comparative situation. Based on the literature gap, this is the first time that Adams’ equity theory is applied in the customer insurance fraud research.

This article, the first empirical study of its kind, presents findings from a larger qualitative study of principal mistreatment of teachers. A grounded theory method was used to study a sample of 50 US teachers who were subjected to long‐term mistreatment from school principals. The authors discuss descriptive, conceptual, and theoretical findings about principals’ actions that teachers define as mistreatment. In addition, the inductively derived model briefly looks at the harmful effects of principal mistreatment and abuse on teachers, psychologically/emotionally and physically/physiologically. Implications of study findings are discussed for administrator and teacher preparation, for school district offices, and for further research.

One in six people globally are affected by infertility, and many turn to fertility treatment in a bid to have a child(ren). While many countries offer work-related legislative protections and provisions for those who are successful in conceiving a child, in the form of maternity and paternity-related supports and protection again discrimination – the same cannot be said for those struggling to conceive. There are similar inequalities when it comes to workplace policy and support. Drawing on data from our two-year research study on “complex fertility journeys” and employment, this chapter sets out the work-life challenges that arise when individuals find themselves navigating the considerable “reproductive work” of fertility treatment alongside the demands of paid employment, and how affected employees respond. It also touches on the challenges experienced by line managers tasked with offering support. The chapter concludes with implications for practice in terms of making organizations more “fertility friendly,” which should extend beyond support for attending fertility treatment appointments to include awareness raising, manager training, and support for the varied outcomes of treatment cycles, including involuntary childlessness.

A number of theoretical frameworks exist to explain perpetrators’ motivation for workplace aggression. Most of them consider these behaviors as retaliatory actions from individuals who experience triggering events in their workplaces. The current chapter describes a model that focuses on the motivations underlying proactive workplace aggression, and identifies situations where perpetrators consider their aggressive behaviors as morally justifiable. In particular, we argue that depending on the targets’ in- versus out-group membership and higher- versus lower-status in the hierarchy, aggressive behaviors may be viewed as acceptable to achieve perpetrators’ goals of forcing compliance or managing identity. The model extends the current literature by considering non-retaliatory workplace aggression, and by identifying potential avenues for future research and intervention to reduce proactive workplace aggression.

Construction project delivery is hinged on the performance of the contractor and subcontractors. In many private construction projects in the UK, there are trust issues between the subcontractor and contractor, especially when there are no collateral warranties to protect the rights of the subcontractors. The purpose of this study is to investigate and identify the causations of distrust between subcontractors and contractors and proffered panaceas.

Qualitative open-ended questions were used. Twenty respondents, mainly supervisors, tradesmen, subcontractors and main contractors in the UK, were interviewed. The thematic analysis approach was used to identify the dominant themes.

The interview findings were presented descriptively, and the frequency approach identified more occurring themes from the interviewees’ responses. The six themes contributing to distrust between subcontractor and contractor are financial pressures, partnering approach, payment and trust, nature of trust, internal influence and unfair payment.

The findings of this study revealed that many subcontractors have limited knowledge of the clauses in contracts they are entering into. Thus, in addition to obtaining collateral warranties, subcontractors must carefully understand their contractual obligations and payment arrangements before agreeing to be part of a construction project.

Although this study aimed to shed light on the distrust between subcontractors and contractors in private UK construction projects, improvements in contract administration, subcontractors continued professional development and improved valuation processes can reduce distrust between subcontractors and contractors.

Teams often cannot fulfill their managers’ expectations due to unfairness issues and dysfunctional conflicts with teammates. This paper aims to create a fair team environment, it is important to analyze the interrelationship between unfairness and conflict. However, only a few studies have done this and reported inconsistent results. Using negative reciprocity research as a theoretical foundation, this paper analyzes the interconnection between unfairness and conflict dimensions in the team context. This paper further integrates conflict management research to show employees and managers how to handle unfairness and conflict in teams.

The authors conducted a longitudinal survey study (three points in time) with 237 employees from different German organizations.

The results of cross-lagged structural equation modeling provide some evidence that interpersonal, procedural and informational unfairness predict relationship conflict and process conflict. Several of these effects become non-significant over time. Further, relationship and process conflict have several significant relationships with the unfairness dimensions, while task conflict did not have any significant relationship. The results also suggest that employees can break up the vicious cycle of unfairness and conflict by using a cooperative conflict management approach.

This paper focuses on members of autonomous, interdependent and existing teams and the interpersonal relationship of a team member with her or his teammates. Future research could analyze leader-member relationships in different team types.

The application of cooperative conflict management enables employees to break up the vicious cycle of unfairness.

This paper clarifies the interrelationship between unfairness and conflict and shows that a team member can apply a cooperative conflict management style to handle effectively unfairness and conflict.