ORGANIZATIONAL
JUSTICE
By / MahmoudShaqria
‫شقريه‬ ‫محمد‬ ‫محمود‬

Outlines
• Introduction
• Definition of Justice
• Definition of organizational justice
• Evolution of organizational justice
• Types of organizational justice
• Antecedents ‫سوابق‬ of perception of organizational justice
• Outcomes of organizational justice
• How to be a fair manager
• How to implement organizational justice

Introduction
Justice or fairness refers to the idea that an action or decision is
morally right, which may be defined according to ethics, religion,
fairness, equity, or law.
Justice and its execution ‫تنفيذها‬ is one of the basic and instinctive
needs ‫الغريزية‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ج‬ ‫االحتي‬ of human beings.
That’s why justice plays an effective and major role in studying the
organizations and individuals either inside or outside of it.

Justice
• Justice or fairness refers to the idea that an action or
decision is morally right, which may be defined
according to ethics, religion, fairness, equity, or law.

Organizational Justice
• Organizational justice refers to employees'
perception from justice and fair behaviors.
• It studies that how to behave with employees
so that they feel they have been treated fairly.

Organizational Justice
• It refers to how an employee judges the
behavior of the organization and their
resulting attitude and behavior that comes
from this.
(Greenberg ,1987 )

Organizational Justice
• Organizational justice mainly concentrates on the
workplace’s fairness which influences numerous
organizational and individual work-related factors like
turnover intentions, absenteeism, job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, job performance, leader-
member exchange, trust, leadership and job satisfaction.

Evolution ‫تطور‬of Organizational
Justice
• The idea of organizational justice stems from Equity theory
(Adams, 1963, 1965)of motivation, which posits that
judgments of equity and inequity are derived from
comparisons between one‘s self and others based on inputs
and outcomes.

• Inputs refer to what a person perceives to contribute
‫امة‬ ‫للمس‬ (e.g., knowledge and effort).
• Outcomes are what an individual perceives to get
out of an exchange relationship (e.g., pay and
recognition).
• Comparison points against which these inputs and
outcomes are judged may be internal (one‘s self at
an earlier time) or external (other individuals).

Types of Organizational Justice
• Distributive Justice
• Procedural Justice ‫إجرائيه‬
• Interactional Justice ‫تفاعليه‬
• Temporal Justice ‫زمنيه‬

Distributive justice
• Distributive justice is the workers’ perception in the
fairness of outcomes such as monetary rewards ‫فذتت‬ ‫المك‬
‫النقديذة‬ obtained by the workers from the organization (e.g.
pay raises, promotions, and selection for further
studies/training) etc.
• Distributive justice is related specifically to the results of
decisions on distribution.

Distributive justice
Appropriateness of outcomes
Equity:
rewarding
employees
based on their
contributions.
Equality:
providing each
employee
roughly the
same
compensation.
Need:
providing a
benefit based
on one’s
personal
requirements.

Procedural Justice
• Procedural justice is the perception of justice in the decision-making
process.
• This kind of justice is based on the perception that the reasons for
the decisions taken by the management are justified ‫مبررة‬.
• Procedural justice is the perception of equity regarding rules and
regulations applied in the process of rewarding or punishing.

Procedural Justice
• Appropriateness of the allocation process.
• Consistency: All employees are treated the same.
• Lack of Bias: No person or group is singled out for
discrimination or ill treatment.
• Accuracy: Decisions are based on accurate information.
• Representation of All Concerned: Appropriate stakeholders
have input into a decision.
• Correction: There is an appeals process or other mechanism
for fixing mistakes.
• Ethics: Norms of professional conduct are not violated.

Interactional Justice
• Interactional justice is considered as key aspect in
workplace settings because of its relationship with unfair
and fair Treatment
• “the interpersonal treatment employees receive from
decision makers and the adequacy with which the formal
decision-making procedures are explained”

Interactional Justice
• Appropriateness of the treatment one receives from
authority figures.
• Interpersonal Justice: Treating an employee with dignity,
courtesy, and respect.
• Informational Justice: Sharing relevant information with
employees.

Temporal Justice
• Temporal justice in an organization is concerned with
“the fair distribution of time”.
• Organizations must distribute work time evenly across
employees irrespective of them being single or married,
part time students or working full time

Temporal Justice
• Appropriateness of time distribution
• Marital Time: Time spent with spouse and children.
• Personal Time: Time spent with friends, gym, hobbies, sleep
and effect of working time on personal time.
• Office Time/Late Sittings: Extra time spent for work in office
after office hours

ANTECEDENTS OF PERCEPTION OF
ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE
• Employee Participation
• Communication
• Justice Climate

EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION
• It is the extent to which employees feel that they are
involved in decision-making or other organizational
procedures.
• The opportunity or ability to participate in decision
making improves an individual’s perceptions of
procedural justice, even when the decision is
unfavorable to the individual

EMPLOYEE PARTICIPATION
• Higher levels of justice are perceived when employees
feel that they have input in processes than when
employees do not perceive that they have the
opportunity to participate

COMMUNICATION
• Communication has been shown to be related to
interpersonal and informational justice perceptions
• It is important that the information provided be accurate,
timely, and helpful in order for the impact on justice
perceptions to be positive.

COMMUNICATION
The quality of communication by an organization
or manager can improve justice perceptions by
improving employee perceptions of manager
trustworthiness and also by reducing feelings of
uncertainty

JUSTICE CLIMATE
Perceptions of organizational justice can be influenced by
others, such as co-workers and team members.
Team level perceptions of justice form what is called a ‘justice
climate’ which can impact individuals’ own views of justice
Employees working within a team may share their
perceptions with one another which can lead to a shared
interpretation of the fairness of events

JUSTICE CLIMATE
• Individuals can “learn” justice evaluations from team
members and these can lead to homogeneity of justice
perceptions within teams, creating a strong justice climate.
Thus, group-level perceptions of justice can be conceptualized
as an antecedent to individuals’ justice perceptions.

Outcomes of organizational justice
• Trust
• Performance
• Job satisfaction and organizational commitment
• Organizational citizenship behavior
• Absenteeism and withdrawal
• Emotional exhaustion

Trust
The relationship between trust and organizational justice perceptions is based
on mutuality.
Trust in the organization is built from the employee’s belief that current
organizational decisions are fair, future organizational decisions will be fair.
The continuance of employee trust in the organization and the organization
continuing to meet the employee’s expectations of fairness creates the reciprocal
relationship between trust and organizational justice.
A positive relationship between an employee and supervisor can lead to trust in
the organization.

Performance
Equity theory of organizational justice suggest that when people
perceive injustice they seek to restore justice.
One way that employees restore justice is by altering their level of job
performance.
Procedural justice affects performance as a result of its impact on
employee attitudes. Distributive justice affects performance when
efficiency and productivity are involved.
Improving justice perceptions improves productivity and
performance.

Job satisfaction and organizational
commitment
Job satisfaction was found to be positively associated with overall
perceptions of organizational justice such that greater perceived
injustice results in lower levels of job satisfaction and greater
perceptions of justice result in higher levels of job satisfaction.
Additionally, organizational commitment is related to perceptions
of procedural justice such that greater perceived injustice results in
diminished commitment while greater perceived justice results in
increases commitment to the organization.

Organizational citizenship behavior
Organizational citizenship behaviors are actions that employees
take to support the organization that go above and beyond the scope
of their job description.
OCBs are related to both procedural justice and distributive justice
perceptions.
As organizational actions and decisions are perceived as more just,
employees are more likely to engage in OCBs.

Absenteeism and withdrawal
Absenteeism, or non-attendance, is another outcome of perceived
injustice.
Failure to receive a promotion is an example of a situation in which
feelings of injustice may result in an employee being absent from work
without reason.
When people see both their commitment to the organization and the
organization’s commitment to them as high, absenteeism is diminished.
Additionally, withdrawal, or leaving the organization, is a more extreme
outcome stemming from the same equity theory principles.
Distributive justice perceptions are most strongly related to withdrawal.

Emotional exhaustion
Emotional exhaustion, which related to employee health and
burnout, is related to overall organizational justice perceptions.
As perceptions of justice increase employee health increases and
burnout decreases.
Distributive, procedural, and interactional justice perceptions are
able to capture state specific levels of emotional exhaustion

How to Be a Fair Manager
The golden rule.
Treat everyone you encounter as you would like to be treated.
No favorites. A manager who is fair does not play favorites.
You don't give anyone all the good jobs, or all the bad jobs, just because of
how you feel about them.
You treat them as the unique individuals they are.
Don't take advantage. When you're being fair, you don't take advantage of
others based on your position as the manager.
You don't treat someone unfairly just because you can and can get away with
it.

Model the rules and behaviors:
• When you follow the rules and apply them equally to everyone, you
are being fair.
• Make sure you apply them to yourself as well. Your "do" must match
your "tell," or people will lose trust in you.
Change the rules:
• If you sense that the rules are unfair to individuals or groups,
cultivate the courage to change the rules. Just be sure that the
reason you are changing it really is to increase fairness, not just to
justify an outcome that might be better for a favorite. Make sure the
new rule is applied equally for all.
How to Be a Fair Manager

Be honest:
• Be honest with your employees.
• Tell them why things are done as they are.
• Tell them why a specific procedure was put in place.
• Tell them about things you can't tell them, but only if
there really is a reason why you can't.
• When you are honest with them you are treating them
equally And be honest with yourself too.
• Look at why you're doing the things you are and in the
way you are.

Implementation of organizational
justice
• In general, to maintain and develop each component of organizational justice and
also reduce the rate of turnover in nurses, the following steps are suggested:
(A) Distributive justice: efforts should be made that benefits, bonuses, financial
incentives and promotions are fairly and equitably allocated among nurses for
strengthen nurses’ perceptions of distributive justice, after identifying the
perception of discrimination, appropriate measures to respond the people’s
material and spiritual needs should be considered.
(B) Procedural justice: guidelines and procedures and decisions should be
transparent.
(c)Interactional justice: the decisions taken on the organization should be
available for the nurses in appropriate interaction and good manner.

• Given the importance of organizational justice in the
explanation and prediction of staff turnover recommended
adequate training courses for managers and supervisors to
make them familiar with the principles of organizational
justice and its applications to reduce the amount of turnover
among nurses in hospitals, to be held and managers and
supervisors are encouraged to use advantages of this research
in interaction with nurses.