Event justice and social entity justice: A cross-lagged analysis

Introduction

The life of organizations is punctuated by a wide range of managerial decisions (e.g., hiring and selection procedure, performance appraisal, new working methods). Facing such events, employees evaluate the fairness of the situation experienced (event justice). They can also examine the fairness demonstrated by a specific entity, such as the organization or the supervisor (social entity justice). So far, little is known about how justice judgments about events vs. entities are related to each other, especially in a context of organizational change.

Objective

Building on decision-making and organizational justice literature, we investigate the directionality of the causal relationships between event justice and social entity justice within a context of organizational change in a Belgian company (a significant reorganization at the level of the organization chart resulting in different changes for employees).

Methods

We used two samples (team leaders and executives) and realized a cross-lagged panel analysis with two measurement times.

Results

The study shows that, in both samples, employees’ fairness perceptions about their organization (social entity justice) influence their interpretation of the fairness of subsequent events involving the organization (event justice).

Conclusion

Building and fostering a climate of justice is therefore of primary importance to organizations, since global fairness perceptions about the organization may help employees to perceive a specific event, such as an organizational change, as being fair.