Procedural justice

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Procedural justice is the idea of fairness in the processes that resolve disputes and allocate resources. One aspect of procedural justice is related to discussions of the administration of justice and legal proceedings. This sense of procedural justice is connected to due process (U.S.), fundamental justice (Canada), procedural fairness (Australia), and natural justice (other Common law jurisdictions), but the idea of procedural justice can also be applied to nonlegal contexts in which some process is employed to resolve conflict or divide benefits or burdens. Aspects of procedural justice are an area of study in social psychology, sociology, and organizational psychology. [1] [2]

Contents

Procedural justice concerns the fairness and the transparency of the processes by which decisions are made, and may be contrasted with distributive justice (fairness in the distribution of rights or resources), and retributive justice (fairness in the punishment of wrongs). Hearing all parties before a decision is made is one step which would be considered appropriate to be taken in order that a process may then be characterised as procedurally fair. Some theories of procedural justice hold that fair procedure leads to equitable outcomes, even if the requirements of distributive or restorative justice are not met. [3] It has been suggested that this is the outcome of the higher quality interpersonal interactions often found in the procedural justice process, which has shown to be stronger in affecting the perception of fairness during conflict resolution.[ citation needed ]

Giving group members a voice

Procedural justice deals with the perceptions of fairness regarding outcomes. It reflects the extent in which an individual perceives that outcome allocation decisions have been fairly made. The use of fair procedures helps communicate that employees are valued members of the group. Procedural Justice can be examined by focusing on the formal procedures used to make decisions. Procedural justice, a subcomponent of organizational justice, is important in communication and in the workplace because it involves fair procedures, it allows the employees to have a say in the decision process, it gives employees fair treatment, and allows them to have more input in the appraisal process. Additionally, research by Tom R. Tyler and colleagues found that giving disgruntled group members a voice regardless of whether it is instrumental (i.e., a voice that affects the decision-making process) or non-instrumental (i.e., a voice that will not have any weighting on the decision-making process) is sometimes enough for a process to be viewed as fair. [4] [5]

The ability and right to a voice is linked with feelings of respect and value, which emphasizes the importance of the interpersonal factors of procedural justice. [6] This is important in the workplace because employees will feel more satisfied and respected, which can help to increase job task and contextual performance. There is an emphasis on the interpersonal and social aspects of the procedure, which result in employees feeling more satisfied when their voices are able to be heard. This was argued by Greenberg and Folger. Procedural justice also is a major factor that contributes to the expression of employee dissent. It correlates positively with managers' upward dissent. With procedural justice there is a greater deal of fairness in the workplace.

Leventhal's Rules

In 1976, Gerald S. Leventhal attempted to articulate how individuals create their own cognitive maps about the procedures for allocating rewards, punishment, or resources in a given interaction setting or social system (be it a courtroom, classroom, workplace, or other context). He postulated seven categories of structural components to these procedures, and six justice rules by which the "fairness" of each component is evaluated. The seven types of structural components are: selection of agents, setting ground rules, gathering information, decision structure, appeals, safeguards, and change mechanisms. The six justice rules are: consistency, bias suppression, accuracy, correctability, representativeness, and ethicality. [7] These became widely used and referenced, and known as "Leventhal's Rules." [8]

With procedural justice in the workplace and in communication, things need to be fair to everyone, when something is applied it has to be applied to everyone and procedures need to be consistent with the moral and ethical values.[ citation needed ]

Rawls on procedural justice

In A Theory of Justice , philosopher John Rawls distinguished three ideas of procedural justice: [9]

  1. Perfect procedural justice has two characteristics: (1) an independent criterion for what constitutes a fair or just outcome of the procedure, and (2) a procedure that guarantees that the fair outcome will be achieved.
  2. Imperfect procedural justice shares the first characteristic of perfect procedural justice—there is an independent criterion for a fair outcome—but no method that guarantees that the fair outcome will be achieved.
  3. Pure procedural justice describes situations in which there is no criterion for what constitutes a just outcome other than the procedure itself.

Evaluating the fairness of different procedural systems

There are three main approaches to evaluating whether a particular system of justice is fair: the outcomes model, the balancing model, and the participation model.[ citation needed ]

Outcomes model

The idea of the outcomes model of procedural justice is that the fairness of process depends on the procedure producing correct outcomes. For example, if the procedure is a criminal trial, then the correct outcome would be conviction of the guilty and exonerating the innocent. If the procedure were a legislative process, then the procedure would be fair to the extent that it produced good legislation and unfair to the extent that it produced bad legislation.[ citation needed ] This has many limitations. Principally, if two procedures produced equivalent outcomes, then they are equally just according to this model. However, as the next two sections explain, there are other features about a procedure that make it just or unjust. For example, many would argue that a benevolent dictatorship is not (as) just as a democratic state (even if they have similar outcomes).[ citation needed ]

Balancing model

Some procedures are costly. The idea of the balancing model is that a fair procedure is one which reflects a fair balance between the costs of the procedure and the benefits that it produces. Thus, the balancing approach to procedural fairness might in some circumstances be prepared to tolerate or accept false positive verdicts in order to avoid unwanted costs (political) associated with the administration of criminal process.[ citation needed ] Ronald Dworkin argued that a properly balanced procedure is one that values peoples' rights and treats persons equally. [10]

The participation model

The idea of the participation model is that a fair procedure is one that affords those who are affected by an opportunity to participate in the making of the decision. In the context of a trial, for example, the participation model would require that the defendant be afforded an opportunity to be present at the trial, to put on evidence, cross examination witnesses, and so forth.[ citation needed ]

Group engagement model

Models have also been proposed to understand the psychological basis of justice. One of the more recent of these models is the group engagement model. [11] The group engagement model (GEM), devised by Tom R. Tyler and Steven L. Blader, incorporates past psychological theories to explain the underlying psychological processes of procedural justice. Based on social identity theory and relational models of procedural justice, this model suggests that a group's procedural justice process influences members' identification with the group, which in turn influences their type of engagement within the group.[ citation needed ]

According to the model, group engagement is seen as either mandatory or discretionary behavior. Mandatory behavior is defined by Tyler and Blader as behavior that is required by the group and thus is motivated by incentives and sanctions. Conversely, discretionary behavior is motivated by internal values and is seen as more cooperative and therefore ideal within a group.[ citation needed ] Depending on the procedural justice processes of the group, the social identity of the members will be influenced accordingly and different values will be emphasised. The more a member agrees with the type of procedural justice employed, the more they will identify with their group. This increased identification results in the internalization of the group's values and attitudes for the group member. This creates a circular relationship as the group's procedural justice processes will affect group members' levels of identification and, as a consequence, this level and type of identification will affect their own values of what is fair and unfair. This, in turn, will then affect how the individuals will engage with their group, with higher identification leading to discretionary and more desirable behavior.[ citation needed ]

Due process and natural justice

The idea of procedural justice is especially influential in the law. In the United States, for example, a concern for procedural justice is reflected in the Due Process clauses of the United States Constitution. In other common law countries, this same idea is sometimes called natural justice.[ citation needed ]

Natural justice generally binds both public and private entities, while the U.S. concept of due process has a "state action" requirement which means it applies only to state actors. But in the U.S., there are analogous concepts like fair procedure which can bind private parties in their relations with others.[ citation needed ]

See also

Related Research Articles

Industrial and organizational psychology Branch of psychology

Industrial and organizational psychology, an applied discipline within psychology, is the science of human behavior as it pertains to the workplace. Depending on the country or region of the world, I-O psychology is also known as occupational psychology in the United Kingdom, organizational psychology in Australia and New Zealand, and work and organizational (WO) psychology throughout Europe and Brazil. Industrial, work, and organizational psychology (IWO) psychology is the broader, more global term for the science and profession.

Distributive justice Concept relating to distribution of rewards to group members

Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources. Often contrasted with just process, which is concerned with the administration of law, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considerable attention in philosophy and the social sciences.

Equity theory focuses on determining whether the distribution of resources is fair to both relational partners. Equity is measured by comparing the ratio of contributions and benefits for each person. Considered one of the justice theories, equity theory was first developed in the 1960s by J. Stacy Adams, a workplace and behavioral psychologist, who asserted that employees seek to maintain equity between the inputs that they bring to a job and the outcomes that they receive from it against the perceived inputs and outcomes of others. According to Equity Theory, in order to maximize individuals' rewards, we tend to create systems where resources can be fairly divided amongst members of a group. Inequalities in relationships will cause those within it to be unhappy to a degree proportional to the amount of inequality. The belief is that people value fair treatment which causes them to be motivated to keep the fairness maintained within the relationships of their co-workers and the organization. The structure of equity in the workplace is based on the ratio of inputs to outcomes. Inputs are the contributions made by the employee for the organization.

Social exchange theory Generalization theory explaining social behaviour regarding society and economics

Social exchange theory is a sociological and psychological theory that studies the social behavior in the interaction of two parties that implement a cost-benefit analysis to determine risks and benefits. The theory also involves economic relationships—the cost-benefit analysis occurs when each party has goods that the other parties value. Social exchange theory suggests that these calculations occur in romantic relationships, friendships, professional relationships, and ephemeral relationships as simple as exchanging words with a customer at the cash register. Social exchange theory says that if the costs of the relationship are higher than the rewards, such as if a lot of effort or money were put into a relationship and not reciprocated, then the relationship may be terminated or abandoned.

Organizational behavior (OB) or organisational behaviour is the: "study of human behavior in organizational settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself". OB research can be categorized in at least three ways:

Power distance refers to the relationship between authority and subordinate individuals that depends on how the latter react to the former. It is an anthropological concept used in cultural studies to understand the relationship between individuals with varying power, the effects, and their perceptions. It uses the Power Distance Index (PDI) as a tool to measure the acceptance of power established between the individuals with the most power and those with the least. In these societies, power distance is divided into two categories that resemble a culture's power index; people in societies with a high power distance are more likely to follow a hierarchy where everybody has a place and does not require further justification, and high-ranking individuals are respected and looked up to. In societies with a low power distance, individuals aim to distribute power equally. Without regards to the same level of respect of high-power distance cultures, additional justification is often needed among those in low power distance societies. Research has also indicated that before any other relationships in a business can be established, a cross-cultural relationship must be formed first.

Greenberg (1987) introduced the concept of organizational justice with regard to how an employee judges the behavior of the organization and the employee's resulting attitude and behaviour. For example, if a firm makes redundant half of the workers, an employee may feel a sense of injustice with a resulting change in attitude and a drop in productivity.

Belongingness is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group. Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, a religion, or something else, some people tend to have an 'inherent' desire to belong and be an important part of something greater than themselves. This implies a relationship that is greater than simple acquaintance or familiarity.

Organizational identification (OI) is a term used in management studies and organizational psychology. The term refers to the propensity of a member of an organization to identify with that organization. OI has been distinguished from "affective organizational commitment". Measures of an individual's OI have been developed, based on questionnaires.

Job performance assesses whether a person performs a job well. Job performance, studied academically as part of industrial and organizational psychology, also forms a part of human resources management. Performance is an important criterion for organizational outcomes and success. John P. Campbell describes job performance as an individual-level variable, or something a single person does. This differentiates it from more encompassing constructs such as organizational performance or national performance, which are higher-level variables.

Workplace deviance, in group psychology, may be described as the deliberate desire to cause harm to an organization – more specifically, a workplace. The concept has become an instrumental component in the field of organizational communication. More accurately, it can be seen as "voluntary behavior that violates institutionalized norms and in doing so threatens the well-being of the organization".

Employee silence refers to situations where employees withhold information that might be useful to the organization of which they are a part, whether intentionally or unintentionally. This can happen if employees do not speak up to a supervisor or manager.

Within organizations people often have to make decisions about whether to speak up or remain silent - whether to share or withhold their ideas, opinions, and concerns ... [The problem is that] in many cases, they choose the safe response of silence, withholding input that could be valuable to others or thoughts that they wish they could express.

— Frances J. Milliken and Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison, Shades of Silence: Emerging Themes and Future Directions for Research on Silence in Organizations

Workplace revenge refers to the general action of purposeful retaliation within the workplace in an attempt to seek silence the victim and avoid accountability. Acts of revenge in the workplace are viewed by the retaliator as a defensive act in response to the offender's unwarranted and unfair actions. When the offender makes the first move that is viewed by an affected colleague as unjust, the victim will often feel a need for retaliation. Workplace revenge is often initially considered a violent act taking place between colleagues within an organization. However, this type of revenge within an organization is often nonviolent and legal. Workplace revenge often consists of silent and non-confrontational acts that directly affect the other person. Some examples include decisions to work more slowly, refusals to help the colleague, or ignoring tasks set forth by the offender.

Perceived organizational support (POS) is the degree to which employees believe that their organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being and fulfills socioemotional needs. POS is generally thought to be the organization's contribution to a positive reciprocity dynamic with employees, as employees tend to perform better to reciprocate received rewards and favorable treatment. This idea bloomed from Eisenberger and Rhoades' organizational support theory.

Social undermining is the expression of negative emotions directed towards a particular person or negative evaluations of the person as a way to prevent the person from achieving their goals. This behavior can often be attributed to certain feelings, such as dislike or anger. The negative evaluation of the person may involve criticizing their actions, efforts or characteristics. Social undermining is seen in relationships between family members, friends, personal relationships and co-workers. Social undermining can affect a person's mental health, including an increase in depressive symptoms. This behavior is only considered social undermining if the person's perceived action is intended to hinder their target. When social undermining is seen in the work environment the behavior is used to hinder the co-worker's ability to establish and maintain a positive interpersonal relationship, success and a good reputation. Examples of how an employee can use social undermining in the work environment are behaviors that are used to delay the work of co-workers, to make them look bad or slow them down, competing with co-workers to gain status and recognition and giving co-workers incorrect or even misleading information about a particular job.

Positive psychology is defined as a method of building on what is good and what is already working instead of attempting to stimulate improvement by focusing on the weak links in an individual, a group, or in this case, a company. Implementing positive psychology in the workplace means creating an environment that is more enjoyable, productive, and values individual employees. This also means creating a work schedule that does not lead to emotional and physical distress.

Work motivation "is a set of energetic forces that originate both within as well as beyond an individual's being, to initiate work-related behavior, and to determine its form, direction, intensity, and duration." Understanding what motivates an organization's employees is central to the study of I–O psychology. Motivation is a person's internal disposition to be concerned with and approach positive incentives and avoid negative incentives. To further this, an incentive is the anticipated reward or aversive event available in the environment. While motivation can often be used as a tool to help predict behavior, it varies greatly among individuals and must often be combined with ability and environmental factors to actually influence behavior and performance. Results from a 2012 study, which examined age-related differences in work motivation, suggest a "shift in people's motives" rather than a general decline in motivation with age. That is, it seemed that older employees were less motivated by extrinsically related features of a job, but more by intrinsically rewarding job features. Work motivation is strongly influenced by certain cultural characteristics. Between countries with comparable levels of economic development, collectivist countries tend to have higher levels of work motivation than do countries that tend toward individualism. Similarly measured, higher levels of work motivation can be found in countries that exhibit a long versus a short-term orientation. Also, while national income is not itself a strong predictor of work motivation, indicators that describe a nation’s economic strength and stability, such as life expectancy, are. Work motivation decreases as a nation’s long term economic strength increases. Currently work motivation research has explored motivation that may not be consciously driven. This method goal setting is referred to as goal priming. Effects of primed subconscious goals in addition to goals that are consciously set related to job performance have been studied by Stajkovic, Latham, Sergent, and Peterson, who conducted research on a CEO of a for-profit business organization using goal priming to motivate job performance. Goal priming refers to the achievement of a goal by external cues given. These cues can affect information processing and behaviour the pursuit of this goal. In this study, the goal was primed by the CEO using achievement related words strategy placed in emails to employees. This seemingly small gesture alone not only cost the CEO very little money, but it increased objectively measured performance efficiency by 35% and effectiveness by 15% over the course of a 5 day work week. There has been controversy about the true efficacy of this work as to date, only four goal priming experiments have been conducted. However, the results of these studies found support for the hypothesis that primed goals do enhance performance in a for-profit business organization setting.

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Legal socialization

Legal socialization is the process through which, individuals acquire attitudes and beliefs about the law, legal authorities, and legal institutions. This occurs through individuals' interactions, both personal and vicarious, with police, courts, and other legal actors. To date, most of what is known about legal socialization comes from studies of individual differences among adults in their perceived legitimacy of law and legal institutions, and in their cynicism about the law and its underlying norms. Adults' attitudes about the legitimacy of law are directly tied to individuals' compliance with the law and cooperation with legal authorities.

Employee motivation, also known as work motivation, is a feature of employees that refers to how motivated they are to work. It has a significant impact on employee productivity and efficiency." While motivation is defined as why individuals do or participate in certain behaviors. Studies have shown that those who feel motivated tend to perform better than those who are not. Employee engagement influences just about every key area of your organization, including profitability, sales, customer experience, employee turnover, and more. It is understood that humans have a psychological need for "autonomy, competence relatedness. There is a correlation-ship between motivation and employee's engagement, and the productivity of the organization Engagement is a sense of purpose, belonging, and commitment to an organization, whereas motivation is the willpower and drive to act on those feelings. Employee engagement lays the groundwork for your employees to do their best work, whereas motivation provides the fuel or energy to get the job done. When managers were asked how they know the difference between the engaged and disengaged employee, they announced that if an employee is engaged, he will do his best to be creative at work, he will be enjoying what he or she is doing, while if the employee is disengaged, he will not be interested in what he is doing, and he will not do anything more than what he or she is told to do. Since work motivation is now considered as an important topic, many theories came up to the stage.

References

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  2. ↑ Argyris, Chris (1977-01-01). "Organizational learning and management information systems". Accounting, Organizations and Society. 2 (2): 113–123. doi:10.1016/0361-3682(77)90028-9.
  3. ↑ Tyler, Tom; Rasinski Kenneth; Spodick Nancy (1985). "Influence of voice on satisfaction with leaders: Exploring the meaning of process control". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 48: 72–81. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.48.1.72.
  4. ↑ Tyler, Tom; Degoey Peter; Smith Heather (1996). "Understanding why the justice of group procedures matters: A test of the psychological dynamics of the group-value model". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 70 (5): 913–930. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.913.
  5. ↑ Lind, Edgar Allen (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum Press.
  6. ↑ Tyler, Tom; Degoey Peter (1995). "Collective restraint in social dilemmas: Procedural justice and social identification effects on support for authorities". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 69 (3): 482–497. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.3.482.
  7. ↑ Leventhal, Gerald S. (September 1976). What Should Be Done with Equity Theory? New Approaches to the Study of Fairness in Social Relationships.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  8. ↑ Hartner-Tiefenthaler, Martina; Poschalko, Andrea; Rechberger, Silvia; Kirchler, Erich (2010-01-01). "Taxpayers' Compliance by Procedural and Interactional Fairness Perceptions and Social Identity". Journal of Psychology and Economics. 3.
  9. ↑ Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999 Chapter II, Section 14
  10. ↑ Dworkin, Ronald (1986). A Matter of Principle. Harvard University Press. ISBN   9780674554610.
  11. ↑ Tyler, Tom; Blader Steven (2003). "The group engagement model: Procedural justice, social identity, and cooperative behavior". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 7 (4): 349–361. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0704_07. PMID   14633471. S2CID   25509874.

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