Procedural justice and regulatory compliance.

This is a study of perceptions of the procedural justice of a business regulatory process among 341 Australian chief executives of small organizations. Only mixed support is found for the notion that procedural justice perceived by chief executives explains changes in the compliance of the organizations they run. A factor analysis suggests that five facets of procedural justice—consistency, correctability, control, impartiality, and ethicality—can be combined to form a single measure. The decision accuracy facet was not part of the general procedural justice factor. It is just one of these facets, control, that is significantly associated with changing compliance. As the chief executive's perception that they have had some control over the enforcement process increases, organizational compliance improves. The procedural justice measures correlate more strongly with regulatee satisfaction for this regulatory regime than do regulatory outcomes.