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Hierarchy as a Mediator of Fairness: A Contingency Approach to Distributive Justice in Organizations 1
Author(s) -
Lansberg Ivan
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02225.x
Subject(s) - distributive justice , equity theory , equity (law) , situational ethics , hierarchy , contingency , social psychology , psychology , interactional justice , perception , distributive property , procedural justice , contingency theory , organizational justice , positive economics , microeconomics , economic justice , economics , organizational commitment , political science , management , epistemology , law , mathematics , philosophy , neuroscience , pure mathematics
Employees of one organization were asked to indicate the fairness of six different ways of allocating a hypothetical lump sum. As expected, the results suggest an overall preference for equity‐based allocations. However, the employee's level in the hierarchy was found to mediate perceptions of fairness: upper managers viewed organization‐wide equity as being most fair; middle managers saw intra‐departmental equity as fairest; and clericals, unable to differentiate between equality and equity, perceived both these principles as being fairest. The results were interpreted in terms of a “contingency” approach to distributive justice which aims at integrating institutional, situational, and individual determinants of fairness.