Disentangling Contributions of Process Elements to the Fair Process Effect: A Policy-Capturing Approach

Recent research on organizational justice suggests 3 elements of process-related justice: procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. Early research on the fair process effect indicates that fair procedures in general can help to ameliorate the effects of negative outcomes. This study examined the relative importance of each specific process element in accounting for the fair process effect. In addition, this study examined whether there are substitutable effects among the process elements such that high fairness on one element substitutes for low fairness on another element. Administrative Assistants working at a university read 48 hypothetical profiles describing a supervisor's procedural,interpersonal and informational justice behaviors in handling a negative job-related outcome. Administrative Assistants provided overall judgments of the fairness of the situation. The policy capturing analysis indicated that the weights given to the fairness cues varied somewhat across individuals. Hierarchical cluster analysis indicated that participants' fairness policies could be grouped into 3 homogenous clusters: two "main effects clusters" and an "interaction cluster." The first main effects cluster equally weighted procedural, interpersonal and informational justice in their overall fairness evaluations. The second main effects cluster favored procedural justice over the other two forms of justice. Finally, participants in the interaction cluster utilized the three two-way interactions between the forms of justice. Between-subject analyses indicated that the available demographic and background variables were not related to the judges' policies. Research and practical implications are discussed.