What Principles Are Used to Judge the Fairness of Retrenchment Actions

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGYVol. 14, No. 3, Spring 2000

WHAT PRINCIPLES ARE USED TOJUDGE THE FAIRNESS OF

RETRENCHMENT ACTIONS?

Gordon SimersonTara L'Heureux

University of New Haven

Brenden BecksteinLouisiana State University

Michael ZiaMianUniversity of South Florida

Jennifer DembowskiIllinois Institute of Technology

Melissa FreshmanUniversity of New Haven

ABSTRACT: The present study identified the bipolar principles that workers usefor evaluating the fairness of a broad range of negative organizational events.Two hundred forty-eight respondents were asked to describe recent negativeevents that occurred in their organizations, and explain the reasons for theirfairness perceptions of the events. The responses were coded to yield 5 principlesassociated with outcome fairness and 8 principles associated with process fairness;this set included principles not found in earlier taxonomies. Support for previousjustice models and needed areas of research are discussed.

What reasons do workers cite for perceptions of fairness or unfairnesswhen faced with the occurrence of negative organizational events? Hun-

Based on a paper presented at the 1994 annual meeting of the Eastern Academy ofManagement, Albany NY.

Address correspondence to Gordon Simerson, Department of Psychology, University ofNew Haven, 300 Orange Avenue, West Haven, CT 06516; e-mail: [email protected].

443 © 2000 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY

dreds of companies and millions of workers since the late 1980's havebeen affected by a myriad of organizational cutbacks (Cascio, 1993). Inaddition to the much discussed reduction in workforce, other "retrench-ment" strategies have been observed including across-the-board pay cuts,union concessions, cuts in perks and programs, and reductions in thesubsidization of health benefits (Heenan, 1991). Organizational justiceresearchers have long argued that identifying and addressing factorsrelated to workers' fairness perceptions is critical to maintaining effectiveorganizational functioning, particularly when events are adverse (Brock-ner, DeWitt, Grover & Reed,1990; Greenberg, 1990; Sheppard, Lewicki &Minton, 1992).

Although authors have proposed conceptual justice classificationframeworks for over twenty years (Deutsch, 1975; Leventhal, 1980; Thi-baut & Walker, 1975), and have shown that perceptions of distributiveand procedural justice affect a number of dependent variables includingorganizational citizenship (Moorman, 1991), job satisfaction and organiza-tional commitment (Brockner, Grover, Reed, DeWitt & O'Malley, 1987;McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992), what has not been forthcoming is an empiri-cal investigation of the justice principles to which workers refer whenorganizations make and implement decisions with negative consequencesfor employees such as the retrenchment activities addressed in the presentstudy—activities which are likely to continue (Heenan, 1991; Weinstein &Leibman, 1991). The present study uses a qualitative methodology toidentify principles that workers use to evaluate a variety of negativeevents so as to build on our current understanding of justice principles.

ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE THEORY

The large volume of literature on distributive justice (cf. Greenberg,1992; Sheppard, Lewicki & Minton, 1992) has explored three primarythemes: the goals that determine the rules of outcome distribution, theresulting standards by which fairness is judged, and the reactions ofrecipients to the actual division of outcomes. Thibaut and Walker (1975)determined that two perceptions guided judgments of procedural justice:1) process control (participants' control over the presentation of informa-tion and evidence), and 2) decision control (control over the decision itself).Leventhal (1976), based on distributive justice theory, expanded the possi-ble considerations in evaluating the fairness of resource allocation toinclude consistency across time and people, suppression of biases, accu-racy of information used, correctability of the decision, representation ofrelevant parties in the decision-making body, and maintenance of ethicaland moral standards.

Most of the studies on these models (e.g., Greenberg, 1986; Kors-

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SIMERSON, L'HEUREUX, BECKSTEIN, ZIAMIAN, DEMBOWSKI, FRESHMAN

gaard & Goodwin, 1992; Folger & Konovsky, 1989; Kravitz & Stone,1992; Brockner, DeWitt, Grover & Reed, 1990; Brockner, Tyler & Cooper-Schneider, 1992; Leung, Chiu & Au, 1993; Konovsky & Cropanzano, 1991;Bies & Moag, 1986; Sheppard & Lewicki, 1987; Gilliland, 1993) used aclosed-format questionnaire in which principles of fairness were identifieda priori. Few studies have directly asked respondents to describe theprinciples to which they refer when assessing the fairness of proceduresin organizations. Justice researchers (Bies et al., 1988; Greenberg, 1986;Sheppard et al., 1987) have particularly praised content analytic proce-dures by acknowledging their importance in developing a more completedescription of factors determining perceived fairness. To identify a morecomplete set of principles, Sheppard et al. (1987) used a qualitative meth-odology in a study that examined the perceived fairness of managerialactions across a broad range of role domains. Nine fairness principlesemerged that had not been included previously in justice frameworks.Bies and Moag (1986) expanded the procedural/distributive justice dichot-omy by using a critical incident technique.

Thus far, organizational justice theories have been quite useful inviewing negative organizational events such as layoffs. A program ofresearch by Brockner and his colleagues (Brockner, Grover, Reed, De-Witt & O'Malley, 1987; Brockner, Tyler & Cooper-Schneider, 1992) hasinvestigated several correlates of perceived fairness of layoffs as seen bysurvivors. The present study distinguishes itself from previous work inseveral ways: First, we examined the perceived fairness of a variety ofnegative organizational events, not just layoffs; second, we obtained fair-ness perceptions from both victims and survivors of these events; andthird, our respondents included workers from diverse organizations, occu-pations, and job levels. The study was designed to be primarily descriptive,with the purpose of connecting worker experiences with previous concep-tualizations of justice.

INSTRUMENT DEVELOPMENT

An open-ended questionnaire was developed to solicit descriptions ofnegative organizational actions experienced by respondents, the proce-dures used to implement them, and their perceptions of the fairness ofthose actions. The first section required the respondents to identify thenegative event they would discuss. (A checklist was created, based on theresults from a pilot sample of 25, from which later subjects could selectan event; "Other—Describe" was retained as an option.) These events aredisplayed in Table 1. Following this, the respondents indicated whetherthey were personally affected by the event (e.g., for a layoff event, therespondent might have been laid off or might have been assigned expanded

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Table 1Frequencies of Negative Events

Event Type

Terminations or LayoffsPayfreezesElimination/Reduction in BenefitsEarly RetirementExpansion of Job DutiesElimination/Reduction in "Perks"PaycutsMandatory FurloughsOther

N

1013527191814

76

21Total: 248

%

40.714.110.97.77.35.62.82.48.5

100.0

duties to compensate for fewer personnel). If the events and their outcomeswere described in the first person (as opposed to third person), the subjectswere deemed to be speaking as "victims" as opposed to "survivors," andwere so coded. The judges reached 100% interrater agreement on theseassignments. (See Appendix for actual survey items.)

The second section required a description of the event, followed by arationale explaining why the respondents perceived the event as beingfair or unfair. The third section expanded this concept to the respondents'employing organizations to investigate the relevant organizational proce-dure (e.g., identifying who made a decision to institute layoffs, and howthe decision was made) and why it was perceived to be fair or unfair.Follow-up questions addressed the roles, if any, the respondents playedin this procedure, as well as the perceptions of other employees in theorganization.

The final section collected descriptive information including demo-graphic data, union membership status, type of company, type of job, andthe respondents' tenure in the organization and in their positions. Theentire questionnaire required about twenty minutes to complete. Minorrevisions in the wording and ordering of items were based on feedbackprovided from the responses to 25 pilot questionnaires and from interviewsto assess clarity of the questions.

SAMPLE

Questionnaires were distributed during 1992-1993 to graduate andundergraduate students during classes at a nonsectarian private institu-tion whose working students constitute a majority of the student body.To be included in this sample, the respondents must have been working,


or were very recently working, in the organizations they described in thesurveys.

After screening for missing data in Sections 1 through 3, a total of248 questionnaires was retained. Males accounted for 55.3%, and 92.2%,were White. Union members accounted for 9.5%. "Victims" (49%) and"Survivors" (51%) were about equally represented; however, those whoreported having no role in the decision making process (83.9%) and norole in the implementation process (75.1%) surrounding the reported eventwere in the majority. The median tenure in the same position was threeyears (range: 1 month to 22 years) and in the organization was 4.25 years(range: 2 months to 22 years). Although all organizational levels fromexecutive officers to labor were represented in the sample, about two thirdswere from the ranks of supervision, middle management, and professionalstaff.

PROCEDURE FOR DERIVATION OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE (DJ)AND PROCEDURAL JUSTICE (PJ) CATEGORIES

A team of four judges performed a content analysis to establish catego-ries for the responses to Section 2 [perceived fairness of the negativeevents, or distributive justice rationale (DJ)] and Section 3 [the perceivedfairness of the processes used to choose and implement the events, orprocedural justice rationale (PJ)]. Following the basic procedure adoptedby Schneider, Wheeler and Cox (1992), before conducting the analysis,the judges were provided with training through exposure to literaturedescribing content analysis procedures, examples taken from other re-search projects, and practice sessions designed to familiarize them withassigning open-ended responses to categories and defending their deci-sions.

The organizational justice literature was consulted to familiarize thejudges with the conceptual domain and to suggest possible categories.The first 50 questionnaires were used as an initial sample to generate apreliminary set of justice principles; 27 resulted—13 describing outcomefairness, 14 describing process fairness. These questionnaire responseswere first coded by the judges independently, assigning a principle toeach response. Through subsequent group discussion, some principleswere combined, and others were eliminated due to insignificant frequen-cies of assignment or to conceptual confusion.

A reiterative process followed wherein a set of 40 surveys was codedby the judges independently, and then discussed to allow for redefinitionof the principles and assessment of interrater reliability. The entire sam-ple was then receded so that all surveys were evaluated according to thesame set of principles. A "75% Rule" was established as a prerequisite

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for assigning a principle to a response, requiring the consensus of at leastthree of the four judges. When this criterion was not met, discussionamong the judges resolved disagreements and allowed for the develop-ment of decision rules for application to future ambiguities among variousprinciples. When the "75%" criterion could not be met, the responses werenot coded. Across all principles in both the DJ and PJ sections, interrateragreement averaged well above this threshold since the judges easilyarrived at unanimous decisions about most responses. This process re-sulted in thirteen categories (five describing outcome fairness, eight de-scribing process fairness) as presented in Table 2 and Table 3. Althoughthe judges were informed by previous research, the resulting principleswere not restricted to those presented by other authors, but reflect thecontent of the database, even when new principles had to be defined tofully account for the data.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1. What are underlying principles of justice governing negative organi-zational events as our respondents conceived them? As reflected in Tables2 and 3, the number of principles evidenced in our sample's responses isgenerally greater than that derived in previous work. Admittedly, someof our principles were upheld by relatively few respondents and perhapssome further consolidation of principles is possible.

Interestingly, perceived fairness did not always align with the sameend of the dimension, as evidenced by the "External Attribution" distribu-tive justice principle. Specifically, this principle was used to defend thefairness of a layoff (e.g., "it was fair because defense cutbacks severelylimited the company's market") as well as to provide a rationale for per-ceived unfairness (e.g., "the pay freezes were unfair because our perfor-mance was good, and the changes in the market were caused by thingsbeyond our control").

2. What are the interrelationships among principles of justice andamong perceptions of outcome and process fairness? Respondents' ration-ales for distributive and procedural justice were each assigned to thecategory or principle which primarily captured the essence of each expla-nation. Yet other information included in the explanations often allowedassignment of secondary principles and thus permitted the judges todetect a variety of patterns among the principles.

Within the distributive fairness principles, respondents occasionallycited elements of "Rationality" and "External Attribution" together. Forexample, a decision to freeze salaries was sometimes considered rational(it "made good business sense") in instances where the company's markethad weakened (an external attribution for the reasons compelling a pay

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SIMERSON, L'HEUREUX, BECKSTEIN, ZIAMIAN, DEMBOWSKI, FRESHMAN 449

Table 2Resulting Distributive Justice Principles With Fair and Unfair Examples

Principle

Rationality

Equity

"Could beWorse"/"Could beBetter"

ExternalAttri-bution

Anticipated

%

35.3

34.8

20.6

6.7

2.6

Description

The outcome was (un)fair be-cause it was (il)logical — if un-fair, because it "didn't makebusiness sense," or it was ne-cessitated by earlier misman-agement that was also illogi-cal.

The outcome was (un)fair com-pared to that for a meaning-ful comparison other or com-pared to "the system." Thiscategory also included per-ceived fairness resulting frompersonal gain as a result ofthe event.

The outcome was (un)fair sincemore(less) severe outcomeswere possible. The outcomewas (in)humane.

The outcome was (un)fair be-cause it was necessitated byuncontrollable environmen-tal forces, not by anythingthe victim did or the organiza-tion did.

The outcome was (un)fair be-cause it was (un)expected;people were (un)prepared, of-ten because management'spromises were broken and, ifunfair, because it created ahardship.

Examples"

The company was losing moneyand it made sense to freezepay (F).

If the company hadn't madebad business decisions, theywould not have had to layanyone off (U).

The hiring freeze kept hoursavailable to those alreadyworking such as myself (F).

My skills were an asset to thecompany. Others were notmaking a contribution. Whywas I laid off? (U)

At least I still have a job. Pay-ing more for benefits doesn'tseem so terrible compared towhat could have happened(F).

They could have examined vol-untary retirements instead oflaying of people like me (U).

The economy is so poor that thecompany had no choice but toreduce staff (F).

I just did my job well. Its notmy fault the state is in ruins(U).

I knew it was coming so I wasable to save some money (F).

I just bought a house. I can'tpay my mortgage. We weretold there would be no layoffs(U).

aF: example of principle as used to explain fairness of outcome.U: example of principle as used to explain unfairness of outcome.

freeze). Similarly, in explaining procedural fairness, "Objectivity" wasoften further supported with the rationale that the process which manage-ment used to make decisions was applied consistently across employees.The implication seems to be that although rational and objective proce-dures are not always consistent, consistent decision rules auger for an

450 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY

Table 3Resulting Procedural Justice Principles with Fair and Unfair Examples

Principle

Objectivity

Authoritative/Participative

ConsistencyAcross People

Communica-tion Content

Sensitive Im-plementation

Union Demo-cracy

%

33.3

28.9

8.8

8.3

7.8

5.4

Description

The process was (un)fair be-cause it was inherently (in)-efficient, (in)logical, (im)per-sonal, (not)goal-oriented,(un)political, and/or (unin-formed by important infor-mation.

The process was (un)fair be-cause of the (lack of) oppor-tunities for input, consulta-tion, choices, appeal, and/orflexibility in its administra-tion.

The process was (un)fair be-cause of its (in)consistencyin application across com-pany employees or em-ployee classes.

The process was (un)fair be-cause communication was(in)adequate, (in)accurate,(in)complete, and/or (non)de-ceptive.

The process was (un)fair be-cause of the (lack of) estab-lishment of outplacementand other support systems.

The process was (un)fair be-cause it was (not) driven bya formal voting process(n)or by provisions of a la-bor contract.

Examples"

The process of deciding payfreezes was fair because thecompany brought in outsideconsultants to examine allfunctions (F).

The hiring freeze was unfairbecause they didn't base iton accurate information(U).

Everyone was asked to gener-ate ideas on how to best cutcosts (F).

They did not consult the peo-ple that could have pro-vided expertise on the re-structuring (U).

The reduction in force was ap-plied uniformly across peo-ple (F).

The pay freezes only affectedsecond level management(U).

They explained to us why weweren't getting raises thisyear and most people under-stood their dilemma (F).

Management told us that any-one remaining after thefirst restructuring was prob-able "safe" — they were nottruthful (U).

The company provided an ex-cellent severance package(F).

They could have given assis-tance with job hunting andinterviewing skills giventhat we were told to findnew ones (U).

The small pay increase wasfair because each memberof the union had an opportu-nity to vote (F).

There was no formal unionvote, they said it wasn'tpart of our contract (U).


Table 3 (Continued)

Principle

Notice

Communica-tion Process

%

4.4

2.9

Description

The process was (un)fair be-cause (no) forewarning wasgiven before it was imple-mented.

The process was (un)fair be-cause of the (in)appropriate-ness of the choice of whowould inform us, how wewere informed, and/or thatit was (not) trivialized.

Examples*

We were given plenty of ad-vanced notice that the plantwas going to close (F).

Layoffs were unfair becausewe found out when securityescorted us out of the build-ing that morning (U).

They sat down with everyoneindividually to explain thenew benefits program (F).

Our supervisor should havetold us in person that ourdepartment was going to bereorganized, reading it in amemo was insulting (U).

aF: example of principle as used to explain fairness of procedure.U: example of principle as used to explain unfairness of procedure.

objective process. And if the process was seen as irrational, the resultantoutcome was almost always seen as inequitable and unfair.

The most challenging principles to detect and assign reliably con-cerned perceptions of the distributive principle, "Equity," and the proce-dural principle, "Consistency Across People." The equity referent was animportant consideration for the respondents as they explained their viewsof distributive vs. procedural justice. Goodman (1974) distinguished threesuch referents: specific comparison others who are similar to oneself, the"system," and oneself in past similar situations. When the comparisonother was an employee in one's own organization, the implication wasthat the organization had control over the outcomes for all of its employees,so any inequity in the outcomes received must be the result of a bungledprocess. If the outcome was viewed as unfair for reasons of inequity, theprocess was also highly likely to be seen as unfair, ipso facto. When theother two equity referents (the system and past personal experience)were involved, this confusion was not apparent. Among layoff survivors,occasionally the layoff was viewed as fair because the respondents, andothers like them, profited indirectly by being promoted or assigned moreresponsibility within the new streamlined structure. The feelings of "over-payment inequity" seem to be resolved through perceptually distortingthe value of the outcomes for both the victims and the survivors.

Previous work has shown fair procedures tend to give rise to percep-tions of fair outcomes, that is, procedural and distributive justice are


related (Greenberg, 1986). However, others have maintained that the twoperceptions are independent (Thibaut & Walker, 1975). The results ofour study clearly support the former position as the relationship betweenperceived fair outcomes and fair processes was highly significant (x2

1 -96.96,p < .00001). This finding held across event type, principle type, andvictim/survivor status.

3. Which previous conceptualizations of organizational justice do ourdata best support? The substance of the justice principles derived fromour sample's responses provides conceptual support, directly or indirectly,for a variety of justice taxonomies presented by earlier researchers. Ingeneral, however, the substance of the principles reflected in the presentdata are most similar to those derived theoretically by Levanthal (1976;1980).

Significant numbers of respondents in our sample reported their per-ceptions about layoffs, either from a victim's or survivor's point of view.Brockner, DeWitt, Grover and Reed (1990) presented five characteristicsof procedures governing layoffs: a) avoidability, b) clarity of decision rules,c) fairness in the choice of whom to lay off, d) caretaking for the victimsfollowing the layoff and e) unusualness. The first four of these five charac-teristics are reflected in the rationales presented by those in our samplewho discussed layoffs ("Rationality," "Objectivity," "Consistency AcrossPeople," and "Sensitive Implementation," respectively). Many of theseaccounts, as well as those regarding other events, showed a concern bythe survivors for how they might be treated by the organization in thefuture.

Bies, Shapiro and Cummings (1988) and Tyler and Bies (1990) distin-guish "interpersonal justice" from the more formal aspects of procedure.The two primary features of interpersonal justice identified by Tyler andBies (interpersonal treatment and proper conduct of decision makers dur-ing enactment of decisions) are incorporated in the principles "Communi-cation Content," "Notice," and "Sensitive Implementation." The principle"Communication Process," which has not been addressed in previous workin procedural justice, here incorporates the issues of lack of respect foremployees or for proper protocol, as well as the tendency of managers totrivialize the events. This principle differs from "Communication Con-tent," in that it addresses how information concerning the decision wascommunicated, as opposed to what was communicated.

A majority of the interpersonal justice rationales was included withthe PJ principles "Notice," and "Sensitive Implementation," which whentaken together with "Communication Process," and "Communication Con-tent", would define Greenberg's informational class of justice. The remain-ing two classes of justice in Greenberg's fourfold model, "systemic" and"configural," are clearly supported by our data.

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Perhaps our most surprising finding concerned the emergence of dis-tributive justice principles not encompassed within previous organiza-tional justice frameworks. Many of our respondents applied two principles,"Could Be Better/Could be Worse" and "Rationality" (20% and 35%, respec-tively) when describing why the event was fair or unfair. Moreover, "Exter-nal Attribution" and "Anticipated," although only mentioned by a minorityof our respondents, have not been noted previously in the justice literature.

4, Are the principles more or less relevant depending on the type oforganizational event? The type of negative organizational event is notassociated with whether there are perceptions of outcome or process fair-ness, but rather with the reasons why respondents perceive it as fair orunfair. Layoffs were most often seen as fair or unfair because of therationality of that strategic response by management (perhaps surpris-ingly, layoffs were usually seen as rational and fair). Other events weremost associated with equity-based explanations of outcome fairness (usu-ally inequitable and unfair) (x2

3 = 8.55, p < .05). Comparing layoffs to otherevents in terms of the PJ principles cited, the fairness of proceduresleading to layoffs was most often explained in terms of their "Rationality,"and the principle of "Notice," was more likely to be used. For the otherevents, the principle "Authoritative/Participative" was most often used,and the principles "Union Democracy" and "Communication Content"were more likely to be applied (x2

7 = 30.91, p < .0001).5. Are perceptions of fairness different depending on employee charac-

teristics, employee involvement in decision or enactment processes, andvictim I survivor status? The clearest relationship involving employeecharacteristics concerned the respondents' level in their organizations,presumably correlated with the likelihood that they shared responsibilityfor initiating the events they described and also for controlling the proce-dures. The original eight job level categories presented as options on thesurvey (clerical, labor, technical/craft/skilled labor, supervision, profes-sional staff, middle management, senior management/executive, official/officer) were collapsed into "low," "middle," and "high." A clear lineartrend was observable such that lower level employees were likely to seethe outcomes as unfair, whereas upper level employees were inclined tosee them as fair (x2

2 = 6.92, p < .05). The identical pattern emerged forperceptions of procedural fairness (x2

2 = 6.63, p < .05). But curiously, thispattern was traceable only to the victims, whereas no such relationshipwas found for survivors. Two dynamics could explain this peculiar moder-ated relationship: first, lower level employees, compared to upper levelmanagers, are far more inclined to feel unfairly treated when they arevictims—either owing to a stronger self-serving bias or to lack of informa-tion and perspective. Second, upper level managers, contrasted with lowerlevel employees, are more likely to agree that outcomes and processes

453


were unfair if they were not victimized—this sort of explanatory stylecould help soothe employees' feelings and bolster morale by empathizingwith the plight of others.

One important caveat must be introduced regarding the interpreta-tion of the effects of decision-making roles in initiating and implementingchange and/or communicating these issues. The procedural justice litera-ture to date has been ambiguous about which decision was relevant:our respondents who described a layoff event variously discussed a) thedecision to lay off employees, b) the decisions about whom to lay off,and c) the decisions about how to enact the layoff decision. Distributiveinjustice early in the sequence can poison employees' perceptions of proce-dural justice regarding later decisions. Further, apparently fair proce-dures at the end of this sequence cannot fully compensate for a lack ofintegrity earlier in the sequence. Additionally, the basic criteria of "processcontrol" and "information control" (Thibaut & Walker, 1975) are likelyapplied differently to these decisions. For example, only some respondentswere offended that they were not consulted about the decision to beginlayoffs, but many were offended that they were excluded from decisionsabout whom to lay off, and most common were objections about the pro-cesses for enacting that decision. This seems to corroborate Bies's (Bies &Moag, 1986; Tyler & Bies, 1990) description of the interpersonal or socialaspects of procedural justice which focus on the enactment rather thanthe actual development of procedures.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

In summary, the present study provides interesting and substantialfindings that contribute to the current literature on procedural and dis-tributive justice within the context of negative organizational events. Wefound that the same justice principles were applicable across a variety ofnegative organizational events, and perceptions of unfairness were notassociated with only "severe" outcomes such as layoffs. Indeed, our respon-dents expressed strong feelings regarding many seemingly innocuousevents such as furloughs and cuts in perquisites and programs (e.g., elimi-nation of professional development budgets). This may be due to thefairness, or lack thereof, of the process used to decide and/or implementthe negative outcome. Organizational decision makers need to be awarethat workers are very concerned about how events are decided, communi-cated, and enacted, regardless of event type.

Greenberg (1990) called for more descriptive and exploratory researchon justice principles to 1) legitimize and elaborate on previous modelsand 2) bring forth new principles with the potential to account for variancein organizational behavior. We believe that we did this; the results of the

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present study provided empirical support for previous justice conceptual-izations and also generated new principles not found in previous research,particularly in the distributive justice area. We expanded equity-baseddescriptions of distributive justice to include new principles that werefrequently invoked by our respondents: External Attribution, Rationality,Could be Worse/ Could be Better. It is unclear to us why these principleshave not emerged previously. It is possible that they are context specific,that is, they apply only to retrenchment actions in organizations; however,we see no reason why the principles presented here would not generalizeto nonretrenchment events such as discipline or other personnel actions.Clearly, the generalizability of these principles needs to be studied in thecontext of positive or neutral events as well.

This raises a related issue: in order for researchers to truly grasp theimportance of various principles of distributive and procedural justice,we must first untangle the sequence of fairness attributions regardingprocedures and distributions. An employee interpreting a negative actionmay first evaluate the fairness of the procedures used to decide on theevent, and then evaluate the fairness of the outcome experienced. Lackingadequate information about the procedure, would the employee make ajudgment about it ex post facto, based on the fairness of the outcome?Would the employee's judgments about communication from managersserve as surrogate indicants of procedural fairness or even directly deter-mine their judgments about distributive justice?

The next logical step then, is to construct a model of the attributionprocess involved in this sequence of fairness judgments. The usefulnessof such a model is that it would suggest the relative importance of, andinteractions among, various principles underlying perceived justice. Fu-ture research could then explore when and under what circumstanceseach justice principle is more salient to employees and most critical fororganizations to observe.

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APPENDIX

The survey questions read as follow:

1. A. Please identify one negative event that occurred in your organi-zation and that resulted from the current recessionary climate:(Check one) layoffs; paycuts; payfreezes; early retirements; elimi-nation/reduction of benefits; elimination/reduction of "perks"; jobexpansions or reassignments; furloughs or leaves of absence; other(describe).B. Were you personally affected by this outcome? How?

2. A. Was this outcome fair or unfair?B. Why was this an example of a fair or unfair outcome? That is,what is it about the outcome that makes it seem fair or unfair?C. Were you surprised to learn about this outcome? Why or whynot?

3. Describe the circumstances or background leading up to this out-come.

4. A. Describe the process used to decide the policy that led up tothis outcome (who decided, how, etc.).B. What was your role in deciding on this policy?C. Was this process fair or unfair?D. Why is this an example of a fair or unfair process? That is, whatis it about the process that makes it seem fair or unfair?

5. A. How was the policy communicated and implemented?B. What was your role in communicating/implementing the policy?C. Was this communication/implementation handled appropri-ately in your opinion?D. Why or why not?

6. A. What were other employees' reactions to this outcome?B. Why?C. In your opinion, was this outcome fair for the other employees?D. Why or why not?

Comments: In evaluating the fairness of either the outcome or theprocedure used to decide or implement the outcome, is there anythingelse that was important to you that didn't get addressed above?


What Principles Are Used to Judge the Fairness of Retrenchment Actions

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