Absence of procedural justice leads to retaliation behaviour.

• Author: Ali, Sania Zaheer
• Position: Report

1. INTRODUCTION

   Procedural justice is a type of justice. It refers to the idea of fairness in the processes that resolve disputes and allocate resources. It is in fact people perception that the procedure by which rewards or punishments are given out is fair and equitable and they can see beyond short term decision outcomes and under certain circumstances, willing to make sacrifices. Even if distributive justice practiced at organization is not favorable, employees can accept unfavorable outcomes if they are based on a process that is fair. Perception of fairness in organization leads to desirable outcomes such as Job satisfaction enhanced job commitment, intentions to remain with the organization, greater trust and willingness to go beyond the call of duty.

   Whereas on the contrary, breaches of procedural justice in the organization, leads to the arousal of retaliation among the employees. Withdrawal of organizational citizenship behavior occurs; they want to retaliate their organization and its representatives. They want to deceit there organization in every possible manner, whether it is through stealing, lying, cheating, less dedication or through destroying overall organizational image or reputation.

   In this research I had tried to identify clearly the negative relationship between procedural justice and retaliation behavior with respect to Pakistani context and tried to find out that how presence of procedural justice ensures smooth flow of activities, enhanced organizational commitment, job satisfaction, greater trust and willingness to go beyond the call of duty and on the other hand absence of procedural justice can create feelings of retaliation among employees, negatively affecting the OCB.

   The scheme of this paper is divided into several sections, starting from introduction, followed by rationale of study, literature review, and theoretical framework, and methodology, results along with statistical analysis explained with the help of tables, discussion, limitations and finally some avenues for future research.

2. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

   The importance of this study is that the relationship between procedural justice and retaliation behavior has not been studied before in the scenario of Pakistan. Bearing in mind the fact that this relationship has not been studied in Pakistan, a cross sectional study was conducted to identify whether the absence of procedural justice leads to retaliation behavior among employees, in the corporate sector of Pakistan.

3. LITERATURE REVIEW

   Various studies had been conducted to study procedural justice and its effects in various manners. According to a study conducted by (Sapienza, Korsgaard & Jeff Hoogendam, 2000) justice theory studies the decision-making process in exchange relation-ships in which one party has decision making authority over issues that concern the other party (Lind & Tyler, 1988). This theory deals with situations analogous to an agent-principal relationship in which the principal delegates decision-making authority to the agent. In contrast to agency theory, which focuses on how the relationship is structured to ensure proper decision making, justice theory examines the decision-making process and its impact on the exchange relationship. Several characteristics of the formal procedures and aspects of the conduct of the decision maker are known to contribute to perceptions of procedural justice. One of the most critical procedural factors is voice, the opportunity to provide input into the decision or control the information used to make the decision. In addition, various aspects of the decision maker's information sharing are important, including showing consideration of others' input, giving timely feedback on the results of the decision, and providing adequate justification for the decision (Tyler & Bies, 1990; Korsgaard, Schweiger, & Sapienza, 1995; Sapienza & Korsgaard, 1996).

   Research and theory suggest that procedural justice is valued by individuals for two main reasons (Lind & Tyler, 1988). First, procedural justice provides assurance that an individual's self-interest is protected over the long run. Fair procedures and treatment serve as an important sign of the decision maker's benevolence, honesty and neutrality (Lind, 1997). Research suggests that when a particular decision is not in an individual's best self-interest, just procedures ensure the individual that, over time, he or she will receive what is due from the exchange relationship. Second, procedural justice is thought to be important to individuals because it affirms their status and value to the relationship, group or organization. This view is based on the assumption that people come to value and derive their identity from memberships in groups. Being treated with fairness, dignity, and respect are important to maintain status in the group.

   Procedural justice judgments are considered "pivotal cognitions" in that such judgments have a strong impact on attitudes and behaviors pertaining to the exchange relationship (Lind, 1997). Specifically, procedural justice promotes acceptance of and commitment to decisions (Korsgaard, et al., 1995). Further, people who are treated fairly are more likely to cooperate and comply with others (Giacalone & Greenberg, 1997; Kim & Mauborgne, 1991; Konovosky & Pugh, 1994) and are less apt to engage in antisocial or counter productive behavior, including theft and litigation. Even when fair procedures are used to derive unfavorable outcomes, individuals are less able to make external attributions and instead can focus on their own responsibility e.g., "Since the procedure was fair, perhaps the unfavorable outcome was my fault. (Barclay, Skarlicki &Pugh, 2005)

   According to justice literature fair treatment leads to positive, whereas as unfair treatment leads to negative attitudes and outcomes for its members (Colquitt, Conlon, Porter & Ng, 2001). Therefore, those who perceive procedures to be unfair, they get engaged into a feeling of retaliation. (Constant D. Beugre '2005) developed a cognitive stage model of workplace aggression, which contends that aggressive reactions to perceived injustice are cognitively construed following three cognitive steps that include the assessment stage, the accountability stage, and the decision stage. These three cognitive stages are essential in understanding victim's retaliatory actions against perpetrators of injustices. It construes injustice, related aggression as the result of an elaborated cognitive process. It contends that injustice occurs as a result of a discrepancy between expected fairness and the actual event. Thus, employees get frustrated and do something that creates tribulations in the organization. For example at a machine, which used to cut the hides and skin off the pineapple, employees usually worked a straight ten-hour shift, so a lot of people would just burn out. To combat that, people would try to get more breaks, as they were only allowed two breaks per shift. To do this, they used to send a pineapple down the wrong direction, or send a glove down, and it would break the whole machine. The whole production line used to shuts down, and it used to take at least three hours to fix, so they were getting paid for three hours at least for just sitting around. (Sprouse, 1992) and they considered their act as morally acceptable. Studies show that there is clear and consistent empirical evidence that revenge has its own moral imperative (Bies & Tripp, 1996; Parks, 1997). Revenge is, in many cases, is a response to a perceived injustice (Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). Second, revenge is most often intended to restore justice. For instance, while engaging in revenge, people reported their strong belief that they were "doing the right thing" and that they were "doing justice." (Tripp & Bies, 1997). Moreover while the act of revenge may have served self-interest, it often serves other interests, and it is usually justified in moral terms (Bies & Tripp, 1998). The justice rationality can be a powerful motivation and justification for revenge.

   Research has also found a very surprising fact...