Assessing Procedural Justice
Because most OB research is situated within organizational contexts, it is not surprising that the implications of the organization as social context are primary to OB studies of procedural justice assessments. Inasmuch as organizational structure shapes patterns of interaction and relative participation in decision making, it has clear implications for procedural justice assessments. Actors in highly centralized, vertically complex organizations, where individuals participate less in decision making and face more levels of hierarchy, generally feel a lower sense of distributive and procedural fairness. Similarly, actors within larger and more formalized organizations-those marked by lower levels of social integration and fewer relationships based on intimate personal contact, and where decision making may be more political-also feel less distributive and procedural fairness. These effects are not felt across all levels of an organization. However, because more control and higher returns accrue to those in higher echelons, higher-ranking actors feel a greater sense of justice than do those in the lower ranks. Like-wise, those at higher levels are more forgiving of structural impediments to fairness, so that rank moderates the effects of structure on assessments of justice.