Beyond the particular and universal:dependence, independence, and interdependence of context, justice, and ethics

This article reflects on context effects in the study of behavioral ethics and organizational justice. After a general overview, we review three key challenges confronting research in these two domains. First, we consider social scientific versus normative approaches to inquiry. The former aims for a scientific description, while the latter aims to provide prescriptive advice for moral conduct. We argue that the social scientific view can be enriched by considering normative paradigms. The next challenge we consider, involves the duality of morally upright versus morally inappropriate behavior. We observe that there is a long tradition of categorizing behavior dichotomously (e.g., good vs. bad) rather than continuously. We conclude by observing that more research is needed to compare the dichotomous versus continuous perspectives. Third, we examine the role of “cold” cognitions and “hot” affect in making judgments of ethicality. Historically speaking, research has empathized cognition, though recent work has begun to add greater balance to affective reactions. We argue that both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together. After considering these three challenges, we then turn to our special issue, providing short reviews of each contribution and how they help in better addressing the three challenges we have identified

When do leaders grant voice? How leaders' perceptions of followers' control and belongingness needs affect the enactment of fair procedures

Theories that explain employees' positive emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to fair procedures rely on control and relational processes. In the present study, we build on these models, but reverse this perspective to examine when leaders provide voice opportunities in their interactions with employees. We argued that leaders may take care of employees' perceived individual control needs (which influence their own outcomes) by granting them voice. However, this will be the case particularly when leaders perceive that this employee also wants to belong to the organization, because this makes it more likely that employees will use their voice in a way that does not hurt the organization's interest. Support for this predicted interaction effect was found in a laboratory experiment and a multisource field study. This research is among the first to identify factors that influence whether leaders will be more likely to act fairly, thus integrating procedural justice processes in the leadership literature