Willing and able: action-state orientation and the relation between procedural justice and employee cooperation

Existing justice theory explains why fair procedures motivate employees to adopt cooperative goals, but it fails to explain how employees strive towards these goals. We study self-regulatory abilities that underlie goal striving; abilities that should thus affect employees’ display of cooperative behavior in response to procedural justice. Building on action control theory, we argue that employees who display effective self-regulatory strategies (action oriented employees) display relatively strong cooperative behavioral responses to fair procedures. A multisource field study and a laboratory experiment support this prediction. A subsequent experiment addresses the process underlying this effect by explicitly showing that action orientation facilitates attainment of the cooperative goals that people adopt in response to fair procedures, thus facilitating the display of actual cooperative behavior. This goal striving approach better integrates research on the relationship between procedural justice and employee cooperation in the self-regulation and the work motivation literature. It also offers organizations a new perspective on making procedural justice effective in stimulating employee cooperation by suggesting factors that help employees reach their adopted goals

Retaliation as a response to procedural unfairness: a self-regulatory approach

When does procedural unfairness result in retaliation, and why do recipients of unfair treatment sometimes pursue and other times inhibit retaliation? Five studies addressed these questions. The authors proposed and found that regulatory focus moderates retaliation against an unfairness-enacting authority: Promotion-focus participants were more likely to retaliate than prevention-focus participants. Promotion focus was associated with, and also heightened the accessibility of, the individual self. In turn, individual-self accessibility influenced retaliation. In fact, prevention-focus participants were as retaliatory as promotion-focus participants under conditions of high individual-self accessibility. Implications for the procedural fairness and regulatory focus literatures are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered

Measuring and explaining informal economic activities A quasi-experimental approach

nrpages: 8status: publishe

The Influence of the Selection Context on Negative and Positive Discrimination

Research on how the social context of selection can influence the decision-making process and can provoke (negative and positive) discrimination is very limited. Based on two behavioral science frameworks (i.e., moral self-regulation and psychological distance), we suggest that a previous, unrelated selection decision and whether or not the decision was made for the own team, would influence the current selection decision. In particular, it was examined whether recruiters expressed a stronger preference for a white (vs. an equally qualified Arab candidate) if the decision was taken after an Arab (vs. white) candidate was recruited in a previous task and if the decision had to be taken for the own team (vs. another team in the organization). Finally, it was examined whether both factors strengthened each other. The results of an experiment showed that recruiters had a stronger preference for the white (Arab) candidate if they had already recruited an Arab (white) candidate in a previous task and if the decision had to be taken for the own (other) team. The assumed interaction effect was not significant.status: accepte

Organizational Policies: A license to discriminate in selection procedures?

status: accepte

Moral Policies: A license to discriminate in selection procedures?

Although companies implement moral policies to prevent discrimination of minorities in selection procedures, evidence shows its persistence. Drawing on insights from the concept of moral licensing we predict that the presence (versus absence) of a moral policy may increase the expression of prejudices and concrete discriminatory hiring decisions. Moreover, we suggest that this effect is more likely to occur when the context allows for a rationalization of discrimination and as such renders the behavior ambiguous, (e.g., in the presence of information about a hostile work environment versus no information). In an experimental study with 115 participants we show that a moral policy licensed the expression of prejudice when this behavior is ambiguous. Participants in general expressed greater prejudices when their behavior was ambiguous.. No effects on the concrete decision for a white or equally qualified black candidate were observed.status: publishe