ABSTRACT
One of the cardinal principles of organizational justice theory and research is that people react more positively when they are treated with greater fairness (e.g., Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005). For example, employees who perceive more fairness generally have been found to support organizational decisions, trust their supervisors, and feel committed to organizations (Brockner et al., 1994; Masterson, Lewis, Goldman, & Taylor, 2000; Tyler & Smith, 1997; Van den Bos, Wilke, & Lind, 1998) relative to their counterparts who perceive less fairness. Even negative work-related outcomes, such as layoff decisions, have generally been found to be more acceptable when recipients of these outcomes (e.g., layoff victims or survivors who witness colleagues being laid off) perceive them to be accompanied by a fairer process (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996; Chen, Choi, & Chi, 2002).
