Emerging Perspectives on Values in Organizations (Research in Social Issues in Management.) by

Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781607527732
Publisher: IAP - Information Age Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-12T16:00:00+00:00

Interplay between Social and Personal Justice Norms

The normative model suggests an interesting process that has not been explored before. That is, social and personal justice norms may act in concordance or in opposition. To simplify the discussion, we assume that one’s normative position on a given behavior can be trichotomized. That is, the enactment of the behavior is regarded as either normatively fair, neutral, or normatively unfair. Because there are two normative perspectives, social and personal, a 3 × 3 matrix can be obtained (see Figure 4.1 for a schematic representation). In essence, this matrix depicts the two forces that are in operation: social and personal justice principles. We will analysis this 3 × 3 matrix from the actor as well as the recipient perspectives.

Actor perspective. The nine cells can be grouped into three categories. In the first category (dominance or indifference), if one type of justice norm is nonexistent or neutral (Cells 2, 4, 6, and 8), a situation which we label as dominance, it is obvious that the other type will be dominant. In other words, one’s judgments and behaviors will be driven by the dominant justice norm. If both types of justice norms are nonexistent (Cell 5), a situation which we label as indifference, the behavior will be influenced by non-justice factors, such as self-interest.

In the second category (concordance), if both social and personal norms are in the same direction (Cells 1 and 9), they will reinforce each other and exert a strong effect on judgments and behaviors. The third category (discordance) is interesting, because one type of justice norm is in conflict with the other type (Cells 3 and 7). The relative strength of the two types of justice norms will determine the judgmental and behavioral outcome. The moderators that we have identified before should affect the relative importance of these two types of justice norms. For instance, in anonymous situations, personal justice norms should override social justice norms, because the effects of social norms are weakened in anonymous situations. The opposite is expected in identifiable situations coupled with severe penalty for social deviance. Social norms become important if one’s behavior is public, and their effects will be heightened if deviation from these norms is associated with heavy penalty and severe social consequences. With regard to self-monitoring, a high level of self-monitoring is likely to accentuate the effects of social justice norms, because people high in self-monitoring are more sensitive to social pressure. In a similar vein, factors that accentuate the salience of personal justice norms will lead to their dominance. For instance, it is shown that in high objective self awareness situations, in which people are led to focus on themselves, such as by placing a mirror in front of them, people are more conscious of the use of internal standards for self-evaluation (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). In these situations, personal justice norms should exert a stronger effect on judgments and behaviors.

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