Beyond Formal Procedures: The Interpersonal Context of Procedural Justice

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the Thibaut and Walker paradigm and explains why it has excluded the interpersonal context of formal decision-making procedures. It reviews the empirical research on the interpersonal context of formal decision-making procedures and identifies factors that influence employee's judgments of procedural justice. The chapter proposes a broader concept of procedural justice and explore its implications for theory, research, and application to business settings. In particular, people's judgments of procedural fairness are influenced by the quality of interpersonal treatment they receive from decision makers enacted the formal procedure properly. The broader view of procedural justice suggests four major implications for theory, research, and application, such as decision-maker conduct, or the "missing link" in procedural justice, the attribution and social construction of procedural justice, the "human" side of procedural justice, and conduct, community, and procedural justice.