Measurement of Distributive and Procedural Justice in Sales Management: Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

Managers play an important role in the success of salespeople, and the perceptions of managerial justice are essential to maintaining highly motivated, satisfied and committed salespeople. Salespeople are in situations where their sales managers have the authority to handout rewards through changes in sales objectives and sales territories or in the managerial assessments of performance. With such discretion, managers need to be sure that rewards are distributed equitably and that processes are fairly administered. The consequence of perceived injustices can adversely influence satisfaction, commitment, and performance in the salesforce (Podaskoff and MacKenzie 1994). An extensive body of research exists assessing the relationship between perceptions of justice mechanisms and job related outcomes (see Tyler 1994; Martin 1981). However, despite the plethora of research in other areas and a variety of measures of the justice constructs, there has been no consistency among the studies with regard to the rigor of evaluating dimensionality, validity and psychometric properties of the measures.