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Employer Treatment of Employees During a Community Crisis: The Role of Procedural and Distributive Justice

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Abstract

This study applies organizational justice principles to human resource decisions made during a crisis situation. Three-hundred and sixty-six working individuals of ice storm affected households responded to a telephone survey that included measures of interactional, procedural and distributive justice, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Confirmatory Factor Analysis suggested collapsing the interactional and procedural justice measures into one measure of procedural treatment. Overall, there was considerable support for the relevance of procedural justice and its interaction with distributive justice in predicting the work attitudes of employee following a disaster. Multiple regression analyses revealed that perceptions of procedural justice most strongly predicted job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Consistent with existing theory, an interaction between distributive and procedural was found to predict job satisfaction. The predicted interaction was not detected for organizational commitment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Williams School of Business and Economics, Bishop’s University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada

    Steve Harvey

  2. School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal, Canada

    Victor Y. Haines III

Authors
  1. Steve Harvey
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  2. Victor Y. Haines III
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Additional information

We would like to acknowledge the capable research assistance of Paula Warnholtz and the financial assistance from the Senate Research Committee at Bishop’s University.

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Harvey, S., Haines III, V.Y. Employer Treatment of Employees During a Community Crisis: The Role of Procedural and Distributive Justice. J Bus Psychol 20, 53–68 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-005-6983-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-005-6983-z

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