This study investigates the relation between two distributive justice rules (equity and equality) and team effectiveness, and the relation between procedural justice (PJ) and team effectiveness. The extent to which cooperation mediates these relations is examined. Results from 132 teams working on an interdependent task indicate that teams operating under equality rules were more cooperative, which led to fewer errors and better quality. Results also indicate that teams exposed to higher PJ were more cooperative. The increased cooperation in teams exposed to higher PJ led to better quality and higher ratings of team viability; these effects occurred regardless of whether an equity rule or an equality rule was used to allocate rewards. Areas for future research and implications for team rewards are discussed.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 267-299). New York: Academic Press.
2.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency. American Psychologist, 37, 122-147.
3.
Bies, R. J., & Moag, J. S. (1986). Interactional justice: Communication criteria of fairness. In R. J. Lewicki, B. H. Sheppard, & M. Bazerman (Eds.), Research on negotiation in organizations (Vol. 1, pp. 43-55). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
4.
Campion, M. A., Papper, E. M., & Medsker, G. J. (1996). Relations between work team characteristics and effectiveness: A replication and extension. Personnel Psychology, 49, 429-452.
5.
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 386-400.
6.
Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 425-445.
7.
Cotton, M. S., & Cook, J. L. (1982). Meta analyses and the effects of various reward systems: Some different conclusions from Johnson et al. Psychological Bulletin, 92, 176-183.
8.
Cropanzano, R., & Greenberg, J. (1997). Progress in organizational justice: Tunneling through the maze. In C. Cooper & I. Robertson (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 317-372). New York: John Wiley.
9.
Cropanzano, R., & Schminke, M. (2001). Using social justice to build effective work groups. In M. Turner (Ed.), Groups at work: Advances in theory and research (pp. 143-171). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
10.
DeMatteo, J. S., Eby, L. T., & Sundstrom, E. (1998). Team-based rewards: Current empirical evidence and directions for future research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 141-183.
11.
Deming, W. E. (1986). Out of crisis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
12.
Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which value will be used as the basis of distributive justice? Journal of Social Issues, 31, 137-150.
13.
Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive justice: A social psychological perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
14.
Folger, R., Robinson, S. L., Dietz, J., McLean-Parks, J., & Baron, R. A. (1998, August). When colleagues become violent: Employee threats and assaults as a function of societal violence and organizational injustice. Paper presented at the meeting of the Academy of Management, Cincinnati, OH.
15.
George, J. M. (1990). Personality, affect and behavior in groups. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 107-116.
16.
Gladstein, D. (1984). Groups in context: A model of task group effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 499-517.
17.
Greenberg, J. (1986). Determinants of perceived fairness of performance evaluations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 340-342.
18.
Greenberg, J. (1990). Organizational justice: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Journal of Management, 16, 399-432.
19.
Greenberg, J. (1993). The social side of fairness: Interpersonal and informational classes of organizational justice. In R. Cropanzano (Ed.), Justice in the workplace: Approaching fairness in human resource management (pp. 79-103). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
20.
Greenberg, J., & Scott, K. S. (1996). Why do employees bite the hands that feed them? Employee theft as a social exchange process. In B. M. Shaw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 111-156). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
21.
Hackman, J. R. (1987). The design of work teams. In J. W. Lorsch (Ed.), Handbook of organizational behavior (pp. 315-342). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
22.
Hoegl, M., & Gemuenden, H. G. (2001). Teamwork quality and the success of innovative projects: A theoretical concept and empirical evidence. Organization Science, 12, 435-449.
23.
Homans, G. C. (1974). Social behavior: Its elementary forms (2nd ed.). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
24.
James, L. R. (1982). Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 219-299.
25.
James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and without response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85-98.
26.
James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., & Wolf, G. (1993). r[wg]: An assessment of within-group interrater agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 306-309.
27.
Karau, S. J., & Williams, K. D. (1993). Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 681-706.
28.
Kerr, N. L. (1983). Motivation losses in small groups: A social dilemma analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 819-828.
29.
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. A. (1993). Procedural justice, attitudes, and subsidiary top management compliance with multinationals’ corporate strategic decisions. Academy of Management Journal, 36, 502-526.
30.
Konovsky, M. A. (2000). Understanding procedural justice and its impact on business organizations. Journal of Management, 26, 489-511.
31.
Leventhal, G. S. (1976). The distribution of rewards and resources in groups and organizations. In L. Berkowitz & E. Walster (Eds.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 91-131). New York: Academic Press.
32.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 167-218). New York: Springer-Verlag.
33.
Lind, E. A. (1995). Justice and authority in organizations. In R. Cropanzano & K. M. Kacmar (Eds.), Politics, justice, and support: Managing the social climate of work organizations (pp. 83-96). Westport, CT: Quorum.
34.
Lind, E. A., Kulik, C. T., Ambrose, M., & de Vera Park, M. (1993). Individual and corporate dispute resolution. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38, 224-251.
35.
Miller, L. K., & Hamblin, R. L. (1963). Interdependence, differential rewarding, and productivity. American Sociological Review, 27, 768-778.
36.
Mitchell, T. R., & Silver, W. S. (1990). Individual and group goals when workers are interdependent: Effects on task strategies and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75, 185-193.
37.
Moorman, R. H. (1991). The relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 845-855.
38.
Moorman, R. H., Neihoff, B. P., & Organ, D. W. (1993). Treating employees fairly and organizational citizenship behavior. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 6, 209-225.
39.
Naumann, S. E., & Bennett, N. (2000). A case for procedural justice climate: Development and test of a multilevel model. Academy of Management Journal, 43, 881-889.
40.
Renn, R. W. (1998). Participation’s effect on task performance: mediating roles of goal acceptance and procedural justice. Journal of Business Research, 41, 115-125.
41.
Rosenbaum, M. E., Moore, D. L., Cotton, J. L., Cook, M. S., Hiester, R. A., Shovar, M. N., et al. (1980). Group productivity and process: Pure and mixed reward structures and task interdependence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 626-642.
42.
Sapienza, H. J., & Korsgaard, M. A. (1996). Procedural justice in entrepreneur-investor relations. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 544-574.
43.
Seers, A., Petty, M. M., & Cashman, J. F. (1995). Team-member exchange under team and traditional management: A naturally occurring quasi-experiment. Group & Organization Management, 20, 18-38.
44.
Shea, G. P., & Guzzo, R. A. (1987a). Group effectiveness: What really maters? Sloan Management Review, 3, 672-678.
45.
Shea, G. P., & Guzzo, R. A. (1987b). Groups as human resources. In K. M. Rowland & G. R. Ferris (Eds.), Research in personnel and human resources management (Vol. 5, pp. 323-356). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
46.
Sitkin, S. B., & Bies, R. J. (1993). Social accounts in conflict situations: Using explanations to manage conflict. Human Relations, 46, 349-370.
47.
Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
48.
Tjosvold, D. (1986). The dynamics of interdependence in organizations. Human Relations, 39, 517-540.
49.
Tyler, T. R. (1990). Why people obey the law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
50.
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2000). Cooperation in groups: Procedural justice, social identity and behavioral engagement. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
51.
Tyler, T. R., & Dawes, R. (1993). Justice in organized groups: Comparing the self-interest and social identity perspectives. In B. Mellers (Ed.), Distributive justice (pp. 87-108). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
52.
Wageman, R. (1995). Interdependence and group effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 145-180.
53.
Wageman, R., & Baker, G. (1997). Incentives and cooperation: The joint effects of task and reward interdependence on group performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 18, 139-158.
54.
Watson, W., Michaelson, L. K., & Sharp, W. (1991). Member competence, group interaction, and group decision making: A longitudinal study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 803-809.
