Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management 9781785600166, 9781785600173

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RESEARCH IN PERSONNEL AND HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

RESEARCH IN PERSONNEL AND HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT Series Editors: M. Ronald Buckley, Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben, and Anthony R. Wheeler Recent Volumes: Volumes 1
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RESEARCH IN PERSONNEL AND HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT VOLUME 33

RESEARCH IN PERSONNEL AND HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT EDITED BY

M. RONALD BUCKLEY University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

ANTHONY R. WHEELER University of Rhode Island, Kingston, RI, USA

JONATHON R. B. HALBESLEBEN The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

United Kingdom
North America
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China

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2015 Copyright r 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permissions service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78560-017-3 ISSN: 0742-7301 (Series)

ISOQAR certified Management System, awarded to Emerald for adherence to Environmental standard ISO 14001:2004. Certificate Number 1985 ISO 14001

CONTENTS LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE: EXAMINING EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MANAGERIAL LEADERS Bennett J. Tepper and Lauren S. Simon ON THE TURNING AWAY: AN EXPLORATION OF THE EMPLOYEE RESIGNATION PROCESS Anthony C. Klotz and Ryan D. Zimmerman MANAGING WORKPLACE ETHICS: AN EXTENDED CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ETHICAL SENSEMAKING AND THE FACILITATIVE ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES Alexandra E. MacDougall, Zhanna Bagdasarov, James F. Johnson and Michael D. Mumford DIVERSITY CLIMATE IN ORGANIZATIONS: CURRENT WISDOM AND DOMAINS OF UNCERTAINTY Patrick F. McKay and Derek R. Avery SAFETY AT WORK: INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS IN WORKPLACE ACCIDENTS AND MISTREATMENT Stephanie A. Andel, Derek M. Hutchinson and Paul E. Spector

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HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN WE ARE TREATED FAIRLY? JUSTICE RULES AND FAIRNESS JUDGMENTS Russell Cropanzano, Marion Fortin and Jessica F. Kirk ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Stephanie A. Andel

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Derek R. Avery

Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Zhanna Bagdasarov

Department of Management, Craig School of Business, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA, USA

Russell Cropanzano

Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Marion Fortin

Center for Research in Management, University of Toulouse 1 Capitole, Toulouse, France

Derek M. Hutchinson

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

James F. Johnson

United States Air Force, Strategic Research and Assessment Branch, Air Force Personnel Center, JBSA Randolph, TX, USA

Jessica F. Kirk

Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

Anthony C. Klotz

College of Business, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

Alexandra E. MacDougall

Department of Management, College of Business Administration, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI, USA

Patrick F. McKay

School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA vii

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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Michael D. Mumford

Department of Psychology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

Lauren S. Simon

College of Business, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA

Paul E. Spector

Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Bennett J. Tepper

Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

Ryan D. Zimmerman

Management Department, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE: EXAMINING EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF MANAGERIAL LEADERS Bennett J. Tepper and Lauren S. Simon ABSTRACT For work organizations and their members, establishing and maintaining mutually satisfying employment relationships is a fundamental concern. The importance that scholars attach to employment relationships is reflected in research streams that explore the optimal design of strategic human resource management systems, the nature of psychological contract fulfillment and violation, and the factors associated with achieving person-environment fit, among others. Generally missing from theory and research pertaining to employment relationships is the perspective of individuals who reside at the employee-employer interface
managerial leaders. We argue that, for managerial leaders, a pervasive concern involves the tangible and intangible resource requirements of specific employees. We then provide the groundwork for study of the leader’s perspective on employment relationships by proposing a model that identifies

Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Volume 33, 1
50 Copyright r 2015 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0742-7301/doi:10.1108/S0742-730120150000033002

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how employees come to be perceived as low versus high maintenance and how these perceptions, in turn, influence leader cognition, affect, and behavior. Keywords: Managerial leadership; employment relationships; employee maintenance

Organizations must invest resources in order to cultivate and maintain a motivated and capable pool of workers. The resource investment decisions that are relevant to any particular employee begin before he or she joins their employer (e.g., the selection process and preemployment training), become more substantial during the focal person’s tenure (e.g., the formal compensation package, promotion opportunities, and managerial time and attention), and often continue after separation from the organization (e.g., pension programs, health care, and other perquisites afforded retirees). A well-documented challenge for organizations involves investing enough of these and other resources to maintain a satisfactory reserve of human resources without rendering themselves noncompetitive (Atchison, 1991; March & Simon, 1958). Accordingly, organization scholars have examined the issues associated with developing and maintaining employment relationships that satisfy the needs of both employees and employers. Contributions to this research domain have explored the employer’s and employee’s perspective on employment relationships. Illustrative of the employer perspective are studies that evaluate the relative efficacy of strategies organizations use to induce desired contributions from employees. Human resource management strategies that have been compared involve four combinations of high and low levels of expected contributions and inducements: mutual investment (i.e., an organization-focused strategy that involves both high expected contributions and high inducements), quasi-contract (i.e., a jobfocused strategy involving relatively low levels of both expected contributions and inducements), overinvestment (i.e., relatively low levels of expected contributions coupled with relatively high inducements), and underinvestment (i.e., relative high levels of expected contributions and relatively low levels of inducements) (e.g., Tsui, Pearce, Porter, & Tripoli, 1997; Wang, Tsui, Zhang, & Ma, 2003). Research of this sort aims to

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identify employment relationship strategies that yield favorable organization outcomes (e.g., high performance and commitment and low absenteeism and turnover rates). The employee perspective on employment relationships is reflected in the subdomain of person-environment (P-E) fit research that is concerned with how well employers satisfy employees’ needs for extrinsic and/or intrinsic resources (Kristof, 1996). Relevant studies from this area examine the antecedents and consequences of employees’ subjective perceptions of fit between resources needed and supplied. Fit is said to occur when the type and amount of resources employees need match what they receive from the employer; misfit occurs when resources needed and supplied are unequal. More robust models and tests of responses to P-E fit distinguish between misfit involving deficiency (i.e., instances in which resources supplied fall short of needs) and excess (i.e., instances in which resources supplied exceed employee needs), as well as manifestations of fit that range from low levels (i.e., both resources needed and supplied are low) to high levels (i.e., both resources needed and supplied are high) (Edwards, 2008). In keeping with the perspective that employee perceptions of fit are the best predictors of their own responses, P-E fit studies of resources needed and supplied focus on issues that are relevant to employees and do not explore managerial leader perceptions of employee resource demands. The same is largely true of another employee-focused body of work on employment relationships
research on psychological contracts, individual perceptions concerning the obligations employers have to the employee (i.e., promises regarding pay, advancement, job security, and other valued resources) and that the employee has to the employer (i.e., expected contributions in the form of hard work, loyalty, and commitment) (Rousseau, 1995). Psychological contract research centers on individual employees’ beliefs regarding what they are owed and owe in return and how they respond when their employer has failed to meet its obligations (i.e., breached the terms of the psychological contract; Robinson, 1996). Studies from this domain suggest that psychological contract breach is negatively associated with attitudes toward the job and organization and the execution of both in-role and extra-role performance contributions (Zhao, Wayne, Glibkowski, & Bravo, 2007). As is the case with studies of needs-supplies fit, managerial leader perceptions are generally not investigated in research on psychological contracts. One exception is Lester, Turnley, Bloodgood, and Bolino’s (2002) examination of contract breach/fulfillment and attributions for contract breach. In this study of managerial leaders and their direct reports, Lester

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et al. found that employees were more likely (than their managers) to believe that their psychological contract had been breached and were more likely to attribute contract breaches to reneging on the part of the employer. The employees’ managers were more likely to attribute perceived breaches to factors beyond the employer’s control. This research suggests that when it comes to evaluating the terms and fulfillment of employees’ psychological contracts, employees and managerial leaders are likely to have differing views. This lone study notwithstanding, we contend that the perspective of managerial leaders is not satisfactorily represented in theory and research pertaining to employment relationships. Neither the research on human resource management strategies, which takes an employer-focused approach to examining employment relationships, nor the research on needs-supplies fit or psychological contracts, which explore employment relationships from the employee’s perspective, identify or account for the factors that are uniquely relevant to understanding how managerial leaders make sense of and respond to the resource needs and demands of their employees. As a consequence, little is known about the perspective of managerial leaders, individuals who occupy what might be characterized as a brokerage position in employment relationships. It is, after all, the managerial leader who is often more responsible than any other organizational authority for deploying resources in ways that satisfy the needs of employees and employers. We propose that in the minds of managerial leaders an overarching concern vis-a`-vis employment relationships has to do with understanding and appropriately responding to employees’ resource requirements. This perspective is in keeping with traditional leadership theory, which suggests that effective leaders regularly monitor, evaluate, and respond to employees’ needs for leadership (see Lambert, Tepper, Carr, Holt, & Barelka, 2012). But precisely how leaders make sense of employee resource requirements is not well-understood. What is missing from this literature is a psychology of employee maintenance
managerial leaders’ perceptions of the resource requirements that particular employees engender. Accordingly, our goal is to develop a theoretical framework and corresponding set of interrelated theoretical propositions that speak of the nature and outcomes of employee maintenance from the perspective of managerial leaders. We will show that examining employment relationships from the perspective of managerial leaders highlights important but previously unexamined factors that complicate efforts to allocate resources in ways that are simultaneously need satisfying to employees and cost-effective for

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employers. For example, some employees may proactively demand more resources than their manager can or should (have to) provide. These employees may be inclined to overestimate what they deserve (weighed against their contributions) and/or what they genuinely need to function effectively. Possibilities like these are illustrated in descriptions of, “Millennials,” the generation of young adults born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, which has been characterized by some authors as narcissistic and given to a sense of entitlement (e.g., Twenge, 2006). To be sure, there is no consensus around the idea that the Millennial Generation is singularly self-absorbed or that a self-focus necessarily detracts from organization effectiveness (Grant, 2009; see also De Dreu & Nauta, 2009). But whether or not scholars embrace the perspective that the contemporary workplace is becoming increasingly populated with psychologically “needy” workers, the challenge of achieving an appropriate allocation of costly organizational resources has and will continue to be a pressing problem that falls to managerial leaders to address. In the sections that follow, we first offer a conceptual definition that captures what it means for employees to be perceived by their managerial leaders as low versus high maintenance. We then introduce a model that describes the factors that put employees at risk of being perceived as high maintenance and leaders’ affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses to employees whose maintenance requirements vary from low to high. Our framework brings together diverse literatures that ordinarily do not “speak” to one another (e.g., performance management, work design, selfregulation, social exchange, and leader performance of behaviors that range from hostility to withdrawal to mentoring, among others) to offer a unique perspective on the challenges that managerial leaders deal with dayto-day. In so doing, we hope to provide the foundation for a research agenda that is both novel and of practical importance.

CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION OF EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE In order to make clear what we mean by employee maintenance and to provide a basis for differentiating high-maintenance employees from employees who require less maintenance, we begin with a general definition: manager perceptions of the extent to which a focal employee requires tangible and/or less tangible resources in order to satisfactorily contribute to organizational

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functioning. Several features of this definition warrant some elaboration. First, the tangible resources to which we refer include formal rewards, office space, access to computing technology, and other perquisites (e.g., flexible work scheduling). Less tangible resources refer to such things as meaningful work, demonstrations of respect (e.g., praise, courtesy), mentoring (e.g., advice, career support, insulation from workplace politics), managing employee derailment (e.g., coaching up problem employees, repairing the damage caused by employee misbehavior), and other activities that require a substantial investment of time and effort on the leader’s part. We note that securing and delivering more tangible resources is usually accompanied by an investment of less tangible resources. For example, managerial leaders must devote attentional resources during the process of acquiring and appropriately allocating to their direct reports hard resources like software upgrades, desirable task assignments, and administrative support. Second, the evaluation of the amount of maintenance a particular employee requires is a subjective assessment rendered by the focal subordinate’s immediate managerial leader. As is the case with any social construction, perceptual biases are conceivable if not likely when managerial leaders evaluate employee maintenance. The maintenance requirements of likeable subordinates may be underestimated and the maintenance requirements of unlikeable subordinates may be overestimated. Some managers may be dispositionally inclined to perceive most if not all direct reports as requiring significant resource investment; other managers may systematically underestimate how much effort they must put into employee maintenance. Later we consider in more detail dispositional, relational, and contextual influences on managers’ evaluations of employee maintenance. Our point for now is that managers are imperfect arbiters of their employees’ maintenance requirements. Third, the resources that employees need to function effectively differ from person to person and over time. At the entry phase of employment relationships, some employees are more prepared and/or motivated than are others. Those that are less “ready” require more investment and, as employees “mature,” the type and amount of resources that they need should change. That resource requirements vary between employees and within employees over time is reflected in several bodies of theory and empirical research. Examples include work on leadership (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969), compensation (Gerhart & Rynes, 2003), and training (Noe, 2013). At their core, these research domains describe natural changes in employee needs, highlight the milestones that are indicative of

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development as employees mature, and offer practical recommendations for managing those changes. It falls to managerial leaders to monitor the maturation of individual employees and to tailor resource allocation decisions accordingly. A fourth issue is that our definition and model are not concerned with whether there is convergence between leader and employee perceptions of employee maintenance. Indeed, we would expect these evaluations to diverge. Evidence suggests that individuals are often unaware of how they are perceived by others, and this is likely to be the case with respect to employees’ own maintenance requirements. We would specifically expect that focal employees will tend to underestimate what it takes to maintain them. Most individuals prefer positive self-views (Sedikides & Strube, 1995) and they should therefore be disinclined to think of themselves as selfishly consuming significant amounts of an often fixed resource pool. To the extent that employees underestimate their own resource requirements, they will not recognize the management challenge they represent. To paraphrase the well-known line from the film, “When Harry Met Sally,” some employees will believe that they are low maintenance when they are (in the mind of their managerial leader) high maintenance. This is not to say that leader evaluations of employee maintenance are accurate or more precise than employee self-perceptions. Our point is that for a model that is designed to shed light on how maintenance requirements are understood by managerial leaders, employee self-perceptions are simply not germane.

TOWARD AN EMPLOYEE MAINTENANCE MODEL Having offered a definition of employee maintenance that allows us to differentiate employees who are perceived to be more or less difficult to maintain, we turn our attention to the development of a model that explains when managerial leaders are likely to perceive particular employees to be high maintenance and how these leaders are affected by working with high-maintenance employees. Our model is depicted in Fig. 1. We begin by identifying employee behaviors that put them at risk of being perceived as high maintenance. These actions constitute proximal influences on leader perceptions of the resource demands that particular employees evoke. We would expect that leader perceptions of employee maintenance are influenced by employee dispositions (e.g., trait affectivity, emotional stability, and agreeableness) and attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, job

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Social Context Leader Relationship Team

Behavioral Risk Factors Performance Proactivity CWB Neediness/Dependence Self-Interest

Employee Maintenance

Fig. 1.

Leader Affect, Attitudes, & Regulation

Leader Behavioral Responses Hostility Mentoring/Support Withdrawal/Avoidance

The Employee Maintenance Model.

involvement, and organizational commitment). However, our framework positions these as distal influences that operate through observable employee behaviors. We therefore focus on the execution of concrete acts that managerial leaders can attribute to specific employees. Our model then describes proximal psychological states (affect) and processes (selfregulation) that are affected by involvement with low- versus highmaintenance employees. These proximal consequences, in turn, lead to behavioral responses on the part of managerial leaders. The behavior of managerial leaders leads back to the behavioral risk factors through feedback loops. Contextual factors and individual differences play prominent roles as moderators and as direct influences on maintenance evaluations. Our model does not depict mediating or moderating relationships effects involving specific behavioral risk factors, maintenance perceptions, leader responses, and so on. It is our goal to provide a broad foundation for future research that explores employee maintenance in a more fine-grained fashion.

BEHAVIORAL RISK FACTORS A variety of acts may put employees at risk of being perceived as high maintenance. The behaviors that we will describe reflect a mix of frequently studied employee activity (e.g., task performance, counterproductive work behavior, withdrawal behavior) and activity about which less is known, but which organization scholars have examined more closely in recent years

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(e.g., proactivity, dependence). What these categories of employee activity have in common is that they inform managerial leaders’ understanding of the resource investments they must make (or believe that they must make) in order to maintain employees. Our review of behavioral risk factors is not meant to be exhaustive. Rather, we aim to account for factors that are likely to explain the majority of the variance in leaders’ maintenance perceptions. We leave it to future research to examine the validity of our list of behavioral risk factors and to augment and pare where appropriate.

Extreme Deviations from Task Performance Requirements Task performance refers to the duties and activities that are formally required to perform one’s job. These activities may be distinguished from extra-role contributions, activities that fall beyond contractual obligations but which benefit the organization and its members (e.g., helping behavior, spontaneous acts of courtesy and kindness; Katz, 1964). Skill and ability requirements vary from occupation to occupation. Social intelligence, the ability to understand others’ needs and values, will be more critical in some roles; the ability to innovate will be more critical in others; and the ability to work well with others in teams may be of fundamental importance in still other kinds of jobs. For many individuals and occupations, competence levels are not strong at the entry phase of the employment relationship. With tenure in the job, exposure to proficient coworkers, and targeted training programs, task performance usually improves. But during the time that a new employee is learning the ropes or when a longer-tenured employee is mastering work that involves fundamentally new skills, it falls to the managerial leader to diagnose employee resource requirements and to efficiently deploy these resources. Organizations devote considerable energy to performance management, which DeNisi and Smith (2014) define as “all the activities a firm undertakes to improve an employee’s performance, beginning with the evaluation of performance and subsequent feedback to the employee, and continuing through training and administration of rewards (such as pay increases and promotions).” In practice, much of the responsibility for managing individual performance falls on immediate supervisors. Even when employees consistently meet performance expectations, managerial leaders devote a substantial percentage of their work hours to performance management functions (Mintzberg, 1973). When employees fail to meet performance requirements, managerial leaders must deploy restorative strategies. These

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activities may involve developing skills (e.g., training) and/or motivation (e.g., compensation, job design) depending on the cause of particular performance deficits. When performance deficiencies are deemed uncorrectable, it often falls to the leader to dismiss the problem employee and then both hire and “coach-up” a suitable replacement. It seems clear that as a particular employee’s performance declines, the resource drain on managerial leaders increases. However, exceptional performers also warrant resource investments. In some fields, star employees may be many times as productive as the typical employee. For example, Zucker, Darvy, and Armstrong’s (1998) study of the biotech industry revealed that less than 1% of scientists were responsible for over 17% of the published articles. These employees have the potential to make significant contributions to their unit and to their employer more generally. But especially talented employees are likely to have attractive employment alternatives (Gardner, 2005). When it comes to these “stars” the maintenance challenge is one of ensuring that sufficient resources are devoted to sustaining their motivation and retaining their services (Groysberg, 2010). Compared to the issues associated with maintaining low performers, the stakes may be higher when it comes to the maintenance of exceptional performers in that replacing them should be especially difficult. By definition, stars are rare and coveted (Fernandez-Araoz, Groysberg, & Nohria, 2011). As labor market trends reveal a growing shortage of employees who can perform tacit work, nonprogrammable activities that involve high levels of judgment, many organizations report having difficulty fulfilling their staffing needs (Cascio & Aguinis, 2008; Holtom, Mitchell, Lee, & Eberly, 2009). In addition, evidence suggests that despite their attractiveness in the labor market, the exceptional performance of star employees is not readily portable. It can take five or more years for an exceptional hire’s potential to be realized (Groysberg, Lee, & Nanda, 2008). We would therefore expect managerial leaders to experience tremendous pressure to avoid the loss of internally developed, exceptional employees. Based on the preceding lines of thought, we propose that through opposing, linear processes (see McGuire, 1997) very low and very high levels of performance put employees at risk of being perceived as high maintenance. This perspective suggests that, at lower levels, employee performance evokes maintenance concerns that center on improving ability and/or motivation to accomplish assigned tasks; at higher levels, employee performance evokes maintenance concerns that center on avoiding the loss of particularly valued human capital. Managerial leaders will feel less urgency about addressing performance inadequacies of moderate

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performers compared to those of lower performers (notwithstanding the opportunities for improvement that moderate performers present); and managerial leaders will be more concerned about losing the talents of higher performers than those of moderate performers. The kinds of resources that managers must deploy will not be the same for low and high performers; but both will be viewed as requiring more maintenance than those in the middle of the performance distribution. We therefore propose the following: Proposition 1. Exceptionally high- and exceptionally low-performing employees will be perceived to be higher maintenance than will employees whose performance is closer to the average of the distribution.

Inconsistent Task Performance That individuals have good and bad performance days is not a new revelation. Over 80 years ago, Hersey (1932) observed that daily variation in mood relates to daily variation in job performance. However, although organization scholars have conducted numerous studies of employee performance, the vast majority of this work has focused on between-person differences, a perspective that treats within-person fluctuation as transient error (Barnes, Reb, & Ang, 2012). It is relatively recently that withinperson variation in work performance has become a regularly researched topic. Evidence from experience sampling method (ESM) studies suggests that more of the variation in task performance resides within persons than between persons. Based on a meta-analytic examination of 36 independent ESM samples with 4,785 respondents and 66,750 Level 1 observations, Dalal, Bhave, and Fiset (2014) found that 62% of the variation in task performance resides within persons. Moreover within-person variation in work performance is reliably related to within-person variation in other variables (e.g., conflict between work and family; Nohe, Michel, & Sonntag, 2014). This means that by treating within-person variance in task performance as error, between person studies miss meaningful features of employee work activity. Within-person variation in task performance may take different forms. As individuals learn new skills their task performance usually increases over time and performance may decrease over time because of age-related declines in task-relevant skills (Beal & Ghandour, 2011). Our focus here is on performance ups and downs, peaks and valleys in an individual’s task

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performance over time. These fluctuations may vary in magnitude and/or the length between cycles. So, for example, an individual may perform exceptionally well for several days, barely meet performance expectations the next morning, perform well for a full month, and then perform particularly poorly for two weeks. The causes of these performance fluctuations include cycles of depletion and replenishment that occur as individuals devote their attention to/take breaks from engaging tasks (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005) and exposure to emotion activating experiences that crop up during the work day (e.g., an unpleasant conversation with a coworker, receiving unexpected public recognition, and getting conflicting orders from superiors; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). The preponderance of relevant ESM research treats performance as a dependent variable. That is, scholars are ordinarily interested in identifying the individual and contextual factors that predict within-person variation in task performance. Consequently, little is known about the ways in which other people are affected by within-person variation in a focal person’s performance. We glean insights (into how managerial leaders perceive and respond to variation in employee task performance) from evidence suggesting that individuals prefer consistency in the behavior of other people. In studies of “interpersonal spin” individuals report more negative affect and less closeness toward interaction partners whose behavior varies more (vs. less) intensely over social situations and time (Cote, Moskowitz, & Zuroff, 2012). The presumed reason for this has to do with the value people generally place on behavioral consistency. Cialdini (1984), for example, argues that individuals perceive behavioral consistency from others as signs of rational judgment, stability, and trustworthiness. In addition, behavioral consistency on the part of others simplifies the process of navigating social interaction. Interacting with inconsistent people requires greater attention and cognitive processing and is therefore particularly taxing. Based on this research evidence, we propose that within-person variation in employee task performance will constitute a maintenance challenge for managerial leaders. Day-to-day or week-to-week performance variation may complicate leaders’ ability to predict when or if the focal employee will meet deadlines, bring uncertainty to the performance of coworkers with whom the focal employee works interdependently, and create interpersonal rifts with those who prefer working with more “stable” coworkers. Managerial leaders may have second thoughts about delegating task assignments to employees whose performance is more difficult to predict. More dependable employees may therefore receive a disproportionate amount of the workload, which puts them at risk of becoming burned out

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(Oldroyd & Morris, 2012). The fallout of employee performance variability (i.e., increased uncertainty, team conflict, and depletion of dependable employees) will therefore consume managerial leaders’ attentional resources. We therefore propose that Proposition 2. Employees will be perceived to be higher maintenance when their task performance fluctuates more dramatically up and down over time.

Proactive Involvement in Work Design Traditional work design theory and research was anchored in the assumption that much of the responsibility for structuring employees’ jobs falls to managerial leaders. The Job Characteristics Model (JCM; Hackman & Oldham, 1976, 1980), the dominant theoretical perspective for over two decades, framed work design and redesign as top-down processes in which managers work with human resource management professionals to specify the content of jobs and to enrich the work to make it as motivating and satisfying as possible. Rank-and-file employees might have a minor role to play in advising management about the content of their current job. In the main, however, the JCM and other approaches from this era viewed employees as largely passive recipients of work design directives initiated by management (Hornung, Rousseau, Glaser, Angerer, & Weigl, 2010). But contemporary work design scholars note that this somewhat static and manager-centric conception of how jobs are or should be designed is not compatible with emerging trends in the kind of work that is becoming more and more common. Grant and Parker (2009) argue that in an era that is characterized by rapid and continuous technological innovation, frequently changing customer preferences, and uncertain geo-political and economic developments (that are relevant to the growing number of firms that operate globally), organizations are increasingly counting on more flexible and customized employment relationships. Defining features of twenty-first century jobs include some mix of (a) involvement in project teams whose membership changes over time or comes from different organizations altogether (e.g., suppliers, customers, & consultants), (b) flexible reporting lines, employment contracts, work schedules, and role responsibilities, and (c) varying means by which work is accomplished (e.g., virtual interaction with coworkers and customers and telecommuting; Oldham & Hackman, 2010).

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What are the employee maintenance implications of these trends? We still find in contemporary work organizations jobs that are relatively easy to codify and which lend themselves to formal job descriptions. And to be sure, traditional work design places a considerable maintenance burden on managerial leaders. Describing the resource requirements that accompany major top-down job redesign efforts, Hornung et al. (2010) write, “Acrossthe-board redesign targeting classes of jobs, as in the large-scale change projects at General Motors or Ruston, requires enormous company resources” (p. 189). But the increasing reliance on more dynamic work arrangements complicates the maintenance challenges that managerial leaders face. Indeed, top-down work design of twenty-first century jobs may not be feasible at all. As Grant and Parker (2009) put it, “Managers cannot merely expect employees to carry out their assigned tasks proficiently; they now rely heavily on employees to adapt and introduce changes in the nature of work and the methods used to carry it out” (pp. 341
342). Gratifyingly, evidence suggests that many employees do, in fact, assume responsibility for adapting their behavior in response to environmental demands (e.g., gaining familiarity with new technologies and procedures, developing the expertise to handle crises; see Pulakos et al., 2002). These ideas are reflected in contemporary theories of work design, which emphasize employee proactivity
behavior that involves crafting the content of work and the means by which tasks are performed (Grant & Parker, 2009). Employees engage in proactive work design in order to achieve better fit between their work and their personal values and abilities (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). In so doing, they transfer some of their managerial leaders’ considerable maintenance load onto themselves. Employees who engage in proactive work design should therefore be perceived to be lower maintenance compared to employees who eschew proactivity. This is not to suggest that managerial leaders can or should reduce their maintenance load by eschewing all involvement in the job redesign process. Allowing each and every employee to independently design their jobs may produce coordination problems (Oldham & Hackman, 2010). Managerial leaders can reap the benefits of employee proactivity by negotiating job redesign with their direct reports (Hornung et al., 2010). This negotiation process comes with costs to the manager (e.g., time, coordination across idiosyncratic deals with individual employees), but when viewed against the backdrop of twenty-first century work described above, the process of negotiating work design with proactive employees should not be as taxing on managers as having to shoulder the work design load without employee input. We therefore propose the following:

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Proposition 3. Employees will be perceived to be lower maintenance when they engage in more negotiated proactive work design behavior.

Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) CWB refers to volitional actions that are intended to undermine organizational effectiveness and includes actions directed against coworkers (e.g., gossiping, ostracism, and bullying) and acts directed against the organization itself (e.g., sabotage, theft, and purposely making errors) (Spector & Fox, 2002). Consistent with the definition of CWB, performance of these and related acts (e.g., workplace deviance, social undermining) has detrimental effects on unit functioning. For example, in a study of Australian fast-food workers, Dunlop and Lee (2004) found that self-reported CWB aggregated to the restaurant level positively predicted two objective measures of unit performance: amount of time spent at the drive-through and unexplained food loss (i.e., missing food that can be attributed to theft, over-portioning, and waste that was not recorded). The damaging effects of CWB are not limited to indicators of unit performance. CWB also impacts the well-being and functioning of the perpetrator’s coworkers. Robinson, Wang, and Kiewitz (2014) note that focal employee CWB detrimentally affects coworkers directly (i.e., when coworkers are the target of CWB like interpersonal abuse, ostracism, and harassment), vicariously (i.e., when coworkers observe CWB executed against others), and through its effects on the ambient environment (i.e., the coworker experiences CWB perpetrated by many others who are embedded in the same social structure). Robinson et al. review evidence suggesting that these three kinds of exposure are associated with damage to coworker’s psychological well-being (i.e., higher levels of depression, anxiety, and burnout), physical health (e.g., somatic complaints), and sense of self (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy). In addition, targets and observers of CWB are more likely to perform CWB of their own and to withhold citizenship behavior, actions that benefit the organization, but which fall outside the formal job description. Felps, Mitchell, and Byington (2006) propose similar arguments in an integrative framework that highlights the mechanisms by which one employee’s CWB can impair coworker and team functioning. They argue that CWB evokes defensive responses by coworkers in the form of explosive outbursts, taking revenge against the perpetrator, withdrawal, and

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shirking. These responses detract from group cooperation, learning, and motivation, which in turn, undermine team performance and well-being. The foregoing suggests that employee CWB evokes maintenance challenges for managerial leaders. Managerial leaders must deploy tangible and attentional resources in order to repair the damage to workflows and wellbeing that employee CWB causes. Complicating this process, many forms of CWB are covert acts such that managerial leaders may not be aware when they are performed or who performed them. When leaders have indirect evidence that CWB performance has been committed, they may have to devote resources to first identifying the perpetrator(s). Assuming they are able to identify perpetrators, managerial leaders will then have to invoke remedial measures. These remedial measures include investigating the nature and magnitude of transgressions, studying organizational policy regarding the preferred sanction for particular offenses, taking responsibility for the implementation of disciplinary measures, and monitoring to ensure that desired changes in motivation and/or ability have resulted. CWB performance therefore requires significant resource investment on the part of managerial leaders. We therefore propose the following: Proposition 4. Employees will be perceived to be higher maintenance when they engage in more counterproductive work behavior.

Self-Interested Behavior Organizations are social systems and, as individual employees compete for scarce resources, they must balance their own self-interest with the interests of the groups and organizations in which they are embedded in order to make positive contributions to organizational effectiveness. In other words, these employees must balance needs for both agency and communion. Both excessive self-interested and excessive affiliative behavior (e.g., dependence) can be problematic for managers in terms of the resources these behaviors demand. Accordingly, we will discuss both categories of behavior, focusing first on self-interested behavior. A number of constructs in the organizational sciences capture selfinterested behavior. Among them are the dark triad personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy), entitlement, political behavior, and careerism. Although some of these constructs are commonly thought of as personality traits, it is the constellation of behaviors individuals possessing these traits display that is most likely to influence

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managers, and so, we include these constructs in our discussion. Narcissism refers to excessive self-love and selfishness. Narcissistic individuals require constant affirmation, are quick to disregard others’ feelings and needs, lack empathy, have grandiose views of themselves, feel entitled, and can be dominating (Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Raskin & Terry, 1988). Machiavellian individuals tend to be cold and calculating. They experience cynical attitudes and emotional blunting that enables them to act immorally and to deceive and strategically manipulate (Christie & Geis, 1970). Psychopathy is characterized by a tendency to manipulate others, egocentricity, greed, cold affect, impulsive thrill-seeking, and antisocial behavior (Hare, 2003; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2003). Although differences have been found in dark triad trait nomological networks (O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012), they share tendencies for manipulation, exploitation, and callous disregard for the well-being of others (Jonason, Webster, Schmitt, Li, & Crysel, 2012; Jones & Figueredo, 2013; Jones & Paulhus, 2011; Nagler, Reiter, Furtner, & Rauthmann, 2014). Extending beyond the dark triad are factors like entitlement, careerism, and political behavior. Entitlement describes individuals who are low in equity sensitivity in that they prefer to receive more than they give in comparison to relevant others (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987), whereas, careerism describes the propensity to pursue personal and career goals through any nonperformance based means, such as interpersonal manipulation (Feldman, 1985). Finally, organizational politics can be defined as strategic behavior designed to maximize short-or longterm self-interest (Ferris, Russ, & Fandt, 1989). Although the abovementioned traits and behaviors are often studied separately, they tend to be conceptually and empirically related to one another, which is not surprising given their shared emphasis on self-interest at the expense of others. For instance, research has linked low equity sensitivity to all three dark triad traits (Woodley & Allen, 2014) and entitlement is considered a core component of narcissism (see Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011, for a review). Likewise, careerism has been linked to psychopathy (Chiaburu, Mun˜oz, & Gardner, 2013), and all three dark triad traits have been shown to be meta-analytically associated with one another (O’Boyle et al., 2012). Considering their broader and more inclusive definitions, as well as their interrelationships, it is conceivable that the dark triad traits could subsume more specific behaviors and characteristics like careerism, entitlement, and political behavior. Thus, rather than exhaustively reviewing each of these literatures, we draw primarily from research on dark triad traits to illustrate the various ways in which

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self-interested behavior can influence managers’ perceptions of employee maintenance. Individuals who excessively engage in self-interested behavior can, of course, create a number of challenges for managers. Many of these challenges arise because excessively self-interested individuals exploit people and resources, and do so in ways that can be particularly detrimental for group functioning (Jonason et al., 2012). Empirical research has shown, for example, that the tactics highly self-interested individuals use to acquire material resources and status negatively influences others (ZeiglerHill, Southard, & Besser, 2014). More specifically, individuals who score higher on dark triad traits are more likely to use coercive and bistrategic (a combination of prosocial and coercive) resource control strategies rather than less active or less threatening forms of resource control. Both coercive and bistrategic resource control tactics are associated with physical and social aggression and with lower levels of peer approval (Hawley, Little, & Card, 2007). Interestingly, however, bistrategic tactics have been shown to be the most successful tactics for gaining control of resources (Hawley, 2011). This may mean that individuals who possess high levels of dark triad traits are particularly adept at procuring resources for themselves, especially given their tendency to pursue their own goals (Jonason & Webster, 2012) with little regard for how their actions affect others (Jonason, Lyons, Bethell, & Ross, 2013). Indeed, in a renewable resource simulation involving timber harvesting, individuals high in narcissism tended to focus on goals designed to increase their individual rewards, but these benefits came at the expense of others (i.e., team performance) and the common good (i.e., destruction of more resources than the forest system could support; Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005). What is more, a narcissistic sense of entitlement leads individuals to believe that they are actually deserving of additional resources, including a higher salary (Campbell, Bonacci, Shelton, Exline, & Bushman, 2004). When excessive resource demands are left unmet, individuals high in narcissism may be more likely to perceive psychological contract breaches with their employers (Campbell et al., 2011; Robinson & Rousseau, 1994). Perceptions of psychological contract breach, in turn, could very well fuel the perceptions of injustice known to trigger CWB (Colquitt et al., 2013). In sum, excessively self-interested individuals make poor team players who fail to adequately recognize others’ needs, and are willing to sacrifice the common good in order to get ahead. Excessive self-interest should also foster a more political work environment, because interpersonal relationships with excessively self-interested individuals are likely to be devoid of good will, highly manipulative, and

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volatile. Indeed, all three dark triad traits have been associated with the emotional manipulation of others and CWB (Nagler et al., 2014; O’Boyle et al., 2012). Additionally, individuals high in narcissism are prone to workplace bullying and derogation of others, even in the absence of ego threat (Park & Colvin, 2014; see Campbell et al., 2011, for a review). They also tend to take credit for others’ work and to engage in attention seeking behaviors such as bragging (Buss & Chiodo, 1991; Campbell, Reeder, Sedikides, & Elliot, 2000). Clearly, working with individuals who regularly display these behaviors can heighten managers’ and employees’ perceptions of organizational politics. Perceptions of organizational politics, in turn, have been linked to occupational stress variables such as general fatigue, burnout, job tension, and somatic tension (Cropanzano, Howes, Grandey, & Toth, 1997). These linkages demonstrate that perceptions of organizational politics deplete individuals’ psychological resources. But political environments are also likely to be demotivating to employees. As noted by Cropanzano et al. (1997), political environments are perceived as risky because they make payoffs less certain and can increase stress levels due to fear of threat. This mindset cultivates a lack of confidence in the notion that resource investment will result in tangible benefits, increasing the perceived risk of resource expenditure. Meanwhile, a burnt out and demotivated workforce is likely to require additional resource expenditure from managers in order to remain committed and engaged. Another complication self-interested employees present for managers involves receptivity to coaching. Such individuals may be particularly difficult to coach, even when their need for coaching is profound. Both Machiavellianism and psychopathy have been meta-analytically linked to decreased performance (O’Boyle et al., 2012), and narcissism, too, has been linked to poor performance when performance dimensions are interpersonal in nature (Blair, Hoffman, & Helland, 2008; see Campbell et al., 2011, for a review). Yet, research with narcissists suggests that they are unable to learn from their mistakes (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005) and are unlikely to be receptive to negative feedback. The inability of narcissists to learn from negative feedback may be attributed to their tendency to blame others and unwillingness to hold themselves accountable for their own actions (Campbell et al., 2000; Campbell & Sedkikes, 1999). Narcissistic individuals also seem to lack an awareness of how they are perceived by others. Research has shown, for instance, that individuals high in narcissism tend to rate themselves more favorably than peers on outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006; Park & Colvin, 2013) and have exaggerated confidence in their own abilities (Campbell,

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Goodie, & Foster, 2004). Taken together, this constellation of findings suggests that, despite their need for coaching, self-interested individuals are unlikely to be particularly receptive to it. Thus, managerial leaders who are tasked with developing such employees may feel the need to exert especially high levels of effort in coaching them, especially if these managers lack a sophisticated understanding of the nature of excessively self-interested subordinates and therefore overestimate the likelihood of coaching success. A final point worth mentioning regarding excessively self-interested behavior involves the hiring process. Given that excessively self-interested behavior can be detrimental to organizations and is difficult to “coach away,” one may wonder why managers simply don’t screen out individuals who are prone to displaying such behavior during the employee selection process. Doing so, however, is easier said than done, because self-interested individuals may initially be viewed quite positively. Evidence suggests that individuals high in narcissism are favored during the employee selection process for leadership positions. Experienced interviewers tend to rate narcissists more favorably for managerial positions (Schnure, 2010) and trained assessors tend to rate narcissists more favorably during leaderless group discussion assessment center activities (Brunell et al., 2008). This “preference” for narcissistic individuals might occur because any positive features of self-interested behavior (e.g., charisma) are more readily apparent in the short term, with negative aspects of self-interested behavior manifesting after the hiring process is complete and organizational entry has occurred (Campbell & Campbell, 2009; Campbell et al., 2011). That such individuals are favored during the hiring process means that managers who wish to screen for excessive self-interested behavior will need to go to greater lengths to make appropriate selection decisions. This, in turn, places a heavier burden on managers during the hiring process, as additional tests and selection tools may need to be implemented. In sum, the abovementioned mechanisms suggest that individuals who display higher levels of self-interested behavior will be more likely to demand tangible and intangible resource investment from managers. Proposition 5. Employees will be perceived to be higher maintenance when they engage in self-interested behavior. Needy and Dependent Behavior Another constellation of employee behaviors that is likely to consume managers’ resources involves interpersonal neediness or dependence. Although

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we are aware of little research in the organizational sciences that has examined this set of behaviors, research on dependent personality characteristics in other literatures is both fruitful and informative. Accordingly, we will draw from these literatures to describe the employee behavioral patterns that come across as, “needy,” to managers and that, in turn, influences the degree to which employees are perceived to be low or high maintenance. Despite the fact that our focus here is not on personality per se, as with the dark triad traits, we discuss dependent personality characteristics because they are useful for illustrating a subset of observable behaviors that enable managers to differentiate employees in terms of maintenance requirements. Although a number of definitions for interpersonal dependency exist in the literature, dependency can be defined broadly as the “tendency to rely on other people for nurturance, guidance, protection, and support, even in situations where autonomous functioning is possible” (Bornstein, 2012a, p. 292). Higher levels of dependency have been associated with difficulties in making decisions that could impact supportive relationships without excessive reassurance and advice from others, high levels of performance anxiety, and fear of being evaluated negatively, particularly by authority figures. Individuals who possess higher levels of dependency also tend to be people pleasers, and may volunteer for unpleasant activities in order to please others with whom they are close (Bornstein, 1992, 2012a). According to the cognitive/interactionist model of dependency (Bornstein, 2012a), dependency-related responding is motivated by a need for guidance, support, and approval from others. Dependent individuals perceive themselves to be powerless and ineffectual while perceiving others as competent and confident, and have a tendency to become anxious if they are required to function autonomously. Given these tendencies, dependent individuals use a variety of strategies to build and maintain strong interpersonal relationships. For instance, they may accentuate weaknesses in order to appear vulnerable and helpless, emphasize their own contributions to generate feelings of indebtedness, point out instances of self-sacrifice to exploit others’ guilt, engage in self-promotion to make salient their personal value, and if they feel a close social connection is being threatened, engage in more aggressive behaviors in order to control others (Bornstein, 2012a). Given their people pleasing tendencies, individuals who possess higher levels of trait dependency might, at first glance, come across as “ideal” employees. And, ideal they may be, when operating in a secure environment that constrains the detrimental aspects of the dependent individual’s behavior (Miller, 2003). In other cases, however, such as when autonomous decision-making is required, the dependent individual can present

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significant resource allocation challenges for managers. As noted by Miller (2003), “Dependent personalities look to others to provide guidance and direction and are ready-made followers. As such, they may be dedicated employees, as long as independent decision-making is kept to a minimum” (p. 421). A constant need for advice and “hand-holding,” however, can place significant burdens on managers’ time, and can also irritate other employees who may be quicker to take initiative despite receiving less managerial attention. Additionally, coworkers’ ill will may be exacerbated if, as research on college students suggests, dependent individuals have a tendency to please authority figures (e.g., managers) at the expense of others. For instance, Bornstein, Riggs, Hill, and Calabrese (1996) found that college students were willing to undermine their peers in order to impress a professor in an experimental study. In the workplace, analogous behavior (i.e., employees undermining colleagues in order to elevate their own status) should contribute to perceptions of organizational politics. Perceptions of organizational politics can be both demotivating and stressful for employees, thereby requiring additional resource investment from managers. Because positive feedback from others is an essential component of selfworth for most dependent individuals, they are likely to be especially sensitive to interpersonal conflict and may take seemingly insignificant issues to heart (Bornstein, 2012a, 2012b; Miller, 2003). Hypersensitivity to interpersonal stressors, in turn, should heighten stress levels and tension within one’s workgroup. Moreover, a desire to avoid stressful situations may prompt dependent individuals to focus on pleasing others more than on performing essential job duties (Miller, 2003). Research has associated higher levels of dependence with decreased levels of manager-rated task performance (Moscoso & Salgado, 2004), although one study found a positive association between dependent personality characteristics and customer-focused performance among a sample of 103 Australian financial service managers (see Burch & Foo, 2010). This latter finding is consistent with the notion that individuals higher in dependency are eager to please, and that this characteristic is adaptive in certain circumstances. With respect to performance dimensions that are not interpersonal in nature, coaching may be necessary to encourage dependent individuals to stay focused on performance goals. Also worth noting is a positive association between trait dependency and both health service use and health care costs, which may be partially mediated by the experience of interpersonal stressors (Bornstein, 1995, 2012b). This finding suggests that tangible resource expenditures in the form of health care costs may increase when employees are more dependent. In sum, behaviors consistent with dependent

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personality, including interpersonal sensitivity, need for approval, and tendencies to overuse services such as health care should increase managers’ perceptions that an employee is high maintenance. Proposition 6. Employees will be perceived to be higher maintenance when they engage in needy/dependent behavior.

PROXIMAL OUTCOMES OF LEADER MAINTENANCE PERCEPTIONS Below, we discuss two proximal outcomes of managers’ perceptions that employees are low or high maintenance
negative reactions toward employees in the form of affect and attitudes and impaired self-regulation. These two mechanisms are, of course, closely related. Negative affect has been linked with impaired self-regulation across a number of domains (for a review see Wagner & Heatherton, 2015). Individuals in a negative mood are inclined to perform a variety of behaviors that are indicative of selfregulation failure including aggressive behavior (Anderson & Bushman, 2002), binge eating (Munsch, Meyer, Quartier, & Wilhelm, 2012), high-risk gambling (Raghunathan & Pham, 1999), and overspending (Atalay & Meloy, 2011; Bruyneel, Dewitte, Franses, & Dekimpe, 2009). The convergence of these mechanisms notwithstanding, we discuss them separately in order to enhance the clarity of our arguments. We also acknowledge that, although we frame negative affective reactions and impaired self-regulation as proximal outcomes of managers’ perceptions of employee maintenance they may very influence perceptions of employee maintenance as well.

Affect and Attitudes Affect One important outcome of managers’ perceptions of employees as high maintenance is affect toward employees. According to affective events theory, events at work proximally influence individuals’ affective reactions, which, in turn, influence their attitudes and behavior (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). Incorporating the notion that individuals’ appraisals or perceptions of events influence how they are likely to respond to them (Lazarus, 1966, 1991a, 1991b; Ortony, Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman,

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Spindel, & Jose, 1990), Basch and Fisher (2000) defined an affective event as “an incident that stimulates appraisal of and emotional reaction to a transitory or ongoing job-related agent, object, or event” (p. 37). This definition is consistent with the notion that thinking and feeling are inextricably related (Ellsworth & Scherer, 2003). During the primary appraisal process, individuals evaluate whether or not an event or stimulus is instrumental for goal attainment and need satisfaction. Goals are broadly defined in this context, and may range from achieving career-related success to maintaining social relationships and self-esteem (Lazarus, 1991a, 1991b). Events that are need fulfilling and are consistent with personal goals produce positive emotional responses; events that threaten or thwart personal needs and goals produce negative emotional responses. Managerial leaders who perceive employees to be high maintenance may come to believe that their goals are being thwarted and are, therefore, likely to experience negative affective reactions. Managers often work in fastpaced environments and are typically required to fulfill interpersonal, informational, and decisional roles (Mintzberg, 1973, 1975). They must engage in a wide range of activities including motivating employees, establishing intra and intergroup relationships, monitoring and communicating information, initiating and overseeing projects, problem solving, allocating resources, and performing ceremonial duties (Mintzberg, 1973, 1975). Given these job requirements, a manager’s perception of added demands placed on him or her by a high-maintenance employee who calls for disproportionate amounts of the manager’s time and energy can conceivably lead to role overload (Wang, Sinclair, & Deese, 2010)
a perception that role demands exceed available resources (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, & Snoek, 1964). Perceptions of role overload, in turn, can result in negative affective reactions (Barling & MacIntyre, 1993; Ilies, Dimotakis, & De Pater, 2010; Ilies et al., 2007). This line of thinking is consistent with Karasek’s (1979) demands-control model, in which job demands are expected to result in a state of stress that, unless coped with effectively, will later manifest as strain, a common indicator of which is negative affect (Ilies, Johnson, Judge, & Keeney, 2011). A second way in which maintenance perceptions may lead managerial leaders to feel their goals are being thwarted is through a decreased sense of competence resulting from destructive group dynamics. Under time pressure, attending to high-maintenance employees could mean neglecting other important aspects of one’s duties, particularly those involving other direct reports. By ignoring the needs of other employees, managers may contribute to a dysfunctional group dynamic characterized by injustice, stress,

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and disorder. Employees who require less maintenance may feel unfairly treated if disproportionate amounts of attention and resources are allocated to high-maintenance group members, particularly, if those resources are not commensurate with the high-maintenance employee’s efforts (Adams, 1963). A manager whose time and attention is consumed with a high-maintenance employee may fail to provide other employees with clear instructions regarding important assignments or the resources necessary to complete those assignments. An absence of the resources necessary to adequately perform at work could lead to perceptions of role overload and role ambiguity among these employees, heightening their stress levels (Stout & Posner, 1984; Vanishree, 2014). Both perceptions of injustice and stress have been linked to counterproductive behavior (Balducci, Schaufeli, & Fraccaroli, 2011), decreased job performance (Colquitt et al., 2013; LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005), and turnover (Campbell, Perry, Maertz, Allen, & Griffeth, 2013; Podsakoff, LePine, & LePine, 2007)
criteria upon which managers’ performance is likely to be evaluated (Levine, 1998). Provided these criteria are also salient in the manager’s mind, perceptions that he or she is poorly managing one’s group may very well bring about feelings of incompetence (Brockner & Guare, 1983) which, in turn, can threaten the manager’s ego and self-esteem, giving rise to negative affective reactions (Baumeister, 1997). It is also conceivable that when managers perceive employees to be high maintenance, they also perceive a threat to their status. Here, the role of power differences is particularly relevant. A growing body of literature suggests that power, an individual’s relative ability to influence others’ experiences, behaviors, or outcomes (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003), plays a central role in how individuals process information (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whiston, & Liljenquist, 2008; Johnson & Lammers, 2012) and respond to threats and other people (van Kleef et al., 2008). Prior research has shown that, compared to less powerful individuals, more powerful individuals tend to feel an enhanced sense of entitlement (Malhotra & Gino, 2011) are more accustomed to being treated favorably (Magee & Galinsky, 2008) and perceive themselves in a more positive light (Wojciszke & Struzynska-Kujalowicz, 2007). This constellation of findings coupled with the fact that organizational norms typically dictate that employees treat their managers with courtesy and respect, suggests that managers are not only more likely to perceive that they deserve to be and are used to being treated well, but also that organizational norms reinforce this view. Accordingly, managerial leaders are prone to viewing higher maintenance employees as behaving counter-normatively, unjustly, and

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disrespectfully (Miller, 2001), as high-maintenance behavior could indicate that an employee “does not know his or her place” in the relationship hierarchy (Heider, 1958). This counter-normative relationship dynamic can be further interpreted by a manager as a status threatening attempt to undermine his or her authority
a form of insubordination likely to result in the discrete emotion of anger (Averill, 1983; Miller, 2001). According to Lazarus (1991a, 1991b), during the process of secondary appraisal, more fine-tuned evaluations of situations are made, such as whether to blame or credit oneself or another, whether and how a situation (if negative) can be changed for the better, and whether a situation is likely to improve or worsen over time. These appraisals, along with the content of the personally meaningful event, influence the particular discrete emotion that is felt. The emotion of anger corresponds with appraisals in which another is blamed for a demeaning offense that is threatening to the focal person’s ego or self-esteem (Lazarus, 1991a, 1991b; see also Allred, 1999; Averill, 1983; Gibson & Callister, 2010; Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994; Smith & Ellsworth, 1985). Given this, managers who perceive highmaintenance employees as ego-threatening status challenges are likely to experience anger. Additionally, because high-maintenance employees could be perceived as violating norms in the workplace, managers may experience a form of moral outrage that Folger and Skarlicki (2005) refer to as deontic anger. Interestingly, anger displays may be perceived by managers as a particularly functional response to high-maintenance employees, especially toward those employees who are seen as challenging a manager’s status. One reason for this is that displaying anger can increase observers’ perceptions of a focal person’s power (Tiedens, Ellsworth, & Mesquita, 2000), thereby reaffirming that individual’s position of authority in a hierarchal relationship and restoring their self-esteem. Anger also serves to educate offenders that their behavior is counter-normative, and that the target of the offense is unwilling to be treated in a disrespectful manor. This, too, can serve to help restore the victim’s self-image (Miller, 2001). Attitudes Managers’ perceptions of employee maintenance are likely to vary day-today, depending on that particular employee’s performance of high-risk behaviors. However, the frequency with which such behavior occurs should play a significant role in establishing a manager’s attitude, or evaluative judgment (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), of an employee over time, and the strength of this attitude should influence affective reactions. According to

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one elaboration likelihood model focused particularly on the processes underlying workplace aggression (Douglas et al., 2008), triggering events, such as employee behavior that puts them at risk of being perceived as high maintenance, lead to different sequences of cognitive, altitudinal, and affective information processing. The cognitive appraisal processes we have discussed previously fall under the umbrella of cognition-initiating processing, whereby triggering events elicit attributions or appraisals that further influence emotions and subsequent attitudes. This form of processing requires the highest amount of mental effort. Once an attitude or evaluative judgment is formed, however, the attitude itself may drive information processing, reducing the need for cognitive elaboration. With such attitudeinitiated processing, attitudes impact emotions and attributions made about an event or series of events. One way in which a strong negative attitude toward a target is formed is through repeated exposure to negative trigger events that are perceived as being caused by that target (Douglas et al., 2008). Attitudes serve a knowledge function, reducing the need for effortful processing each time a similar event occurs (Petty, 1995). Interestingly, however, this more automatic form of information can fuel a vicious cycle in which strong negative attitudes evoke attitude-initiated processing, which, in turn, primes confirmatory negative emotional and attributional processing. These forms of processing can further reinforce the negative attitude toward the target. As a result, employees who repeatedly engage in high-risk behavior are especially at risk for being perceived as “very high maintenance.” Moreover, supervisors’ unfavorable attitudes toward subordinates are particularly problematic. Once strong negative attitudes are formed, they can be difficult to reverse (Krosnick & Petty, 1995), as further interactions with unfavorably perceived employees will be viewed through a harsh lens (Douglas et al., 2008). Proposition 7. Managerial leader perceptions of employee maintenance will be associated with managers’ unfavorable emotions and attitudes.

Self-Regulation Impairment Self-regulation impairment is a second proximal outcome of managers’ perceptions that employees are high maintenance. According to self-regulation theory (Baumeister, 1998; Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996), self-regulatory abilities, and in particular, one’s personal resources, influence a variety of

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human processes such as decision-making, impulse control, emotions, and motivation (Schmeichel & Baumeister, 2004). Demanding situations can deplete one’s personal resources, and thereby impair one’s ability to behave appropriately (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Perceptions that employees are high maintenance should trigger managers’ sense making processes (Thau & Mitchell, 2010). A leader may, for example, ponder why an employee is acting in ways that are perceived to be high maintenance and what effect these behaviors are having on others. Exerting the mental energy required to make sense of highmaintenance employees should, in turn, drain the manager’s personal resources, hindering the manager’s ability to control his or her impulses, optimally engage in decision-making, regulate emotions, and so on (Wagner & Heatherton, 2015). That high-maintenance employees drain managers’ resources and impair their self-regulatory abilities is also consistent with Conservation of Resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 1989). According to COR theory, individuals are motivated to acquire and build new resources, as well as to protect resources that they have accumulated (Hobfoll, 1989). Here, resources can be broadly defined as “anything perceived by the individual to help attain his or her goals” (Halbesleben, Neveu, Paustian-Underdahl, & Westman, 2014, p. 1338). These resources could include cognitive resources (e.g., intelligence), emotional resources (e.g., affect), social resources (e.g., helpful colleagues), motivational resources (e.g., persistence), physical resources (e.g., physical ability), and financial resources (e.g., income) (Wang, 2007). When resources are threatened or lost individuals experience stress (Hobfoll, 1989). Two additional tenets of COR theory are (1) resources must be invested to gain additional resources and to protect or recover from resource loss and (2) resource losses are more salient to individuals than resource gains (Hobfoll, 1998, 2001). As noted by Wang et al. (2010), excessive job demands are a primary form of threat to resources, as they require large amounts of energy and effort on the part of employees. Consistent with this logic, the extent to which managing a relationship with a particular employee results in self-regulation impairment will depend on whether the resources a manager invests in that employee result in subsequent resource gains or losses. Leader investments in employees in the form of mentoring, guiding, and motivating can result in gains for managers in terms of need fulfillment (e.g., need for relatedness) and increased self-esteem (Wang et al., 2010). Relationships with high-maintenance employees should result in a net loss of resources for managerial leaders because the amount of resource investment required would be difficult to

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offset with gains. For instance, and as we have argued, previously, leaders who perceive an employee or employees to be high maintenance may lack the time and energy to perform other aspects of their jobs, which can have implications for maintaining relationships with other employees
employees who may very well be better equipped to generate additional resources. As noted by Wang et al. (2010), managers who are overburdened and who experience resource depletion might lack the resources necessary to effectively manage relationships with their employees, which can further create an imbalance or net loss of resources. The notion of resource loss spirals, situations in which resources become harder to acquire as individuals lose resources (Hobfoll, 1998, 2001), is also relevant here. Losses from attending to the needs of high-maintenance employees will impair a manager’s ability to invest in the arguably more reasonable needs of other employees, which in turn undermines work group dynamics and makes it more difficult for those employees to perform their jobs. These conditions complicate efforts to overcome prior resource deficits as well as to improve self-regulatory ability, increasing the likelihood that the manager will experience a downward spiral of resource losses. Interestingly, COR theory also asserts that individuals strategically invest their resources (Hobfoll, 1998, 2001). This means that if investments in high-maintenance employees do not pay off, managers would presumably decide to invest resources in ways they deem more efficient. However, an initial resource loss derived from accommodating a high-maintenance employee may itself impair a manager’s ability to reason and optimally invest resources. As a result, a vicious cycle could be set in motion
one in which investment of resources in high-maintenance employees leads to an initial state of resource depletion that then further undermines the leader’s very ability to change the root cause of the resource losses. Proposition 8. Managerial leader perceptions of employee maintenance will be associated with impaired self-regulation.

DISTAL OUTCOMES OF LEADER MAINTENANCE PERCEPTIONS By influencing managers’ affective reactions and self-regulatory abilities, perceptions of employee maintenance should also influence more distal outcomes, such as hostility toward subordinates, withdrawal, and the amount of mentoring or support provided to subordinates.

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Hostility Perhaps the most frequently studied form of leader enacted hostility is abusive supervision
employees’ perceptions that their supervisor has performed nonphysical forms of hostility on a sustained basis (Tepper, 2000). Both managers’ impaired self-regulatory ability and negative affective reactions should result in increased levels of abusive supervision. According to self-regulation theory, self-regulatory strength is a renewable but limited capacity resource that can become temporarily depleted as a result of the exhaustion experienced when individuals face many simultaneous demands (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). Although little research has been performed regarding the consequences of impaired self-regulatory ability of managers per se, in one empirical study, Byrne et al. (2014) drew from Wang et al.’s (2010) model of destructive leader behaviors to argue that resource depletion impairs managers’ abilities to regulate affective reactions and behavior, which, in turn, should be linked to increased levels of abusive supervision. In support of this view, Byrne et al. (2014) found that a state of resource depletion, in the form of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption, was linked to increased levels of employee-rated abusive supervision. Affective events theory also suggests a role for emotion in predicting abusive supervision, in that negative affect leads to affect-driven behaviors such as counterproductive behavior (Rodell & Judge, 2009; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996), which, for supervisors, could involve abusive supervision. Proposition 9. Perceptions of employee maintenance will influence managerial leader hostility indirectly through leader affective reactions and self-regulation impairment.

Withdrawal As noted previously, COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989) posits that individuals whose personal resources are depleted will experience stress and that these individuals are therefore prone to further resource losses. These loss cycles result in the adoption of what can be defensive resource regulation strategies as individuals shift from trying to procure additional resources to protecting the resources they already have (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). Likewise, selfregulation theory (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996) posits that misregulation of self-control involves efforts to control oneself in a

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counterproductive fashion, so that desired results are not achieved. This can occur when individuals focus primarily on short-term affect regulation at the expense of the more enduring and substantive aspects of a situation (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). The result is that individuals who employ these strategies often feel better in the short term. However, in neglecting the more fundamental aspects of the situation, they tend to amplify the problem. These perspectives suggest that, in order to regulate negative affect in the short term, managers might engage in self-regulatory strategies that could be counterproductive, such as avoiding a high-maintenance employee or withdrawing from the work environment. Indeed, meta-analytic evidence suggests that resource depletion, in the form of emotional exhaustion, is positively related to turnover intentions (Lee & Ashforth, 1996). Withinperson analyses have yielded similar findings, linking negative affect to work withdrawal among a sample of bus drivers (Scott & Barnes, 2011). A recent study provided evidence that disengagement mediated the relationship between emotional exhaustion and withdrawal cognitions such as affective commitment and turnover intentions among a sample of health care workers (Thanacoody, Newman, & Fuchs, 2014). These studies collectively suggest that various forms of withdrawal are common responses to resource depletion and self-regulation impairment. However, withdrawal may be a misguided attempt at affect regulation, in that temporarily withdrawing from a situation could increase future job demands if workload or demands from a high-maintenance employee accumulate during the withdrawal period, leaving one even worse off than before. Proposition 10. Perceptions of employee maintenance will influence managerial leader withdrawal indirectly through leader affective reactions and self-regulation impairment.

Mentoring and Support A sufficient amount of personal resources is necessary for managers to provide employees with support and mentoring. Although research on how affect and self-regulation influence managers’ supportive and mentoring behaviors is scant, research on more general working populations provides insight into these relationships. For instance, Ilies, Scott, and Judge (2005) found in an experience sampling study that positive affect was linked to increased citizenship behavior which, from a manager’s perspective, could conceivably consist of supportive and mentoring behaviors. Using a sample

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of dentists, Hakanen, Perhoniemi, and Toppinen-Tanner (2008) found that job resources lead to work engagement and work engagement leads to personal initiative, which has been linked with supportive work behaviors. In one study focused specifically on managers, Byrne et al. (2014) found that resource depletion, in the form of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and workplace alcohol consumption, resulted in lower levels of transformational leadership. Like citizenship behavior and personal initiative, transformational leadership consists of components that are similar to mentoring and support. For example, the dimension of individualized consideration describes the extent to which personal attention is paid to and concern is expressed for the needs and feelings of followers (Bass, 1985). In a final study, Johnson, Lanaj, and Barnes (2014) found that resource depletion was linked to decreases in citizenship behavior among a sample of managers. We therefore propose the following link: Proposition 11. Perceptions of employee maintenance will influence managerial leader mentoring/support indirectly through leader affective reactions and self-regulation impairment.

FEEDBACK LOOPS TO THE BEHAVIORAL RISK FACTORS Our model specifies feedback loops connecting the distal outcomes of employee maintenance and the behavioral risk factors. Evidence suggests that employee contributions are generally better when their leaders eschew downward hostility, engage with rather than avoid employees, and provide more developmental opportunities (Tepper, 2000; Tepper & Taylor, 2003). We would therefore expect that some level of responsiveness to employee maintenance requirements reduces the frequency of employee behaviors that put employees at future risk of being perceived as high maintenance. However, we would not expect the relationship between leader responsiveness and employee performance of high-risk behaviors to be a simple one. A long tradition of leadership theory suggests that the effects of leadership behavior are situationally dependent (e.g., Fiedler, 1967; House, 1971; Kerr & Jermier, 1978). Although tests of contingency theories of leadership have yielded equivocal results (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Ahearne, & Bommer, 1995), the idea that the situation matters is borne out in recent work that has applied the P-E fit approach to understanding leader

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effectiveness. In two studies of supervised employees, Lambert et al. (2012) found that employee’ attitudinal and behavioral responses to task-related direction and structuring behavior are maximized when the amount provided matches rather than exceeds or falls short of employee needs. An implication of this work is that providing too much leadership is detrimental to both employees and leaders. Employees may experience resentment toward or become dependent on managers who provide excess leadership; and managers may unnecessarily deplete their leader resources. Responding to employee maintenance requirements should therefore be viewed as a complex process involving two responsibilities: accurately diagnosing employee needs and deploying leader resources in needed amounts. Proposition 12. Managerial leader hostility, withdrawal, and execution of mentoring/supportive behaviors will be related to employees’ performance of behaviors that put them at risk of being perceived as high maintenance.

SOCIAL CONTEXT FACTORS We turn now to an examination of the role that the social context plays in explaining managerial leader evaluations of employee maintenance and in the effects of maintenance evaluations on the proximal and distal outcomes in our model. Our treatment of the social context is deliberately broad and includes features of the manager, the relationship between manager and employee, and characteristics of the team in which the manager-employee relationship is embedded. We do not attempt to present an exhaustive list of relevant social context factors, nor do we specify all possible direct and moderating effects that the social context may play. Instead, we introduce illustrative constructs and processes that are meant to inspire empirical testing and further theoretical refinement. It is for that reason that our model depicts the social context as residing outside and pointing toward a “box” that describes the mediation framework connecting the behavioral risk factors, employee maintenance, proximal outcomes, and distal outcomes.

Characteristics of Managerial Leaders In specifying a role in our model for managerial leader characteristics, we are suggesting that some leaders are generally inclined to view employees as

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high or low maintenance and that not all leaders respond to employee maintenance evaluations the same way. We would expect that several features of managerial leaders influence maintenance evaluations directly or play moderating roles. Relevant characteristics include the dispositional tendencies to (1) view employees as generally lazy and unmotivated or capable of self-motivation, self-control, and creativity (i.e., Theory X/Theory Y Orientation; McGregor, 1960) and (2) experience negative emotional states like anger, sadness, and fear (i.e., negative affectivity; Watson & Clark, 1984). Because fully developing logical arguments for these and other individuals difference factors would make for an unwieldy exercise, we instead focus on a feature of leaders that we believe to be of particular importance in this context
the motivation to make a prosocial difference. Prosocial motivation captures a desire to benefit other people (Grant, 2007). Individuals with stronger prosocial motivation are concerned with others’ well-being and are willing to expend effort to be of help to those who need it. Prosocial motivation is distinct from altruism, which captures the absence of self-interest. Whereas altruistic individuals perform helpful acts with no expectation of personal gain, prosocial motivation can benefit the helper as well as the target. In describing how prosocial motivation diverges from altruism Grant and Berry (2011) write, “employees can desire to help others because they care about them, because they feel it is the right thing to do, because they wish to maintain membership in a valued group, and/or because doing so will make them feel good about themselves” (p. 77). These arguments are supported by evidence from the mentoring literature, which suggests that for experienced senior organizational members, providing junior colleagues with support and career counsel also fulfills self-motivations (e.g., reducing workload, identity affirmation, and preserving self-worth; Janssen, van Vuuren, & de Jong, 2014). Prosocial motivation is ordinarily treated as a state characteristic rather than as an enduring trait. This approach is consistent with Grant’s (2009) contention that prosocial motivation is an inherently relational construct such that a focal person will experience varying levels of prosocial motivation toward different beneficiaries. That said, constructs that arguably overlap with prosocial motivation, like benevolence, capture a stable inclination to be helpful even when it is personally costly (Huseman et al., 1987; King & Miles, 1994). It therefore seems likely that prosocial motivation has both trait and state features and it is the more dispositional side of the construct that we focus on here. In the section that follows we consider the more malleable, relationship-specific aspects of leader motivation to benefit particular employees.

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We theorize that prosocially motivated leaders are less likely to perceive employees as high maintenance. For leaders with a stronger motivation to make a prosocial difference, employee maintenance is an activity from which intrinsic satisfaction
a sense of enjoyment that flows from the task itself (Ryan & Deci, 2000)
is derived. Less prosocially motivated leaders will find employee maintenance activities to be at best, bereft of intrinsic motivation, and at worst, an unwelcomed nuisance. The different ways that leaders experience employee maintenance, “work” for those low in prosocial motivation and “play” for those higher in prosocial motivation (Tang & Baumeister, 1984), has implications for how taxing they perceive employees to be. Actors experience intrinsically motivating activities as less onerous and demanding than extrinsically motivating activities; indeed, individuals will be willing to voluntarily add obstacles to an intrinsically motivating task in order to make it more challenging and to prolong time spent on the activity (Glynn, 1994). To the extent that leaders are motivated to make a prosocial difference find employee maintenance to be an intrinsically rewarding activity, we would expect them to employ a more conservative bar or standard when reflecting on how much maintenance work they must perform. In other words, when evaluating an employee’s maintenance requirements, prosocially motivated leaders will err low and less prosocially motivated leaders will err high. Based on these arguments, we expect that managerial leaders who are more prosocially motivated will be less likely to perceive particular employees as high maintenance. Proposition 13. As managerial leader prosocial motivation increases, evaluations of employee maintenance will decrease. We further propose that prosocial motivation moderates the relationship between maintenance evaluations and the proximal and distal outcomes depicted in our model. To less prosocially motivated leaders, higher maintenance employees constitute a resource depleting, irritant. “Needy” employees draw the less prosocially motivated leader’s attention away from preferred activities (i.e., activities that do not involve thinking about or fulfilling the resource requirements of direct reports). We draw on Murray’s (1938) notion of the complementarity of nurturance, the need to care for others, and succorance, the need to be cared for by others, to propose that for leaders who are motivated to make a prosocial difference, high-maintenance employees constitute an opportunity to fulfill personal needs rather than an annoyance. Indeed, the perception that employees require maintenance should engender positive affect and serve as a cue for prosocially motivated leaders to “step up” and provide rather than withhold resources.

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Proposition 14. As managerial leader prosocial motivation increases, negative responses to employee maintenance will decrease.

Relational Characteristics Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory and research provide an overarching perspective for considering how relational characteristics influence manager perceptions of employee maintenance. According to LMX theory, managerial leader-employee relationships may be differentiated based on mutual trust, respect, and obligation (Graen & Scandura, 1987). Managerial leaders view low-quality LMX employees as “hired hands” who can be counted on to act in a largely self-interested fashion and in accordance with their job descriptions. In high-quality LMX relationships, employees act in “partnership” with leaders and make contributions that transcend what would ordinarily be expected of them (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). Consistent with these characterizations, scholars have observed differences in terms of the resources managerial leaders exchange with highand low-LMX employees. Whereas low-LMX relationships involve a quid pro quo exchange of resources inherent to the parties’ formal roles, highquality LMX relationships involve an exchange of particularly valued resources. Managerial leaders provide challenging tasks, decision latitude, and career support to high-LMX employees; these employees reciprocate with high effort, loyalty, and a willingness to eschew attractive alternative employment options (Graen, Liden, & Hoel, 1982; Graen, Novak, & Sommerkamp, 1982; Seers & Graen, 1984; Wakabayashi & Graen, 1984). Early thinking on LMX assumed that the availability of resources encourages managerial leaders to develop high-quality exchanges with some, but not all, employees. On this point, Graen and Uhl-Bien (1995) write, “these differentiated relationships resulted from resource constraints on the managers that required them to develop a cadre of trusted assistants to help in the functioning of the work unit. Because these relationships required additional investment of the leader’s already limited time and social resources, it was questionable … how many high-quality exchanges a leader could profitably develop and maintain” (p. 227). But later research evidence suggested that the resource investments managerial leaders make in high-LMX employees pays off in the form of additional resources that managerial leaders can invest in other ways. Hence, for example, relinquishing decision-making power to high-LMX employees lightens the managerial leader’s responsibilities in some respects, which frees them to

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perform other duties that benefit the unit (Scandura, Graen, & Novak, 1986). The high levels of trust that underlie high-LMX relationships inspire employees to execute organizational citizenship behaviors
performance contributions that are not formally required, but which benefit the unit (e.g., helping coworkers, withholding complaints, loyally representing the organization; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Hui, 1993). In other words, developing high-quality LMX relationships with direct reports augments rather than drains the pool of resources that is available to managerial leaders. We therefore theorize that LMX relates directly to managerial leader perceptions of employee maintenance: Proposition 15. As leader member exchange quality increases perceptions of employee maintenance will decrease. We also envision a moderating role for LMX in the relationship between the behavioral risk factors and managerial leader evaluations of employee maintenance. There is empirical precedent for the notion that even when they behave similarly, high- and low-LMX employees are perceived differently by their leaders. In a study of telephone company operators, Duarte, Goodson, and Klich (1993) found that an objective measure of performance, time taken to complete a phone call, positively predicted manager evaluations of low-LMX employee performance and was unrelated to highLMX employee performance evaluations. High-LMX employees received high performance evaluations regardless of their objective performance. Additional evidence that managerial leaders perceive the behavior of highLMX employees more positively than the behavior of low-LMX employees comes from Tepper et al.’s (2006) studies of resistance to downward influence attempts. Using data collected from samples of working MBA students and bank employees, Tepper et al. found that noncompliance involving negotiation strategies (i.e., requesting clarification, additional information, or further justification) was perceived to be constructive for high-LMX employees, but dysfunctional for low-LMX employees. These effects may be explained by an inclination on the part of managerial leaders to make more favorable attributions for the behavior of psychologically closer employees (Green & Mitchell, 1979). Heneman, Greenberger, and Anonyuo (1989) offer three reasons for this phenomenon: managerial leader attributions of psychologically close employees are likely to be similar to self-attributions, managerial leaders are more likely to perceive and recall behavior that is consistent with prevailing images of the employee, and managerial leaders will treat high-LMX employees preferentially in order to preserve mutual trust. Consistent with these ideas,

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Heneman et al. found that leaders were more likely to make internal attributions (i.e., ability, effort) for the positive performance contributions of high-LMX employees and for the negative performance contributions of low-LMX employees. We propose that similar processes come into play when managerial leaders render maintenance evaluations. Leaders should be inclined to perceive high-risk behaviors (for being viewed as high maintenance) as consistent with the image of low-LMX employees and to discount or externalize the same behaviors when they are performed by high-LMX employees. In other words, when performing high-risk behaviors, high-LMX employees are more likely than low-LMX employees to enjoy “the benefit of the doubt.” High-risk behaviors are, therefore, more likely to translate into high-maintenance evaluations for low-LMX employees than for highLMX employees. Proposition 16. As leader-member exchange quality increases, the strength of the relationship between the behavioral risk factors and employee maintenance will decrease. Team Characteristics To illustrate the role that team factors play in evaluations of employee maintenance we invoke evidence suggesting that perceptions of focal objects may be influenced by perceptions of other objects in the ambient environment. Relevant insights regarding this phenomenon come from studies of “context” or “frog-pond” effects in the performance evaluation process. This research provides evidence that managers are inclined to undervalue average workers who have high-performing teammates and overvalue average workers who have low-performing teammates (Buckley, Villanova, & Benson, 1989; Maurer & Alexander, 1991). An explanation for this effect is that raters attend more closely to and encode in memory ratee behaviors that are inconsistent with the context in which those behaviors are executed (Woehr & Roch, 1996). Inconsistent performance information stands out to the rater and becomes the primary basis for their evaluations of focal targets. Conspicuous are the average performer’s weaknesses in a high-performing context and strengths in a low-performing context. Consequently, evaluations of the average performer are displaced away from the evaluation of the majority. We propose that similar processes come into play when managerial leaders render employee maintenance evaluations. When working in a team

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whose members have generally low or generally high-maintenance requirements, the average employee’s maintenance requirements stand out. The average employee comes across as low maintenance when everyone else is high maintenance and the average employee comes across as high maintenance when everyone else is low maintenance. This means that for a focal employee the behaviors that we have described as “high risk” are not as risky when coworkers are also performing them and an employee whose behavior amounts to average risk will be perceived as high maintenance when coworkers are not executing high-risk behaviors. These ideas are captured by the following proposition. Proposition 17. Managerial leaders are more likely to perceive employees as high maintenance when their coworkers perform fewer high-risk behaviors; managerial leaders are more likely to perceive employees as low maintenance when their coworkers are performing more high-risk behaviors.

ADDITIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEORETICAL REFINEMENT AND ELABORATION The model that we have introduced incorporates a diverse selection of literature that bears on managerial leader perceptions of employee maintenance. That said, the constructs and processes that are relevant to understanding employment relationships are many and likely transcend what we have managed to describe here. Other factors that could have roles to play in perceptions of and/or responses to employee maintenance include (1) the structure of social relationships in which leaders and employees are embedded, (2) country, organization, and unit culture, and (3) industry factors, to name a few. We therefore envision many additional ways in which our model could and should be elaborated in future theoretical and empirical work.

CONCLUDING COMMENTS A variety of players have a stake in the success of the employment relationships that develop between employees and employers. When these relationships flourish, employees experience need fulfillment and employers,

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customers, owners, and local communities benefit from organizational members’ labor. There are, however, many ways in which employment relationships derail and, when they do, the ability of organizations to satisfy the interests of its many stakeholders may be compromised. It is therefore not surprising that much scholarly attention has been paid to understanding employment relationship successes and failures. What is surprising is that this research activity has shed little light on the perspective of managerial leaders, individuals that often serve as intermediaries in employment relationships. It is with that agenda in mind that we have proposed a model that puts the emphasis on leader perceptions of employment relationships. Along with a new construct, employee maintenance, our model brings to the conversation about employment relationships diverse bodies of theory and research that are ordinarily not examined in an integrated fashion. Our model is specific in that we frame maintenance perceptions as central to understanding how employee behavior is understood and acted upon by individuals in leadership positions. At the same time we have crafted our framework in ways that invite conceptual refinement and elaboration. It is our hope that this framework will serve as a point of departure for research that puts front-and-center managerial leader perceptions of employee maintenance.

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ON THE TURNING AWAY: AN EXPLORATION OF THE EMPLOYEE RESIGNATION PROCESS Anthony C. Klotz and Ryan D. Zimmerman ABSTRACT Although a significant body of work has amassed that explores the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of employee turnover in organizations, little is known about how employees go about quitting once they have made the decision to leave. That is, after the decision to voluntarily quit their job is made, employees must then navigate through the process of planning for their exit, announcing their resignation, and potentially working at their company for weeks after their plans to resign have been made public. Our lack of understanding of the resignation process is important as how employees quit their jobs has the potential to impact the performance and turnover intentions of other organizational members, as well as to harm or benefit the reputation of the organization, overall. Moreover, voluntary turnover is likely to increase in the coming decades. In this chapter, we unpack the resignation process. Specifically, drawing from the communication literature and prior work on employee socialization, we develop a three-stage model of the resignation process that captures the activities and decisions employees face as they quit their jobs, and how individual differences may influence how they behave

Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, Volume 33, 51
119 Copyright r 2015 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited All rights of reproduction in any form reserved ISSN: 0742-7301/doi:10.1108/S0742-730120150000033004

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in each of these three stages. In doing so, we develop a foundation upon which researchers can begin to build a better understanding of what employees go through after they have decided to quit but before they have exited their organization for the final time. Keywords: Employee resignation; voluntary turnover; socialization; individual differences

On September 23, 2013, Marina Shifrin posted a video online in which she danced around her office to a Kanye West song while text along the bottom of the video explained that the 25-year-old video producer was quitting her job because her boss cared only about the quantity, not the quality, of the videos produced at her company. Marina’s resignation was widely covered by the media, and the video has been viewed by over 18 million people around the world (Walsh, 2013). One year later, on September 22, 2014, Charlo Greene
a reporter for the Alaska Dispatch News
uttered “f*** it, I quit,” on-air after reporting a story about the Alaska Cannabis Club and revealing at the end of the story that she was the president of the club and planned to dedicate herself to legalizing marijuana in Alaska (Rothkopf, 2014). Earlier that year, in March, Russia Today new anchor Liz Wahl also resigned from her job while live on-air. Like Marina, Liz took the opportunity to explain that she was abruptly leaving because she could not “be a part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin” (Gillette, 2014). As the above examples illustrate, we are at the dawn of an era in which technology allows employees’ resignations to be broadcast to a wide audience, which likely has serious implications for workers and organizations alike. Although most resignations are not recorded and made available to the public, more private scenes in which employees provide notice to their employer of their plans to quit are commonplace in organizations. In the United States alone, approximately 27,619,000 employees voluntarily quit their jobs in 2013 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Most of these organizational exits are preceded by some form of a resignation process, within which departing employees formulate plans for their departure, officially inform their organizations of their intentions to leave, and work through a notice period during which time they carry out their final duties in their tenure with a particular firm. As with any break-up, resignations can be difficult for both the resigning employee and the individual(s) receiving the news that they are being left behind.

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Given the prevalence of resignations and the potential challenges associated with them, there is a plethora of online guidance to help employees navigate this tricky process. Indeed, a Google search of the phrase “how to resign” reveals hundreds of articles offering advice to employees who are contemplating resignation but are uncertain of how to go about it. Furthermore, a cursory analysis of the content of these articles indicates that nearly all of them counsel individuals to resign in the most professional manner possible. Indeed, in an article in the Wall Street Journal, Nishi (2010) suggests that employees should be as helpful to their bosses as possible when resigning in order to leave on the best terms possible. Quast (2014) offered similar advice for Forbes Magazine, encouraging job seekers to make sure that their reputation stays intact during resignation. However, as the examples in the prior paragraph indicate, employees differ wildly in how they go about resigning from their jobs. On one hand, most people are likely motivated to try to maintain their professional reputations as they quit; on the other, resigning may be a catharsis that allows an employee to express restrained emotions, feel empowered, and regain control of their work lives. Despite the frequency of resignations in organizations and the vast amount of online guidance for employees concerning how to properly quit their job, this aspect of the employee life cycle has received scant scholarly attention. This omission seems particularly glaring given that an extraordinary amount of research has been dedicated to understanding why employees decide to leave organizations (Hom, Mitchell, Lee, & Griffeth, 2012), the process through which employees seek out new jobs (Boswell, Zimmerman, & Swider, 2012), and how new employees move from outsider to insider after they are hired (Bauer & Erdogan, 2011). Often however, after an employee’s decision to turnover has been made, alongside her job search, and before her socialization process begins anew, she will navigate the resignation process. Gaining a better understanding of the different ways in which employees go about leaving after they have made the decision to quit and what drives some to resign in a very professional manner, while others choose to leave in a more disruptive manner, is important for a number of reasons. First, the manner in which employees resign has the potential to affect organizational functioning. At a basic level, when workers provide little or no notice of their resignation, co-workers are left to take on the extra responsibilities of the departing employee until a replacement is found. Indeed, many academics have personally experienced being asked to teach an extra class in an upcoming term due to a colleague resigning on short notice. Furthermore, when employees leave, they may take knowledge, skills, and

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customer relationships with them that cannot be easily, if ever replaced (Droege & Hoobler, 2003). As such, the extent to which departing employees work in concert with the organization to ease the pain of their resignation has the potential to have a lasting imprint on organizational performance. Second, the manner in which employees resign can also affect organizational reputation in a number of ways. Employees often quit because they are dissatisfied with some aspect of their current workplace, such as unfair treatment, poor support from their supervisor, or poor pay or benefits (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). During the resignation process, when employees make their resignation intentions known, they can choose the extent to which they share their dissatisfactions with their employer and with organizational stakeholders such as customers, co-workers, and shareholders. Due to social media, the extent to which employees can disseminate this information is greater than ever. As such, the potential to harm the reputation of one’s organization during resignation is greater as well. In some instances, such as when Greg Smith posted an opinion article in the New York Times in which he explained that he was quitting at Goldman Sachs because of how poorly the company treats its customers (Smith, 2012), the damage to the organization can be severe and may require the company to take action to mitigate the reputational harm as much as possible (Owles, 2012). More commonly, however, employees make their resignations and reasons for quitting public on Facebook or LinkedIn (Burnham, 2013), or express their dissatisfactions anonymously on websites like Glassdoor.com (Lindeman, 2014). In either case, negative information about the organization is being disseminated, thereby harming its reputation in the labor market to some extent and making it more difficult to recruit talented individuals to the company in the future. Third, how employees go about departing may have implications for the turnover intentions of their co-workers. Turnover contagion refers to the process whereby employees’ intentions to quit are increased as a result of the turnover-related activities of their co-workers (Felps et al., 2009; Koslowsky, 2009). As such, the extent to which a departing employee involves his co-workers in his resignation should influence the amount of turnover contagion in the workgroup. Indeed, the “lame duck” period, during which a resigning employee has made her resignation official but has not yet left the organization, is a unique situation because it one of the only times that an employee who has publicly declared that, for one reason or another, she cannot or will not work at the organization any longer, continues to be employed by the company. During this period, it is likely

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that employees who interact with their departing co-workers will ask them why they are leaving, thereby heightening the probability that turnover contagion will spread throughout the workgroup and spillover into the rest of the organization. Fourth, some research on employee resignations indicates that the period from when the decision to turnover is made until the employee leaves the organization for the final time is an emotionally turbulent and often confusing time for departing employees. In her investigation of employee communication and sense making during resignation, Klatzke (2008) noted that resigning employees experienced anxiety before announcing their resignation and became upset when colleagues spread the word of their resignation. Employees may struggle with when and how to resign due to concerns about the opinions and actions of others, particularly their manager. Moreover, managers may also experience negative emotional reactions, such as anger, sadness, and insecurity, when they find out that one of their subordinates has decided to work for someone else. Fifth and finally, a number of trends indicate that the number of resignations that employees engage in over the course of their careers is increasing. Indeed, the literature on protean and boundary less careers suggests that rather than seeking out long careers with single organizations, employees today are more interested in finding psychological fulfillment in their careers by seeking out different challenges at different stages in their careers, often in a number of different organizations (Briscoe & Hall, 2006). Furthermore, the attitudes of the current generation entering the workforce
the Millennial generation
suggest that they will be more comfortable than prior generations with holding jobs with many different organizations over the course of their career (Alsop, 2008). In line with this observation, in his book The Alliance, Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, goes so far as to suggest that the careers of the future will involve a long string of “tours of duty” with many different organizations (Hoffman, Casnocha, & Yeh, 2014). During each tour, employees will establish a specific task and goal for their time with the company, and when it is completed, it is understood by both parties that the employees will leverage the experience and networks she has acquired to move on to another role. While job hopping was once considered “verboten” work behavior and even termed “the hobo syndrome” (Ghiselli, 1974), it appears that it now may become the norm and regarded as both entrepreneurial and smart career management. Taken together, these trends suggest that the prevalence and importance of resignations will increase in coming decades.

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As such, the goal of this chapter is to develop a framework of the resignation process in hopes of providing a foundation upon which future research can investigate the different ways in which employees voluntary leave their organizations and the causes and consequences of employee behavior during resignation. To do this, we first briefly review turnover research and the antecedents and consequences on which it has traditionally focused, in order to establish conceptual boundaries between turnover decisions and the resignation process. Then, we review the small amount of existing literature that has examined some aspect of employee resignations. We then introduce a three-stage model of the resignation process. In describing the activities embedded within each stage of employee resignations, we explore the different ways employees may behave in each, and discuss the implications of this behavior for resigning employees, their supervisors and co-workers, and their organizations. In addition, we examine the extent to which individual differences may play a role in how employees behave in each stage of the resignation process.

VOLUNTARY TURNOVER A great deal of prior work has investigated various aspects of the separation of employees from their organization. Most notably, the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of voluntary employee turnover have been heavily studied (e.g., Griffeth et al., 2000; Lee, Mitchell, Wise, & Fireman, 1996; Mobley, Griffeth, Hand, & Meglino, 1979). In addition, some turnover scholars (e.g., Lee & Mitchell, 1994; Mobley, 1977) have focused on examining the process by which employees choose to leave organizations, with typical turnover processes including feelings of job dissatisfaction, intentions to quit, job search behaviors, and actual turnover. Furthermore, involuntary turnover, resulting from layoffs or terminations (e.g., Barrick, Mount, & Strauss, 1994; Brockner, Grover, Reed, DeWitt, & O’Malley, 1987; Cox & Kramer, 1995; Rousseau & Anton, 1991), has also received significant scholarly attention. Despite the significant amount of scholarly work on employee separation, one part of this phenomenon that has rarely been investigated is the process through which employees exit voluntarily from the organization (Jablin, 2001). This is noteworthy, because whenever employees choose to switch careers, start an entrepreneurial venture, or become a full-time caretaker of a family member, they typically engage in a resignation process.

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Resignation occurs after the decision to quit has been made, and during this time, employees choose the manner in which they will separate themselves from their employer. Put another way, once employees decide to exit their organizations, they must make a number of decisions that will affect precisely how they will resign. Although no turnover model explicitly includes or discusses the process that occurs between when one decides to leave and when he or she actually leaves the organization, a few models have implicitly referred to this process. In his 1977 model, Mobley noted that some people engage in impulsive quitting (i.e., those who do not engage in a job search and therefore do not have an alternative job offer in hand when they depart) and do not traverse all the steps of his proposed ten-step model that begins with employees’ negative evaluations of their current job and ends with employee turnover. These impulsive quitters essentially bypass half of the steps in Mobley’s model. Specifically, such employees do not intend to seek alternative employment, and so they do not even attempt to evaluate the expected utility of job-seeking, actually search for alternative jobs, evaluate the alternatives, or compare the alternatives with the current position (Mobley, 1977). At a minimum, this acknowledged that there may be differences in how individuals progress through their decisions to leave until they “walk out the door.” Expanding upon this idea in their unfolding model of turnover, Lee and Mitchell (1994) explicated multiple turnover decision paths in which employees may engage, including some that may result in impulsive quitting. Interestingly, in contrast to Mobley’s Linkages Model, Lee and Mitchell’s Unfolding Model ends in the employee’s decision to quit rather than actual quitting. Although this difference seems subtle (and, perhaps, not material to some), it is an important distinction. The decision to quit is not the same as actually leaving the organization. While intentions to quit have long been distinguished from actual turnover, in part due to the moderate correlation between the two (ρ = .45, Griffeth et al., 2000), separating decisions to leave and actually leaving is critical because of the psychological and social processes that happen in the interim, along with the potential consequences that can develop during this period for both the employee and the organization. Along these lines, two other streams of turnover research are particularly relevant. The first is Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablynski, and Erez’s (2001) theory of job embeddedness. A core tenet of this theory is that employees develop a number of links to those inside and outside the organization and these relationships can embed people within their job and therefore make it more difficult for them to voluntarily leave. Moreover,

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this idea certainly implies that if one decides to leave, there may be a number of people within the organization to inform (or keep in the dark) about the impending departure. This issue associated with embeddedness is a key concept in the resignation process, as Tan and Kramer (2012) pointed out that employees must decide whether or not to confide in co-workers or friends and family regarding their decision to resign. Kramer (2010) noted that they must also choose how many weeks of notice to give their employer and how to go about informing their supervisor that they are quitting. The second area of research important to our understanding of resignation is the idea of turnover contagion. Felps et al. (2009) found that coworkers’ embeddedness and job search behavior predicted an employee’s turnover behavior beyond his or her own work-related attitudes and embeddedness. A relevant follow-up question is that although an embedded employee may be less likely to leave in general, once a highly embedded employee decides to leave perhaps this embeddedness would actually increase co-workers’ turnover. That is, one could surmise that as the number of links with others within the organization grows, so too will the number of people who could be “infected” with the turnover bug. Another area of the turnover literature that has implications for the resignation process is research focused on the relationship between job performance and turnover. In their 2000 meta-analysis, Griffeth and colleagues found a true score correlation of
.19 between performance and turnover, implying that higher performers were less likely to leave. However, some research has identified a more complex relationship between the two constructs. For example, multiple researchers have found a curvilinear relationship between performance and turnover such that both poor performers and high performers are equally likely to leave (e.g., Jackofsky, 1984; Salamin & Hom, 2005; Trevor, Gerhart, & Boudreau, 1997). In terms of the resignation process, Jablin (2001) suggested that, once employees give their notice, they must determine how much effort to put into their task performance, extra-role behaviors, and activities such as training their replacement, in the final days and weeks of their job. Although researchers have sometimes acknowledged that these decisions must be made, prior research has not systematically examined the resignation process. As a result, we know little about the issues and decisions facing employees who have decided to resign from their jobs. Likewise, we do not have a good understanding of what may drive employees to resign in ways that are more constructive, more destructive, and so forth. An interesting implication of “short-timer’s syndrome” is that

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if employees do start to diminish their performance before they leave, this could affect the results of either academic or practitioner analyses regarding the relationship between the performance and turnover of who is leaving the organization. That is, if traditionally high-performing employees reduce their effort well enough in advance of their organizational exit (e.g., 6
12 months or more), this could give a false impression that poor performers are leaving when in actuality historically good performers are leaving who happened to show diminished effort toward the end of their job tenure. With many employees deciding to leave 6
12 months before they actually do (Hom & Griffeth, 1995), this reinforces this concern and need for research on the topic. Moreover, these time frames may be even further stretched out when it is more difficult to find alternative employment, which may coincide with the same environmental conditions in which firm performance is declining and organizations are least able to handle lower productivity and other bad behavior from employees. Finally, human resources practices embedded within the separation process, such as exit interviews, have also been investigated in prior research. While organizational researchers have used exit interview data as the basis for coding types of employee turnover for decades (e.g., avoidable vs. unavoidable; Abelson, 1987), some turnover researchers have used it for more intricate research designs, including anonymity effects on employee selfdisclosure as to why they are leaving (Feldman & Klaas, 1999), authenticity of information provided by employees (Gordon, 2011), effectiveness of different exit interview methods (Hinrichs, 1975), and understanding the effect of shocks on employee turnover decisions (Kulik, Treuren, & Bordia, 2012). This research points to other relevant topics for departing employees and organizational leaders during the resignation process, such as motivational differences in providing (in)accurate reasons for departure, the consequences of how supervisors and human resource professionals interact with departing employees and vice versa, and how exit interview information should be used by organizations, managers, and human resources personnel. All of these topics will be explored further throughout the remainder of this chapter.

PRIOR TREATMENT OF THE RESIGNATION PROCESS As shown in Table 1, the act of leaving one’s organization has been more directly explored, to some extent, in several different literatures, including

Author(s) (Year)

Literature

Prior Investigations of Employee Resignation. Type

Methodology

Communication

Book chapter

Conceptual

Jablin (2001)

Communication

Book chapter

Conceptual

Klatzke (2008)

Communication

Empirical study

Qualitative

Lee et al. (1996)

Management

Empirical study

Qualitative

Maertz and Campion (2004)

Management

Empirical study

Quantitative

Maertz and Kmitta (2012)

Management

Empirical study

Quantitative

Ashforth (2001)

Management

Book chapter

Conceptual

Implications for Understanding Resignations Resignation is a three-phase process, comprising preannouncement, announcement, and exit Resignation is the final phase of the socialization process. In addition to pre-announcement, announcement, and exit, discussed post-exit as part of the resignation process During preannouncement, resigning employees discuss their plans with many different parties. Departing employees provide different accounts of their reasons for departure to different parties Even within the same industry, there is a great deal of variance in the amount of time individuals spend contemplating their resignation, and how much notice time they provide The extent to which employees have a plan for quitting and their attitudes toward the organization influence how they quit their jobs. Notably, those with high negative effect often impulsively quit, with no advanced planning or notice Employees who resigned impulsively, with no advanced planning, typically did so because of a negative shock to their work life Discusses the difficulties associated with role withdrawal during organizational exit. Because one’s identity is often tied to his/her role at work, resignation can be an emotional and confusing time, similar to many rites of passage in life

ANTHONY C. KLOTZ AND RYAN D. ZIMMERMAN

Kramer (2010)

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Table 1.

Communication

Empirical study

Qualitative

LaFarge (1994)

Psychology

Empirical study

Qualitative

Ebaugh (1988)

Sociology

Book

Conceptual

Developed a model of planned organizational exit within which individuals advance through three stages. First, they focus on the future, then the present, then the past and the future as they exit the organization for the final time Voluntary exiters experienced a wide range of emotions during the resignation process, including both negative feelings, such as anxiety and fear, and positive emotions, such as relief and excitement Developed a model of role exit, involving four stages: first doubts, seeking and weighing alternatives, the turning point, and the creation of an ex-role

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Davis and Myers (2012)

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sociology, communication, psychology, and management. In her book, Becoming an Ex, Sociologist Helen Ebaugh coined the term role exit to describe, “the process of disengagement from a role that is central to one’s self-identity and the reestablishment of an identity in a new role that takes into account one’s ex-role” (1988, p. 1). Based on interviews with 185 people who had exited social roles (including occupational roles), as well as her own experiences of leaving her prior role as a Catholic nun, Ebaugh (1988) proposed that role exits comprise of four distinct stages
first doubts, seeking and weighing alternatives, the turning point, and creating an exrole. As such, Ebaugh’s model of role exit encompasses the entire social process of role exit, from the initial thoughts of turnover through the adoption of a new role after exit is complete. Ashforth (2001) elaborated on Ebaugh’s (1988) model, describing how the initial doubts preceding the role exit are often caused by epiphanies, such as disappointments, personal or professional milestones, or psychological changes. In discussing the different emotions that individuals experience while seeking and weighing alternatives to their current role, Ashforth noted the importance of personal networks and social support in one’s decision whether or not to exit. The consideration of alternatives ends at a turning point, when leavers make their final decision to quit. This stage is akin to an employee making a firm decision to leave her job. In many cases, role exit follows relatively shortly thereafter, often accompanied by some sort of separation ritual. Finally, role exit continues even after employees have physically separated themselves from their prior role. During the exrole creation phase, individuals come to grips with no longer being a part of their prior workplace (Ashforth, 2001; Ebaugh, 1988). Similar to Ebaugh (1988) and Ashforth (2001), communication scholars have also sought to organize the process of exiting one’s organization into a set of phases. Uniquely though, these researchers conceptualized the resignation process as the final stage of the employee life-span developmental process following organizational entry and then assimilation (Jablin, 1987; Kramer, 2010). Jablin (2001) referred to the final phase of employee socialization as disengagement or exit and divided it into three sub-phases
preannouncement, announcement of exit and actual exit, and post-exit. From a communication perspective, preannouncement involves the sending of signals to other organizational members of one’s impending disengagement. These signals may be overt or concealed, and departing employees may receive feedback from the targets of their signal concerning their resignation plans. For example, an employee may intentionally not hide online job search activities from her cubicle mate,

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thereby prompting her co-worker to ask her if she is dissatisfied and thinking of leaving. Similar to when people voice suicidal thoughts, overt signaling behavior may, in fact, be a purposeful feedback-seeking mechanism seeking confirmation or denial from others as to whether or not the employee should leave the organization. In other words, an employee may be seeking validation from co-workers and managers that the person is a valued member of the organization. According to Jablin (2001), preannouncement ends when employees make their resignation public. The resignation announcement is, therefore, the start of a period in which news of an employee’s resignation spreads throughout the organization, the employee openly discusses his post-exit plans, and rituals may take place marking the departure from the organization. Following physical separation from the organization, post-exit begins. During this time, departed employees begin the next phase of their work lives, while their past co-workers deal with the challenges associated with the professional and social losses caused by the departure (Jablin, 2001). In her dissertation, Klatzke (2008) empirically examined employee communication during the three phases of organizational exit. Throughout the investigation, she found evidence that a great deal of variance in attitudes, emotions, and behaviors among employees during the onboarding process is also present during resignation. For example, Klatzke’s (2008) findings indicate that, as predicted by Jablin (2001), preannouncement is often filled with communication from employees to their co-workers, friends, and families concerning their intentions to resign. Not only did employees vary in the extent to which they sent resignation signals to others but also the responses of those they informed, including their boss, were met with a wide range of reactions, from shock to disinterest. Similar to the findings of Lee et al. (1996), the amount of time that employees worked following their formal resignation announcement ranged from months to immediate departure (Klatzke, 2008). During the time from when they announced their resignation until they physically departed for the final time, employees also provide different accounts regarding their reason for leaving depending on the target of the message. For example, while employees may tell coworkers that they are leaving due to poor leadership from their manager, they may tell their manager that they are leaving for higher pay. Overall, Klatzke’s (2008) work provides an empirical support to anecdotal evidence of employees’ approach and progress through voluntary resignations in many different ways. More recently, Davis and Myers (2012) developed their model of planned organizational exit based on their analysis of the experiences of 31

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departing sorority members. Since all of the members entered the sorority knowing that they would depart when they graduated, planned organizational exits differ from resignations in general, in that they involve a predefined exit date. Nonetheless, Davis and Myers (2012) found that this type of exit also involved a series of stages that share a number of similarities with the exit models discussed previously. In the first stage, leavers focused on the future, but as departure got closer, they began to focus more squarely on their experiences in the present moment. During the actual separation, leavers vacillated between reminiscing about the past while at the same time looking forward to the next phase of their lives. In this way, this model once again captures how individuals bounce between feeling nostalgic and excited during their departures. However, despite this process not reflecting the resignation process of most of the current workforce, if Hoffman et al. (2014) predictions regarding the future workforce come true (as discussed previously), this process may become more generalizable over time. In one qualitative study in the psychology literature, LaFarge (1994) noted that the emotional ambivalence that exiters felt throughout all phases of their departure was the defining quality of the resignation process. He found that how employees experienced their organizational exits was quite different from how most of them imagined how it would go. That is, resigning employees tended to anticipate experiencing positive emotions during resignation; however, they often ended up feeling the tension of conflicting emotions in regard to leaving behind their co-workers and friends and their confidence in their post-exit plans. Simply put, the resignation process tended to have a much more profound emotional impact on employees than they anticipated.

A MODEL OF THE RESIGNATION PROCESS As indicated by prior qualitative work investigating role and organizational exits, people pass through a number of stages as they separate themselves from a previously meaningful part of their life. Furthermore, theoretical work on relationship dissolution, in general, has traditionally conceptualized the interpersonal break-up process using stage models as well (Rollie & Duck, 2006). As such, it seems appropriate to also cast the specific process of how employees voluntarily separate themselves from their jobs as a stage model. In doing so, we believe that not only can the limited

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prior work on individual exits guide our theorizing, but also the rich stream of literature focusing on the socialization process. As discussed previously, Jablin (1987, 2001) argued that organizational exit was the final phase of the socialization process. However, management scholars typically associate socialization with organizational entry, not exit (Wanberg, 2012). In developing a model of employee resignation, we viewed the process of resignation through the lens of existing theoretical models of employee entry. That is, if socialization has been defined as the metamorphosis from outsider to insider (Van Maanen, 1975), employees’ transitions out of organizations may be able to be viewed in a similar light
the process of passing back through the boundaries of the organization and becoming an outsider once again. The theoretical foundation of employee socialization is grounded in the idea that employees tend to pass through three phases as they move from organizational outsiders to participating members (Feldman, 1981). The first phase takes place after employees decide to join a company, but before they formally start their jobs. During this time, employees anticipate what working for an organization will be like and mentally prepare for organizational entry. Next, employees physically encounter the workplace when they start their jobs (Van Maanen, 1975). During the encounter stage, employees grapple with the tension between expressing their true selves and resolving any conflicts this creates with their new coworkers and roles (Cable, Gino, & Staats, 2013). Finally, newcomers resolve this tension, both by mastering their jobs and becoming socially assimilated with their co-workers (Fang, Duffy, & Shaw, 2011; Feldman, 1981). As shown in Fig. 1, we propose that resignation can be viewed as a three-stage model, similar to the socialization process. During the formulation stage and akin to the anticipatory phase of socialization, employees who have decided to exit the organization prepare for making their intentions publicly known and for life after their organizational exit. Then, in the announcement stage, employees declare their resignation and deal with news of their resignation spreading throughout their personal and professional networks. Finally, employees navigate the notice stage, during which time they must work and finish their time in an organization that knows of their imminent departure. As shown in our model, in each phase, employees encounter a number of decisions and engage in a number of behaviors in each stage of the resignation process. Next, we describe each stage of the overall resignation process and discuss what employees experience when they pass through each stage.

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Formulation Stage

Announcement Stage

The Notice Stage

Confiding in others • Family • Personal friends • Customers/suppliers • Coworkers • Managers • Mentor • No one

Target of message • Manager • Human resources representative • Other organizational leaders • Subordinates • Third party

Changes in performance • Task performance • Contextual performance

Gathering information • Confidants • Prior resignations • Internet • Company policy • Future employer • Industry norms

Announcement setting • Communication medium • Timing • Place

Impact on others • Team • Subordinates • Supervisor • Farewell messages

Announcement meeting • Formal letter • Reason for resigning • Emotions expressed

Counterproductive workplace behaviors

Miscellaneous activities • Financial preparation • Use of accrued time off • Job search • Resignation letter • Workspace preparation • Membership usage

Voicing behavior • Organizational impact • Exit interviews

Remaining engaged

Receiver’s reaction • Emotions expressed • Negotiation/acceptance of notice period • Counteroffer

Fig. 1.

A Process Model of the Resignation Process.

THE FORMULATION STAGE The formulation stage comprises of the time from when employees make the decision to leave until they formally announce their resignation. Prior research suggests that for some employees, the formulation period may last for months (Klatzke, 2008), whereas in the case of employees who quit impulsively, this stage is nearly nonexistent (Maertz & Campion, 2004). As such, the activities employees engage in during this time likely vary considerably depending on the individual and his or her personal and professional situation. The decision to leave may come before or after employees have found alternative employment (or non-work callings such as returning to school or raising a child), with some employees becoming dissatisfied enough to decide to definitively leave before finding a new job, while other employees will go through the job search process not having made a firm decision about their departure until after locating a suitable alternative. Nonetheless, Klatzke’s (2008) work suggests that two of the most prominent activities that resigning employees engage in during the formulation stage is confiding in others regarding their resignation plans and gathering information from a number of sources to not only facilitate the planning of

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their exit but also to prepare for the transition period between their current job and whatever they do next, and perhaps even to begin the anticipatory socialization period for their next role. Below, we discuss these confiding and information-gathering activities in further detail, before exploring a number of other relevant endeavors employees undertake prior to formally announcing their resignation. We finish this section with an exploration of how individual differences may affect an employee’s decisions and behaviors during the formulation stage.

Confiding in Others Klatzke (2008) found that before formally announcing their resignation, employees often shared news of their impending organizational exit with their family, friends, co-workers, managers, customers, and potential employers. It is unclear, however, what employees seek to gain from confiding in each of these parties. As such, we more deeply consider why and when employees will confide in each of these groups, as well as consider why some employees choose not to preemptively disclose their plans to leave their company with anyone. Family As we have discussed, the resignation process is an emotional journey for employees; therefore, it is likely that they will look to those close to them for support as they exit their organization. For resigning employees, confiding in their family members may be particularly constructive for a few reasons. On a basic level, family members can provide employees with a crucial source of emotional support throughout their careers (Wayne, Randel, & Stevens, 2006). In addition, it is likely that one’s resignation will impact his or her significant others in a number of ways, and thus during (and before) nearly every formulation stage, employees who plan to resign will likely have a number of conversations with their significant others to discuss their impending career transition. Furthermore, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the individuals, making up the current generation, entering the workforce are more likely than those before them to live with their parents early in their careers (Safdar, 2013). Hence, it may be more common now for resigning employees to confide in their parents or siblings regarding their resignation to secure housing or other types of financial support after resigning, or to make sure that if they cannot find another

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job in a reasonable amount of time after quitting, that they have a safety net in terms of a place to live. Personal Friends As with family members, employees may disclose their resignation plans to personal friends in order to receive emotional support as well as to potentially make housing and financial arrangements for their transition to their next job. For many individuals who resign, personal friends may play an important role in their job search behaviors as well. That is, in cases in which employees seek to keep their job search secret, they must conduct their job search using only those in their network whom they trust. So, personal friends may play a particularly important role in helping individuals pass through the formulation stage by assisting their friends in securing employment. This will likely be especially true when employees do not have family members living nearby, in which case employees’ personal network of friends provide one of the most extensive sources of potential job leads. Customers and Suppliers Employees may share their resignation plans with their business partners outside of their organization for a number of reasons. In some cases, when professionals have developed particularly close relationships with their business partners, they will likely want to ensure that their relationship will be preserved, from a personal standpoint, after the business partnership dissolves. In other cases, resigning employees may hope to maintain their transaction-based ties with their customers and suppliers in order to take advantage of them in their next role, such as when one is going to work for a competitor. In fact, sharing news of one’s departure with a business partner may be seen as a proactive act of trust that deepens the relationship further (Weber, Malhotra, & Murnighan, 2004). Of course, such continued professional relationships may be affected by non-compete agreements signed by the employees during their hiring process (Samila & Sorenson, 2011). Similar to why employees disclose their plans to quit with their friends, employees may inform those with whom they closely work external to the company of their resignation as a job search tactic if the employees have yet to find alternative employment. Indeed, customers and suppliers can provide a nontraditional, but effective, source of recruits for companies because these individuals have already been deeply exposed to the organization and the organization has been able to observe these individuals’ jobrelated behaviors (Ferna´ndez-Ara´oz, Groysberg, & Nohria, 2009). As such,

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for employees seeking work within their current industry, informing business partners of their upcoming resignation may be a particularly shrewd move. Alternatively, some organizational clients may initiate discussions about the employees working for the client firms. Regardless of who begins the employment-related conversations, such discussions are not without risk. Clearly, when employees inform external stakeholders of their resignation prior to informing their organization, they risk this information being leaked, which in some cases could lead to immediate dismissal particularly if the employees are perceived as trying to steal their current employers’ customers. Employees are likely much more cautious, then, when they inform their professional contacts of their resignation during the formulation stage than when they inform their personal contacts. Co-workers Like sharing resignation plans with customers and suppliers and letting one’s co-workers of his or her intentions to resign are also likely viewed as quite risky by resigning employees. Simply put, co-workers may be more loyal to the organization and other co-workers than to the resigning employee (Chen, Tsui, & Farh, 2002), and may choose to pass along their knowledge of their peer’s plans to quit to a manager, thereby disrupting the resignation process. Certainly, co-workers may want to share gossip with others, curry favor with management, or exhibit their loyalty to the organization by sharing employees’ departure plans (Grosser, LopezKidwell, & Labianca, 2010; Kurland & Pelled, 2000; Waddington, 2012). However, there are a number of good reasons that employees confide in coworkers, beyond reasons we have already discussed, such as emotional support and access to networks. First, for departing employees in the midst of the job search, current co-workers can serve as professional references or sources of letters of recommendations that are often required to apply at other jobs (Wanberg, Kanfer, & Banas, 2000). Second, co-workers are likely the employees whose job duties are most negatively impacted when their colleagues quit their jobs. Thus, resigning employees may be especially motivated to prepare their co-workers for the disruption and potentially increased workload that may result from the resignation. By informing their co-workers of their plans, resigning employees may be able to strategize with their colleagues regarding a way to manage the resignation in such a way that it is minimally impactful to the remaining employees’ work life. Employees may also engage co-workers in conversations about the upcoming departure in an attempt to receive validation from others that it is the right course of action.

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Third and finally, in instances in which employees are resigning to work for another company or to begin an entrepreneurial venture, they may inform co-workers of their plans to quit in order to convince them to join them in their next role (Somaya, Williamson, & Lorinkova, 2008). For example, a manager who has an exceptional administrative assistant, or a professor with a cherished doctoral student, may inform the subordinate of his or her intentions to resign during the formulation period in hopes of convincing the person to follow. On a peer level, an attorney who is leaving one firm to join another may be encouraged by her future employer to offer one of her productive colleagues a job as well. In these cases, resigning employees may intentionally induce turnover intentions in a co-worker in order to convince him or her to make the transition to a new organizational role alongside them. Manager Managers often invest an extraordinary amount of time and energy in their subordinates, resulting in deep, meaningful relationships between the two parties (Liden, Sparrowe, & Wayne, 1997). Workers who have close relationships with their supervisor are more committed to their organization and they also tend to engage in more behaviors that benefit the organization and less that harm it than those with weaker supervisor
subordinate ties (Dulebohn, Bommer, Liden, Brouer, & Ferris, 2012). It is likely that when workers feel a tight bond with their manager, they will seek to minimize the harm done to their relationship resulting from their resignation. As such, when employees decide to quit, those who are especially loyal to their boss may feel particularly compelled to informally confide in their manager regarding their plans to leave prior to formally resigning. In doing so, they may also be able to access more instrumental outcomes of bringing their boss in the loop regarding their organization exit, such as his or her professional network and the provision of a positive reference to assist with their current job search or future job search activities. Mentor In describing the final phase of the mentoring process
redefinition
Kram (1983) explained that what was once a purely professional relationship between the mentor and mentee transitions to one that is primarily personal in nature. In many instances, the decision to quit one’s job is also a decision to launch the redefinition phase with one’s mentor. Employees who are embedded in mentoring relationships that have lasted for over a few years have often benefitted from the sponsorship, coaching, and

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protection that the mentor has provided them (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz, & Lima, 2004). As such, these mentees will likely feel some sense of obligation to keep their mentor informed of their career plans, in part because one of the main functions of mentoring is to facilitate the mentee’s career success (Ragins, Cotton, & Miller, 2000). In addition to taking advantage of mentors’ professional networks for job search purposes (Fagenson, 1989), then, resigning employees may feel normative pressure to informally share their decision to exit their organization with their mentor during the formulation phase. Mentors may also be able to provide invaluable advice on how to best announce the impending departure. Although, as described above, preemptively sharing resignation news with other organizational members is not without risk for many employees, the personal motives and professional benefits of informing one’s mentor of his or her resignation plan will probably outweigh the potential downsides of doing so. Nondisclosure Despite the many potential benefits described above concerning disclosing one’s resignations plans to other during the formulation period, employees may nonetheless choose to share their resignation with no one (or no one beyond family) prior to formally announcing it to their employer. In case of impulsively quitting, in which employees quit with little or no notice to their employer (Maertz & Campion, 2004; Maertz & Kmitta, 2012), they may not have or take the time to tell anyone else. In other cases, they may simply feel that they owe their employer the right to tell it about their intention to quit before anyone else. Finally, employees with few close friends, co-workers, or family members will not have the potential to access the benefits of confiding in others described above. Resigning employees may also choose not to tell anyone about their plans to resign when their post-resignation plans involve something highly unpopular or controversial, such as going to work for a despised competitor or starting a new business that will compete with the resigning employee’s existing organization. When an employee’s departure poses a threat to his or her organization in this manner, exposure of the employee’s future plans could elicit retaliation on behalf of the organization that could not only result in immediate termination, but could also result in harm to the departing employee’s future business success. For example, if an architect is leaving her company to begin her own firm and her company found out about it prematurely, the company could offer large discounts to all of its customers for not switching to the departing employee’s new firm. In doing so, her nascent venture could be irreparably damaged. In sum, when the

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potential for damage to one’s future career or business endeavor is high, employees should be motivated to not share their plans to depart with anyone until they formally announce it.

Gathering Information As described earlier, the two central activities in the formulation stage are confiding in others and gathering information concerning how to resign. Unlike more regularly occurring organizational processes, the resignation process may only occur a handful of times over the course of one’s career. Moreover, the resignation process is likely to differ considerably depending on a number of factors such as why the employee is quitting, the employee’s position in the company and how much responsibility he or she holds, and whether or not the employee will be easy to replace or not. As such, even when employees have engaged in multiple resignations, they may still struggle with aspects of a new resignation that they have not encountered before. Thus, most resigning employees will engage in some degree of information seeking to help formulate their resignation strategy, even if they have resigned from a number of prior jobs as announcing their resignation to their current organization and manager may need to be handled differently than past resignation announcements. Next, we consider the different sources from which employees may gather information during the formulation phase, and discuss when and why employees will choose to use these sources to help guide their actions during and after they give their formal resignation notice. Advice from Those Confided in As discussed in the previous section, employees often confide in others prior to making their resignation public in order to receive emotional support, facilitate their job search, prepare others for their departure, and so forth. In discussing their resignation with others during the formulation stage, it is likely that departing employees’ confidants will ask them, “How are you going to resign?” In these instances, employees will also probably take the opportunity to seek or accept feedback concerning their resignation plans. The advice of those who have prior resignation experience should be especially helpful to departing employees, as should those who work at the same organization as the employee. In these discussions, employees should be able to gather input concerning the best way to resign, in general, how many days, weeks, or months, of notice to give; how to

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write a resignation letter; and how to deliver the news to one’s boss or human resources department. Family and friends outside of the organization may provide useful general information regarding how to resign. However, caution is urged in automatically taking resignation advice from friends, as their individual differences may yield some less-than-professional suggestions. Conversely, the most useful information will likely come from those within the boundaries of the organization, especially those with a long tenure with the organization. As such, another benefit of confiding in others regarding one’s resignation plans during the formulation stage is the ability to collect close co-workers’ theories of the optimal way to resign from the employee’s particular organization and particular supervisor. Indeed, Kram and Isabella (1985) found that many employees have one or two “special peers” in their organizations with whom they can express their most intimate personal and professional dilemmas. These “best friends” at work may be able to provide particularly useful feedback to employees as they plan their resignation. In sum, unlike many of the other sources of information that employees may draw upon during formulation, co-workers, bosses, and mentors are probably the richest and most useful sources of guidance for departing employees. Prior Resignation Experience According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly one in five Americans in the workforce voluntarily quit their jobs every year. Accordingly, many employees who resign will have done so before, perhaps multiple times. When employees who have quit before plan for another resignation, then, they should draw on their prior experiences of what went well and what went poorly in their past departures. For example, an employee may have given two months’ notice in a previous resignation in order to leave her former employer on the best note possible, only to discover that eight weeks was far too long to work at a job while the entire rest of the organization is aware that she is leaving due to the awkwardness it created. In her next resignation, then, she may stick to a shorter notice period. In a personal example, one of the authors felt terribly uncomfortable attending faculty meetings during the seven months between when he announced he was leaving and his actual day of departure. Indeed, employees may not fully understand the best way to plan for this “lame duck” period until they have lived through it a few times. As such, those who have resigned multiple times can use their knowledge of this period to much more effectively plan for their resignation than those who are resigning for the first time. In

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addition, employees can draw on their prior experience to help determine the most appropriate means of formally delivering their resignation news to their superior. If, in past resignations, a worker has successfully written a resignation letter and delivered news of his exit to his boss, he will likely employ similar strategies the next time he resigns. Alternatively, if prior resignations went poorly, he can use a different strategy to perform better. Organizational members may also inhabit a position in which they are privy to the resignation processes of other workers in the company. Most notably, employees often deliver news of their resignation to their manager; consequently, over time, those in managerial roles will experience firsthand the resignations of a number of their subordinates. Human resource professionals are also often involved when employees quit (Giacalone & Duhon, 1991), and so they too will accumulate knowledge of the most and least effective ways to resign based on professional experience. Collectively then, experienced managers and human resources professionals will have much deeper well of experience to draw upon and inform their resignation strategy. Internet As stated in the introduction of this chapter, part of the motivation for this work is to complement the tremendous amount of online advice for employees concerning how to resign with nearly no scholarly evidence to back it up. Given the apparent need for, and popularity of, guidance to voluntarily departing employees, many individuals likely include an internet search of how to resign as part of their resignation planning process. A nonsystematic investigation of the content of web pages that offer advice concerning how to resign reveals that employees can find online information pertaining to almost every aspect of the resignation process. Indeed, online guidance often covered how to write a resignation letter, how to avoid burning bridges, how much notice to give, how to deal with one’s boss’ reaction, how to deal with a counteroffer, how to finish or transfer one’s current workload to others, and what to say in the exit interview (e.g., Green, 2013; Ryan, 2014; Spiro, 2014). Given the extent of the internet-based treatment that resignation has received, it stands to reason that employees with little or no resignation experience and those who are unable to confide in other organizational members during the formulation stage will be particularly likely to rely on internet sources for guidance concerning how to quit their job. There is another source of information available online for individuals who are planning their resignation other than articles offering opinions

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concerning how to leave a job. Indeed, whereas most online articles offering resignation advice urge employees not to burn bridges while resigning, as the opening story in this chapter illustrates, it is becoming increasingly common for departing employees to quit their job in a very public, bridgeburning manner. In another example, Joey DeFrancesco resigned from his job at Renaissance Hotels by handing his boss a resignation letter while a marching band played a celebratory song, and then posting a video of the ordeal on YouTube (Grinberg, 2011). By viewing these videos and reading stories from the media reacting to these public resignations, employees can gather ideas regarding how to embarrass or harm their organization or their supervisor during their resignation process. As such, the internet provides guidance not only about constructive ways in which to tender one’s resignation, but also how to resign in ways that are more destructive in nature. In fact, it appears that some attention seekers may attempt to one-up existing resignations available online by recording and sharing even more outrageous resignation announcements.

Company Policy According to the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), organizations should include a formal resignation policy as part of their employee manual. In addition, SHRM suggests that this policy should not only stipulate an appropriate length of resignation notice and request the resignation in writing, but that it should also explain a number of other details concerning the employee’s obligation in the event of resignation. For example, a resignation policy should include the company’s right to pay the employee for the notice period rather than having him or her serve it, whether or not the employee will be eligible for rehire at some future time, the time and place of an exit interview, if any, and a request for the employee’s forwarding address and how final pay and benefits will be handled. Many of these items provide answers to questions that employees have once they decide to resign, and therefore if they have access to it, employees will likely consult the resignation section of their employee manual to ensure they will follow their company’s policies and procedures when they resign. Of course, in some cases, employees may not have easy access to their employer’s resignation policy, and asking for it from their manager, co-workers, or human resources representative could alert these parties to the resigning employee’s intentions. As such, in those cases, employees would have to rely on other sources for information concerning their organization’s requirements surrounding voluntary turnover.

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Future Employer Much of the online advice concerning resignation advises individuals not to resign from their current job until they have secured employment somewhere else (e.g., Spiro, 2014). When resigning employees do have another job lined up, the relationship that they would like to establish with that organization’s members may influence the manner in which employees quit their existing job. Consider the case of an employee who looks for another job after he decides to resign, but before giving formal notice of resignation to his current job. Upon securing a new job, his future manager asks him if he can start work the following Monday. In this event, the employee may decide that it is more important to impress his new boss than provide the appropriate resignation notice to his current employer. In this way, future employment considerations may influence the exit from one’s present organization. In other cases, future employers may view the manner in which employees resign from their prior jobs as indicative of the type of employees they are, overall. In those cases, the future employer will want some evidence that the employee departed his or her prior job in a respectful manner. In fact, if the future employer becomes aware of an incoming employee’s unprofessional resignation, the employer could withdraw the job offer assuming a binding contract is not in place. In sum, employees may gather some information concerning how they should resign from their future employer’s signals considering how to treat their current resignation.

Industry Norms The norms of the industry in which the organization operates should also influence how employees resign. For instance, whereas 2 weeks or less notice may be standard in many industries (Woodward, 2007), it would be quite unusual for a tenured faculty member in a business school to leave without giving more than a few months of notice to his or her academic institution (although it nonetheless still happens). On the other hand, in the professional sports arena, it is not uncommon for coaches to announce that they have accepted a new coaching job and depart almost immediately, with no notice period. For example, shortly after the final game of the 2014 football season, Oregon State University football coach Mike Riley announced that he had accepted a new job as coach at the University of Nebraska. He informed his players the same day, and left for his new job at Nebraska the following morning (Sherman, 2012). During the formulation stage, then, employees are likely to consider what is the appropriate

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notice period length partly based on what the norm is in his or her particular industry.

Other Relevant Formulation Stage Activities In addition to confiding in others regarding their resignation intentions and seeking information concerning how to formulate a resignation strategy, employees may also go through a number of “housekeeping” activities to prepare themselves to exit the organization. Below, we present and discuss these activities. Financial Preparation When employees leave their organization, they may or may not still be owed financial compensation for things like vacation time, stock options, pension, year-end bonuses, and retirement-plan vesting. Furthermore, while some of these entitlements may be legally owed to the departing employee, others, such as whether to pro-rate an employee’s annual incentive or pay it out in full, may be up to the organization’s discretion. Moreover, while a minority of employees may hire an attorney to determine exactly how much is owed (Goffe, 2012), others are likely to depend on the organization’s interpretation of their employment agreements to calculate this for them. Most employees will ostensibly be motivated to recover as much of their money tied up in employer benefits and incentives as they can, and will therefore attempt to resign in a manner that preserves as much as the financial benefits owed to them as possible (i.e., not burn bridges). In this regard, employees may adjust their resignation strategy to accommodate for the maximum accrual of financial benefits upon their departure. Consider the case of an employee who has decided to quit after working for an organization for 4.5 years in an organization in which the employermatched portion of employees’ 401k retirement fund do not fully vest (i.e., become guaranteed) until employees have worked at the firm for five years. In this case, the employee may stall her resignation plans for six months, until she can collect all of the funds in her 401,000 when she leaves. Somewhat relatedly, employees’ retirement fund accounts are often managed by financial companies tied to the employer; as such, employees often must move their accounts to another financial organization when they resign. As such, during the formulation stage, employees may preemptively begin moving their financial accounts tied to their employer to independently managed accounts. It is likely that savvy human resources

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managers sometimes detect these types of pre-resignation maneuvers by employees, and as such these actions could alert the organization to the employee’s plans to quit.

Accrued Paid Time off Based on company policies and state laws, in the United States when employees quit, they are either paid out for their unused sick time, vacation time, or other form of paid time off, or they are not compensated for their unused bank of days off. As such, part of the formulation stage should involve consideration by the employee of how to manage his or her unused time off in the final months on the job. This can be handled in a number of ways. In jobs in which unused time off is paid to the employee upon resignation, the employee has a fairly straightforward decision to make regarding whether to use the benefit to take some vacation or to simply receive compensation in exchange for the time off upon quitting. For employees who plan to begin another job or endeavor immediately after exiting their current organization, taking a vacation or some time off before resigning, thereby using up his or her bank of accrued vacation or sick time, could be an appealing option. For resigning employees in organizations in which time off is not paid out when employees voluntarily separate from the company, employees face a more difficult decision. Because paid time off is a benefit, employees likely feel entitled to the amount of it that they have accrued. When considering departing, then, they should be motivated to find ways to use up their sick time and vacation days prior to resigning. However, they must do so in a manner such that it does not signal to other organizational members that they are planning to resign. For example, if an employee has accrued two months of sick time, using it all at once may arouse suspicion as to why the seemingly healthy individual would do such a thing. If employees are uncomfortable using their unused time off during the formulation period, they may instead attempt to use it, sanctioned or unsanctioned, during the notice period. That is, once they provide formal notice of their resignation, they may negotiate with their employer to be able to use their accrued time off during the notice period. In other cases, this negotiation may not take place, and the employee may nonetheless use his or her vacation time and sick time during the notice period. Clearly though, individuals who wish to exit their company on the highest note possible would refrain from being absent for any of their notice period. In sum, depending on the organization’s policy, employees likely have a great deal to consider during the

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formulation phase when planning what to do with their remaining paid time off. Job Search As discussed previously, online sources offering advice for individuals regarding how to quit their jobs frequently assert that employees should not formally resign until they have secured employment in another job (e.g., Green, 2014). Thus, in many cases, the length of the formulation stage may be based on how long it takes an employee who plans to quit to find another job assuming that they did not already engage in the job search process to see what opportunities were available before they decided to quit (Boswell, Boudreau, & Dunford, 2004). Indeed, whereas confiding in others and gathering information about how one should resign may take a matter of days, the job search process often takes place over the course of months (Turban, Lee, da Motta Veiga, Haggard, & Wu, 2013). Therefore, after an employee decides to resign, he may formulate a resignation strategy relatively quickly, and then will have to wait to execute the strategy until he finds another job. Clearly, in instances in which the employee already has post-resignation plans, such as when he or she resigns to go back to school or to raise a family, the job search is not a consideration. For most individuals though, finding another job is of paramount importance following the decision to quit. A significant amount of prior work has investigated the different stages of the job search process (e.g., da Motta Veiga & Turban, 2014; Kanfer, Wanberg, & Kantrowitz, 2001; Saks & Ashforth, 2002), and as such a review of this literature is beyond the scope of this chapter. We do note, however, that the turnover process and the job search process are often viewed through independent lenses by researchers, even though much of the time employees go through these processes in parallel (Blau, 1993). We encourage future researchers, then, to develop more comprehensive models of the employee’s inter-organization transition process that includes both resignation and job search activities. Formal Resignation Letter Writing Many organizations require that employees state their resignation intentions in writing, in a formal resignation letter (SHRM). Despite the fact that a resignation letter is part of nearly every voluntary organizational exit, there is no research exploring the content of resignation letters or how they are used by organizations. Nonetheless, a great deal of advice as to how to write a resignation letter and a myriad of resignation letter

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templates are available online. Based on a sampling of these sources, resignation letters typically include, at a minimum, a statement of one’s intention to resign and a date that the resignation is effective (i.e., the last day the departing employee plans to work at the organization). Resignation letters may also include a statement of gratitude to the organization for what it has done for the employee, a statement indicating that the employee is willing to assist with the transition of his or her duties to others in the organization or to assist with the training of a new employee, and the provision of contact information for the employee once he or she has left. However, it appears that popular consensus is that the purpose of resignation letters is not to disclose the reason that an individual is leaving or what his or her plans are for the future (Martin, 2014). Clearly, the departing employee’s attitudes about his or her boss, organization, and co-workers will likely influence the extent to which his or resignation letter in overly gracious, merely professional, or downright rude. Moreover, it stands to reason that given the prevalence of electronic mediums of communication in organizations today, many employees will deliver their resignation letters via email. Given the ease with which e-mails can be forwarded on to others, including individuals outside of the organization, employees may want to put more thought into electronic resignation letters than they would into a hard copy of a letter that will likely be placed directly in an employee’s file, never to be viewed again. Of course, employees who quit their jobs impulsively or do not feel the need to provide a written resignation letter may avoid this process altogether, even when it violates company policy. Workspace Preparation for Departure In many resignations, employees will have the chance to move their physical belongings out of the workplace during their notice period. However, some companies have policies in place that require that the employee will be escorted off the premises upon resignation notice being given, and his or her possessions will be sent to him or her (Arnold-Smeets, 2013). Company officials can also decide to immediately remove an employee from the workplace even when that is not their formal policy, such as when the employee is going to work for a competitor. As such, during the formulation stage, employees may begin to plan for their organizational exit by removing the possessions in their lockers or desks that they would like to take with them from their workplace before giving notice of their resignation. Although potentially illegal, this process may include the removal of data that is useful to the employee for one reason or another from his or

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her employer. In addition, employees may want to save important e-mails, change delivery of personal e-mails to a new e-mail address, and remove personal information from their work computers. Giving up Perks Furthermore, employees who receive perquisites (i.e., perks) as a part of their job may want to use as much of each benefit as they can before formally resigning, at which point the organization may choose to cease providing the employee with this benefit. For example, an executive whose country club membership is paid for by the organization may want to get in as many rounds of golf as she can before resigning from the company and losing the membership. Indeed, while checking out with a large shopping cart of groceries at a large retail membership warehouse, the day after he put in notice of his resignation at a prior job, one of the authors of this chapter was told by the cashier that his membership card had been invalidated the prior evening by his employer. Your embarrassed author then thanked the cashier, set his cart aside, and self-consciously sulked out of the store. As these examples illustrate, departing employees would be wise to consider all of the perks that they receive from their job during the formulation stage to ensure that they have gotten all of the use out of them that they need.

Departing to a Different Job in the Same Organization Although we mainly focus on employees who resign to take jobs outside of their current organization, employees who leave for another job inside their organization have slightly different issues in the formulation stage than those who change organizations. Similar to external departures, employees leaving for internal opportunities may want to keep their intent to leave to themselves. However, some organizations require employees wanting to transfer to inform their current manager when they apply for a position. In addition, even when they are not required to inform their current supervisor, human resources personnel or the hiring manager for the new position may inform the current supervisor either as a courtesy or as a reference check on the employee. Changing jobs internally may eliminate or mitigate the potential need to use vacation time and benefits before departing. However, an internal job change also makes any sort of unprofessional resignation potentially much more damaging to the employee’s career within the organization.

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Role of Individual Differences during the Formulation Period One could expect that extraverts would both have a larger number of possible friends and colleagues with whom to discuss their departures, in addition to actually informing a greater number of others. Due to caring about what others think, agreeable employees may be more likely to ask other people for their perspectives on how to handle the resignation announcement, including wanting to abide by any company policies and making sure they resign in a professional manner. Similarly, conscientious workers are likely to follow company procedures and industry norms when resigning, as well as proactively prepare a formal resignation letter. Neurotic individuals, as well as those low on agreeableness, may be more apt to try to use up vacation time and other benefits during the formulation period out of fear that they might lose the opportunity to do so once they announce due to distrust of the organization and their manager. Such individuals may also be more likely to remove files (personal or not) from their work computers, as well as personal belongings from their workspace as they may worry about whether the organization will return all of their personal possessions. However, when it comes to involving others in the formulation process, we see opposing forces at work for those high on neuroticism. On one hand, they may worry that if they inform others, word of their resignation will get out before they are ready. On the other hand, they may be unsure and insecure regarding how to go about the resignation process and want feedback and validation from others. Finally, due to the tendency to acquire greater job-related knowledge (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004), more intelligent workers are likely to have learned and remember information about how resignations should be handled, both in a general sense and in their organization specifically.

THE ANNOUNCEMENT STAGE Following the formulation stage, employees should be prepared to inform their organization of their plans to resign. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most employees resign by informing their boss of their resignation plans, but it is also possible that individuals may instead decide to inform other organizational leaders first, or that their resignation plans may be leaked by a confidant before they are able to deliver the news in person. Employees can also choose a number of different means through which to

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announce their intention to quit to their employer. Immediately after delivering news of their resignation, employees must contend with the reaction from their organization, which can span from the emotional reactions of their immediate supervisor to organizational attempts to change the employee’s mind, such as in the case of the counteroffer. Individual differences likely play a role in the decisions made during the announcement period, as even in similar circumstances different employees will make different choices regarding how they announce their departure. Below, we discuss these activities that surround the announcement of one’s resignation in greater detail.

Target of the Message In most cases, resigning employees seek to control the manner in which their resignation is made public (Klatzke, 2008). The manner in which employees are able to manage how their resignation news spreads throughout their organization though likely ends up being largely out of their control. As such, in many cases, individuals must prioritize who they would like to inform of their resignation face-to-face, and try to talk to them before their notice becomes public knowledge. Here, employees selectively choose exactly who will receive their resignation message and when. In other cases, employees may realize that a less selective announcement strategy, in which they impersonally communicate their resignation to a large group of people, may be best so that everyone finds out at the same time. How past employees handled their resignation announcements may inform current employees as to the norms regarding how the announcement should be made. Regardless of how selective employees are in informing others of their resignation plans, they will likely need to have a discussion about their plans to quit with their boss and their subordinates (if any), and perhaps a human resources representative or other organizational leaders as well. Below, we consider the unique aspects of the announcement stage concerning each of these communication targets. Manager In most cases, employees formally announce their resignation to their boss before anyone else (Klatzke, 2008). This empirical observation aligns with popular advice of encouraging employees to let their direct supervisor know about their plans to quit before any other organizational members (e.g., Knight, 2014). Although no research has investigated the precise

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manner in which employees inform their bosses of their resignation, there are likely a number of ways in which it can be done. The resigning employee may seek to keep her resignation meeting very short and therefore she may simply inform her boss that she is leaving, with no other information offered. In other cases, employees may seek to have a longer conversation discussing why she is leaving her job. In addition, as recommended by many resignation advice providers (e.g., Kessler, 2013), a departing worker may take the opportunity during the resignation meeting to express gratitude for what his boss and his organization have done for him during his tenure with the company. In addition, some employees may be prepared to talk about transitioning their job duties to others, or training a replacement, after announcing their resignation. Finally, as discussed earlier, employees will likely have planned how long of notice they are going to give in the formulation stage. After informing their boss of their intended notice period length, they may enter into negotiations regarding lengthening or shortening that period of time. Researchers have spent considerable time investigating how relationships between supervisors and subordinates differ and the outcomes associated with more or less positive ties between these two parties. Perhaps most notably, leader
member exchange (LMX) theory suggests that leader
follower dyads differ in the extent to which mutual trust and respect is present between the two parties (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). Furthermore, when LMX is high, subordinates tend to experience more positive job attitudes and engage in more positive job behaviors (Dulebohn et al., 2012; Gerstner & Day, 1997). It stands to reason then, that when employees enjoy high LMX with their boss, they will strive to deliver their resignation news to him or her in a respectful and grateful manner. Given the trust present in high LMX relationships (Kelley & Bisel, 2014), employees who possess these stronger ties with their leader will also likely be more open concerning why they are quitting and what their future plans are. Of course, high LMX between the employee and the manager implies that the employee is unlikely to be leaving due to dissatisfaction with the manager. Conversely, in low LMX dyads, employees will likely be less concerned with or comfortable with informing their boss of their resignation in a relatively positive manner. Indeed, it stands to reason that when leader
follower dyads are characterized by distrust and disrespect, employees will choose to announce their resignation to other organizational members before telling their boss. Next, we explore cases in which employees chose to target their resignation announcement to individuals other than their direct supervisor.

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Human Resources Representative As most employees realize, human resources professionals are responsible for administering personnel policies in organizations, which includes activities such as hiring, discipline, promotions, and benefits (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, & Wright, 1997). As such, in cases in which resigning employees do not feel comfortable announcing their resignation to their boss, they may choose to inform their human resources representative first, since that individual will likely know the company policies relevant to resignation and the procedures the employee should follow to exit the organization properly. In fact, even when employees do have a good relationship with their boss, they may also have a close relationship with their human resources representative as well, and may choose to announce their resignation to him or her not only to make sure they follow the correct policies and procedures, but also to get some advice as to how to inform their boss that they are resigning. Finally, since the human resource function within the organization is typically responsible for recruiting and selecting (Noe et al., 1997), resigning employees may feel that it was a member of the human resource group that initially brought them onboard to the organization. Thus, they may have stronger feelings of trust in that individual that engender sharing their resignation news first (Klotz, Motta Veiga, Buckley, & Gavin, 2013), or feel some normative pressure to human resources to inform them first of their plans to quit. Other Organizational Leaders In general, upward employee’s communication of important information, such as a resignation announcement, should follow a chain of command in which one’s supervisor is first informed and then he or she relays the message to his or her boss, and so on (Davis, 1968). However, prior work has shown that employees sometimes circumvent the chain of command and go “above their supervisors’ heads” when they feel that their supervisors lack the ability to handle an important matter (Kassing, 2009) or when the employees are leaving due to dissatisfaction with their supervisors. As such, it is likely that resigning employees will, at times, choose to announce their resignation to an organizational leader other than their direct supervisor. In addition, employees may feel greater loyalty to organizational leaders other than their supervisor, for a number of reasons. First, employees often develop close bonds with their formal or informal mentors (Eby, Butts, Durley, & Ragins, 2010), which in some cases may be stronger than the bonds they feel with their direct supervisor. Second, resigning employees who have a great deal of organizational tenure, but who have a relatively

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new supervisor, will likely have stronger bonds with other leaders than with their immediate boss. Third, in small and medium businesses, employees often have personal relationships with the owner or founder of the company (Memili, Welsh, & Kaciak, 2014) and may feel more loyalty to that individual than to their boss. Fourth and finally, as in the case of human resources representatives, employees may feel a particularly acute sense of loyalty and gratitude to a particular organizational leader who played an integral role in their hiring and onboarding. In all of these cases, employees may choose to announce their resignation to a manager other than their direct supervisor. Subordinates To this point, our discussion of the announcement stage has focused on the departing employee’s announcement of his or her resignation intentions upward, to his or her boss, other organizational leaders, or human resources personnel. However, just as subordinates may have stronger commitment to their supervisor than to the overall organization, managers may feel more strongly committed to their followers than to anyone else in the organization (Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Gilbert, 1996). Therefore, when the resigning employees are managers with subordinates, they may choose to announce their resignation to their subordinates before informing anyone other organizational members. Leaders may choose to first announce their resignation to their subordinates not only because they may feel stronger bonds to their followers than to the organization, overall, but also because they may believe that their subordinates will be the most heavily impacted by the manager’s departure. That is, the departure of one boss and the arrival of a new one can be quite an important transition for employees (Farquhar, 1995), and to the extent that the departing manager can hear her employees’ concerns related to this transition, she can proactively deal with them when she discusses her resignation with her superiors. As an example, a manager may want to get one or more of his employees’ feedback concerning who they would like to have as a replacement after he leaves, and by announcing his resignation to them first, he can gather this data and present it to his superiors when he discusses his transition out of the organization with them. Also, similar to the discussion above, when managers have better LMX with their subordinates, these relationships may take precedence over the bond between the departing managers and their direct supervisors. In sum, when a resigning manager’s loyalty lies more with her employees than with her superiors, she will likely to do everything she can to prepare her subordinates for the

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difficult transition they may face as their manager exits the organization and a new individual is placed in charge of them. Third-Party Announcement As described earlier, employees may inform others of their resignation plans prior to their formal announcement to gain information and guidance regarding the best way in which to resign and to receive emotional support leading up to the stressful event of making their resignation intentions public. As is sometimes the case when high-profile coaches resign from one team to coach another, however, trusted sources sometimes break the resigning coach’s confidence and leak the information to other individuals, which could cause the resignation to be made public by someone other than the resigning employee. Indeed, the spreading of potential harmful gossip about other co-workers, such as one’s intentions to resign, has been well documented in organizations (Grosser et al., 2010; Kurland & Pelled, 2000; Waddington, 2012). Employees who choose to confide in others before making their resignation plans public, then, risk losing control of their resignation process in the event that their plans to quit are leaked by a confidant. Clearly, when this occurs, the departing employee can still immediately announce his or her resignation to his or her boss, human resources representative, or subordinates. However, the plans that an employee develops during the formulation stage will likely be severely disrupted when employees other than him or herself are the first to make his or her resignation plans known. Furthermore, the employee’s manager may now perceive an otherwise professional resignation as unprofessional due to being informed about the resignation from a source other than the employee.

The Announcement Setting Beyond determining to whom resigning employees will deliver their resignation notice, they must also choose the optimal setting in which to announce their intention to quit. Whereas in the past, employees’ nearly only option for delivering news of their resignation was face-to-face, employees today can resign using a number of different technologies, each with their own pros and cons. Next, in addition to considering the different mediums of communication employees can use to resign, we also discuss other aspects of the resignation setting, including time and place, that may vary depending on the situation.

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Communication Medium The announcement of one’s resignation to his or her boss or another organizational member is an ambiguous situation in that the resigning employee cannot accurately predict how the person receiving the resignation notice will respond. Prior work has shown that to the extent that a message involve or invokes ambiguity, the more likely the sender will deliver the message via face-to-face communication rather than some other medium, such as e-mail (Daft, Lengel, & Trevino, 1987). Thus, most resignation announcements likely take place in person. Although no prior work has investigated the prevalence of “in person” resignations versus more impersonal resignation announcements, online advice to those who are quitting consistently implores them to do so face-to-face with their boss (e.g., Quast, 2014). In some cases, however, employees may choose to resign using less direct forms of communication such as over the phone, through video chat, via email, or even in a text message. While many employees who choose to resign using these forms of communication may do so to simply avoid any awkwardness inherent in the resignation meeting, others may do so for more legitimate reasons. For example, many individuals work for abusive supervisors are especially likely to quit their jobs than other employees (Tepper, 2000), and when they do resign, abused subordinates may be especially motivated to avoid delivering their volatile boss with the news that they are leaving. In addition, although still a small percentage of the overall workforce, the number of employees who telecommute to work is rising rapidly (Gajendran, Harrison, & DelaneyKlinger, forthcoming). Because telecommuters primarily communicate with their supervisors in ways other than face-to-face (Cooper & Kurland, 2002), it may not be considered inappropriate for a telecommuter to resign via video chat or over the phone, especially if they are geographically distant from their boss. In sum, while it seems ideal that employees would announce their resignation in a face-to-face setting, there are sometimes legitimate reasons why individuals choose to do it using alternative forms of communication. Although still relatively quite rare, as the examples at the beginning of this chapter illustrate, some employees choose to announce their resignation to their organization in a very public manner, often via social media. Given that the vast majority of these public resignation announcements seem to include a negative message to the resigning employee’s boss or to the organizational as a whole, it is likely announcing one’s resignation via social media is viewed by those resigning as an act of retaliation for

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some perceived injustice they were subject to while working at the company. Employees need to be careful of announcing their impending resignation through social media in the morning while intending to tell their boss once the employees arrive at work. The employees may find that due to the rapid dissemination of information through technology, their boss has already received the news. Timing Extant research has not yet investigated how employees choose precisely when to inform their organization of their intentions to leave. Though it stands to reason, that in seasonal businesses such as accounting, employees who seek to leave their organization in good standing may seek to announce their resignation during a time of year when business is expected to be slow. Indeed, many organizations plan for higher levels of voluntary turnover following their annual “busy season” (Hausknecht & Holwerda, 2013). Employees with more flexible resignation plans may choose the timing of their resignation announcement in a more ad hoc manner, waiting for the ideal time, in which their boss is in a good mood, when other employees are not around, or when business is slow to announce their departure. These employees may also prefer to resign at the end of the week in order to give their superiors time to digest the news of their departure, and to ensure that if they put in a certain number of weeks’ notice that their last day of work will fall at the end of the week. In contrast, disgruntled employees may purposefully resign at the least opportune time, including walking out of the door when the organization is at its busiest. In other cases, when employees are resigning due to a negative shock, such as a health emergency (Lee et al., 1996), they may be forced into resigning immediately, with little concern for timing issues. Again though, future work is needed to better understand issues related to the timing of employee’s resignation announcements. Place Like resignation timing, prior work has not focused on where employees deliver their resignation news. Of course, in many cases, resigning employees may simply walk up to their manager and say, “I quit.” In others, as we have discussed earlier, employees may resign by a medium other than face-to-face communication. However, most online advice encourages resigning employees to secure a private meeting with one’s boss and/or human resources representative to announce the resignation (e.g., Denham, 2010). While this seems like well-meaning advice, it is

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likely much more difficult to carry out in practice. Indeed, in our experience, when subordinates ask their supervisors for a private meeting, whether in person, via email, or with a calendar invite, managers are likely to inquire as to the reason for the meeting. This puts resigning employees in a place in which they must either fabricate an erroneous reason for the meeting, or come clean and tell their manager that they plan to announce their resignation. In this regard, it would be useful for future research to examine how employees secure a private place for the resignation announcement without arousing the suspicions of their managers. For example, it may be better for employees to schedule a meeting with their manager by arranging it through the manager’s administrative assistant or by using technology (e.g., Microsoft Outlook) to schedule the meeting.

The Announcement Meeting Once the resignation setting is addressed, the resigning employee must deliver the resignation announcement to his or her organization. Whether done in person or communicated through another medium, employees typically deal with a number of issues associated with the actual announcement such as how to present their resignation letter, how truthful to be in explaining why they are leaving, what emotions to convey, and whether or not to entertain requests related to the notice period and counteroffers. Below, we explore these announcement-based considerations in further detail. Formal Letter The purpose of a resignation letter is to provide one’s organization with an official document stating one’s plans to resign, and the date upon which the resignation will be effective (i.e., the last day a resigning employee plans to work for the organization; Parkin, 2008). In her study of resigning employees, Klatzke (2008) found that only about half of her respondents provided their organization with a formal letter of resignation, and among those who did, most viewed it as simply a requirement for their employee file, not a channel through which to deliver their resignation news, nor a substitute for face-to-face delivery of one’s resignation announcement. Given the apparent desire of organizations to collect a letter stating their resignation plans from departing employees, it is likely that when employees announce their resignation without providing a

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letter, their manager or human resources representative subsequently requests one from them. Furthermore, based on Klatzke’s (2008) findings, most employees view these letters as a procedural necessity rather than the primary means through which they announce their organizational exit; the content of resignation letters is unlikely to yield any meaningful insights into the resignation process for future researchers. In cases of dissatisfied employees who are leaving, these workers may choose to develop an extensive laundry list of their gripes and send them to senior managers as well as other employees. Reason for Resigning In the resignation meeting or letter, employees must decide whether or not to disclose the reason that they are resigning, which may involve divulging their future professional and personal plans. When resigning for reasons that are out of the employee’s control, such as a spousal relocation or to care for a sick family member, there is little reason for resigning employees to not explain to their boss or other organizational members why they are departing. When employees leave for benevolent reasons that are within their own control, such as to return to school, to stay at home to raise a family, or to start an entrepreneurial venture, it is also likely that most employers will understand and be supportive of this news. As such, employees will probably not withhold their reason for leaving in these instances. However, when employees resign to go work for another organization, they may attempt to avoid disclosing this information to their supervisor and co-workers by refusing to discuss their future plans with others in the company. In case an employee resigns to work for a competitor, he or she may be especially motivated to avoid discussing his or her future plans during the announcement phase due to fear of retaliation, including immediate dismissal. Beyond simply disclosing or not disclosing one’s future plans, employees who are departing their organization due to some form of dissatisfaction face the decision of whether or not to point to their dissatisfaction as a reason why they are leaving. Recent work suggests that to the extent to which an employee’s relationship with his or her supervisor represents a valued relational identity, the employee may lie about the resignation to uphold relational obligations to them, as fear of disappointing the supervisor would activate a difficult to reconcile threat to that relational identity (Leavitt & Sluss, forthcoming). That is, rather than announcing the truth concerning why they are quitting, departing employees may instead choose to lie and offer a more acceptable explanation for their resignation, in order

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to preserve the best possible relationship with their boss and co-workers during the notice period and beyond. In sum, as is the case when a girl dumps her boyfriend, she has the choice of telling him the real reason (e.g., he wears too much cologne), or sparing his feelings by using the timetested line, “it’s not you, it’s me.” Emotions Expressed Given that the resignation announcement will be an emotionally charged event for most individuals, some employees will likely let their true emotions show (which may be a reason to avoid having a face-to-face meeting with their manager), whereas others will use a great deal of emotional labor and self-control (Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996) to only show the emotions they wish to display. When employees view their job or their supervisor positively, their announcement will likely be bittersweet. Indeed, the mentoring literature suggests that when mentees separate from their mentors, they experience a mix of both positive feelings accompanied by occasional bouts of anxiety and nostalgia (Kram, 1983). Given that in many cases, supervisors and other organizational members have contributed to employees’ professional and personal growth and success (Erdogan, Kraimer, & Liden, 2004), many resigning workers will likely use their announcement to express gratitude for the organizational support they have received during their tenure. For resigning employees who work for abusive supervisors or who have been treated poorly by their organization, the announcement stage provides an opportunity not to express gratitude, but perhaps to vent frustrations for their mistreatment or to blame those responsible for their resignation. Indeed, the findings of a number of investigations of employee’s mistreatment suggest that when employees are treated unfairly, they will retaliate in one way or another (e.g., Greenberg, 1990; Mitchell & Ambrose, 2007; Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). As such, employees may choose to display emotions associated with blame, hostility, anger, or resentment during the announcement phase when they feel that their boss or their organization has treated them poorly during their career.

Reaction of Receiver of the Announcement Although the departing employee initiates the communication in the announcement stage, the receiver of the message
often the employee’s supervisor
will in most cases have a chance to respond to the message.

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For the most part, prior work has not examined the manner in which leaders respond to employee resignations. In this section, we discuss how targets of the resignation announcement may react, both emotionally and behaviorally. In doing so, we develop a number of avenues for future scholars to examine how managers respond to employees’ news of their departure, and how this affects managers’ immediate reactions and subsequent behaviors. Emotional Reactions Employee resignations are, in many ways, similar to the dissolution of romantic relationships. In most cases, one of the two partners initiates the break-up and withdraws from the relationship (Rollie & Duck, 2006). For the person who is dumped, the rejection is often followed by one or more of the following emotions: sadness, loneliness, hurt feelings, jealousy, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and social anxiety (Leary, Koch, & Hechenbleiker, 2001). As such, when employees announce their intention to quit to their supervisor or other organizational members, those receiving the message will likely experience some level of these negative emotions, regardless of the reason for the resignation. Of course, individuals vary in the extent to which they can control their emotional reactions (Diefendorff, Croyle, & Gosserand, 2005), so departing employees may not always be able to tell how their news has impacted their bosses and other targets of their resignation announcement. In addition, some managers may simply not identify with the organization that strongly or define themselves by the actions of their subordinates, and therefore would see no reason to take subordinates’ resignations personally. It would be interesting to get supervisors’ reports of how they felt when they received news of a subordinate’s decision to leave, and whether their feelings changed based on the manner in which employees resigned, by the attributions supervisors make for employees’ voluntary departures or by individual differences among supervisors. For example, a manager with low self-esteem may take a subordinate’s exit very personally, while another supervisor who attributes an employee’s resignation to poor pay may not take it personally at all. Furthermore, the individual reactions of supervisors may influence subsequent communication from supervisors to their remaining subordinates, which could positively or negatively affect the job attitudes of these stayers. That is, if a manager is emotionally hurt by the resignation of one of her employees, she may engage in extra efforts to satisfy her other employees, thereby potentially lessening the chance that they will also leave.

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Negotiation of Notice Period As discussed earlier, during their announcement, departing employees inform their organization of how long they will continue to work for the company until their final exit. Although two weeks’ notice is considered standard in many industries, it is likely that in many cases, employers will request that resigning employees extent their notice period to a longer period of time. Hence, embedded within many resignation announcements will be a negotiation related to how long the employee will continue to work. Prior research has not focused on notice period negotiation, so it is unknown how common it is, or how often it results in employees changing their intended final day with their employer. However, it stands to reason that when employees’ post-resignation plans are either flexible or openended, they will be more amenable to extending their notice period. In addition, employees who feel indebted to the organization will also be more likely to go above and beyond the call of duty one last time and stay longer than needed to help out their employer (Organ, 1988). Higher level employees and/or those with significant amounts of tacit job knowledge may also be asked to stay longer in an attempt to ease the transition and collect as much information as possible from the employees before they depart. In sum, given the amount of knowledge accumulated regarding how employees negotiate at the out of their employment (Curhan, Elfenbein, & Kilduff, 2009), one fecund area for research is to gain an understanding of how employees negotiate on their way out of their company. Counteroffer Upon receipt of an employee’s resignation announcement, an organizational leader may ask the employee if there is anything he or she can do to convince the employee not to leave. If the employee is leaving in order to improve his or her work life, through improved salary, benefits, working conditions, and so forth, the organizational leader may extend a “quick strike” counteroffer to the resigning employee in order to entice him or her to stay (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, & Graske, 2001). As Maertz and Campion (2004) point out, employees who are quitting their job not because of negative feelings toward it or the organization, but because of a more attractive offer from another company, may be open to or even expect to be offered a counteroffer upon resigning from their organization. Resigning employees may have even planned for a “conditional resignation” in the sense that unless their current employer matches (or comes close to) the employment offer in hand, the employee will quit. This is consistent with research showing that while some employees may engage in job search behaviors looking

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to leave, others will do so in an effort to find leverage to use against their current employer (Boswell et al., 2004). Similar to negotiation of one’s notice period, there may be give and take regarding whether the company can convince the employee to stay at the organization during or after the announcement stage. Decision Whether to Honor the Notice Period or Not Although it has not been systematically studied, anecdotal accounts suggest that upon receiving an employee’s resignation notice, some organizations opt to immediately pay the employee for his or her notice period salary, and then tell the employee to exit the company without actually serving the notice period. As we will discuss in the next section, the notice period can be an awkward time for departing employees and remaining organizational members; hence, to avoid the awkwardness and the distraction of having a resigning employee present in the workplace, managers may proactively remove the quitter from the firm. In addition, if a supervisor feels that a resigning employee has not lived up to her obligations during her tenure, it may be satisfying to punish the employee by taking away her ability to work with her co-workers during the notice period. Clearly, for employees who do not anticipate this potential reaction by their bosses, being asked to immediately vacate the premises will likely come as quite a shock. As such, one way for organizational leaders to retain their power when facing the threat of the departure of one of their workers is to demonstrate that they still have the power to dictate how the employee’s final moments in the organization will play out. On the other hand, employees who agree to stay for a specific period of time may change their minds. Departing employees may simply lose all motivation to perform in a job they now see as temporary or they may be more likely to allow incidents that would normally warrant a short absence period (e.g., getting sick or handling a family emergency) to cut their notice period short. Certainly, despite whatever assurances a departing employee offers to stay a specific period of time, organizations should have contingency plans in place in case the employee departs prematurely.

Role of Individual Differences during the Announcement Stage Highly conscientious workers are more likely to follow proper channels and announce their resignation to their boss before other colleagues. In contrast, impulsive individuals (lower on conscientiousness, agreeableness,

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and emotional stability) may be apt to send e-mails outlining their complaints to senior management (and, perhaps, all employees). Impulsive employees who are also attention-seeking (high extraversion) may post their resignation announcements on social media before informing any organizational members about their departure plans. Extraverted and emotionally stable managers, who are more likely to exhibit transformational leadership behaviors (Bono & Judge, 2004), may announce their resignation to their subordinates first based on a greater likelihood of higher quality relationships with their employees (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Introverted employees may be less likely to announce their leaving in a face-to-face meeting, as may neurotic workers who fear how their manager may react to the news. In addition, neurotic employees who are prone to emotional outbursts and negative reactions may be best served by sending their resignation in writing instead of risking a confrontational meeting with their manager. Impulsive individuals, as discussed above, may also be inclined to engage in unprofessional resignation behaviors such as planning their departure during the organization’s busiest time and/or not honor the full notice period by leaving before their scheduled departure date. Agreeable employees who are departing due to dissatisfaction may be caught in a bind if asked by their manager why they are leaving. On one hand, they would be compelled to answer honestly; on the other, they may not want to upset their managers. In regards to quick-to-anger managers, we foresee that neurotic and disagreeable managers would be more likely to react with negative emotions to news that an employee is leaving and, in fact, may be more apt to engage in retaliatory behavior
particularly if said manager is also lacking in conscientiousness.

THE NOTICE STAGE In many, but not all cases (Maertz & Campion, 2004), employees continue to work for their organization after they have formally announced their resignation. During this time, employees are often referred to as “lame ducks.” The term “lame duck” originally referred to brokers on the London Stock Exchange who were near default (Ayres & Witt, 2014), but has since come to refer to anyone who is in a job in which their resignation or retirement is publicly known and imminent. Indeed, since the 22nd Amendment began prohibiting United States presidents from running for a third term in office, the phrase “lame-duck presidency” is often used to

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describe a second-term president’s final year or two in office. The lame duck period, during which time the departing employee may suffer from “short-timer’s syndrome,” is a distinctive and unique time for both the organization and the departing employee. For the organization, it is a time in which they continue to employ an organizational member who is no longer committed to the company. For the employee, it is a time to let his or her words and deeds leave a final imprint on co-workers and organizational leaders which may last for a long time. Research specifically focused on the notice period is quite sparse, so in this section we seek to explore what the departing employee and remaining organizational members experience after the resignation announcement. Some of what we discuss is based on research related to topics relevant to the notice period. In addition, we ideate on research questions that warrant further investigation. During the period of time after the resignation is given, both while resigning employees still work at their organization and in the weeks and months following exit, employees will likely experience a number of interpersonal and emotional changes in their working lives as a result of publicly announcing their impending departure, and as a result of the style of resignation they use when announcing their intent to leave. First, and perhaps most notably, their relationships with their supervisors, co-workers, mentors, and subordinates may change (Klatzke, 2008). For instance, supervisors may feel more comfortable treating departing employees as peers since their respective organizational responsibilities to one another are diminishing; alternatively, some supervisors may begin to detach from their departing subordinates. Likewise, while co-workers may often support the employee’s decision to move on, in some cases, co-workers may feel betrayed and burdened by the departure of a peer and treat the resigning employee with disdain. We see several potential behaviors as key during this period of time, including changes in performance, engaging in voicing behavior, impact on others within the organization, engaging in counterproductive workplace behaviors, and efforts to remain a productive member of the workplace and maintain their professional reputations. Additionally, we discuss key personality traits that may explain why some individuals engage in these behaviors while other do not. Changes in Performance An important consideration during the notice period is how employees may change their behaviors directed toward their organizations, managers,

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co-workers, subordinates, and customers. A common concern during the notice period is whether the level of the departing employee’s job performance begins to decline. This is such a prevalent issue that the phrase “short-timer’s syndrome” is used to describe the lack of motivation exhibited by someone with a limited amount of time left in an organization. But how frequently is this lack of motivation actually shown and what are the antecedents to such behavior? If employees leave due to feeling unfairly treated, chances for diminished performance are increased as meta-analyses have shown that perceptions of justice are positively related to job performance (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). In his exit-voice-loyalty-neglect model, Farrell (1983) argues that one way in which dissatisfied employees react to their perceptions of dissatisfaction is through neglect, which is comprised of decreased performance and increased withdrawal behavior (e.g., lateness and absenteeism). Even if the exiting employees feel fairly treated, simply knowing that their membership with their organization will soon end may lessen their motivation to perform well. As there are now fewer extrinsic rewards, such as raises or promotions, that exist to motivate these exiting employees, “carrots” previously dangled by the organization no longer have the desired effect (Jenkins, Mitra, Gupta, & Shaw, 1998). Similarly, once employees have announced their impending departure, they may feel that managers will be less likely to exert the effort to engage in coaching or discipline to correct undesirable behaviors as the managers understand that the departing employees will soon leave anyway and these efforts would be futile. Furthermore, if departing employees are ostracized by their managers and peers after announcing their intent to leave, the probability of lower job performance likely rises. Research on LMX and co-worker exchange, as well as on supervisor and co-worker satisfaction, suggests a positive relationship between these constructs and job performance (Gerstner & Day, 1997; Griffeth et al., 2000; Ilies, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007; Kamdar & Van Dyne, 2007; Ozer, 2011). However, each of the aforementioned statements are very broad as individuals may react in different ways to different extents. Task Performance Overall job performance is comprised of two major aspects
task performance and contextual performance/organizational citizenship behavior (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994; Organ, 1988). Task performance may suffer once (or even before) employees announce their departure. In particular, critical projects may be neglected

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as exiting employees lose the motivation either to see the projects through to fruition or because they know they never will witness the eventual completion of the project. Managers may want departing employees to finish up these important assignments, but the managers are then stuck between depending on a short-timer to finish the projects to the best of his or her abilities versus burdening co-workers by adding the projects to the coworkers’ existing assignments (Jablin, 2001). The chances that co-workers must take on some of the resigning employee’s job duties until a replacement has been hired probably increases when the departing worker leaves abruptly, with a short notice period, or engages in deviant behavior during the resignation process. Contextual Performance However, as contextual performance or organizational citizenship behavior are generally thought of as having a large discretionary component (Borman & Motowidlo, 1993; Motowidlo & Van Scotter, 1994; Organ, 1988), such behaviors are the most likely to be neglected when employees are planning to leave their organizations. Exiting employees may feel, implicitly or explicitly, that during the notice period their organizations can only realistically expect them to engage in their core or required job functions. Although there is some debate regarding whether contextual performance or organizational citizenship behavior is a required part of a job (Organ, 1997), there is consensus that such behaviors are critical to the success of organizations. Expanding the definition of contextual performance, some researchers (Chiaburu, Smith, Wang, & Zimmerman, 2014) divide contextual performance into prosocial behaviors, defined as behaviors that help maintain the organizational social system, and proactive behaviors, defined a behaviors designed to bring about change in the organization. Both types of behaviors are salient in terms of self- and manager-initiated actions during the notice period. Despite the fact that the employee is going to leave, his or her organization may greatly benefit from the employee engaging in discretionary behaviors that make the transition easier. For example, supervisors may hope that resigning employees reduce the organizational impact of their departure by training co-workers or new employees on how to perform the departing employee’s job responsibilities. This might involve the departing employee introducing a co-worker to his or her clients or developing standard operating procedures for his or her job duties. Interestingly, situations such as these may actually flip the power dynamic between employee and supervisor as the supervisor may need the employee’s voluntary

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cooperation more than ever before. Due to the shift to the information age and knowledge economy, organizations and supervisors are increasingly likely to see the need to capture departing employees’ knowledge before they leave
particularly if the employees have been in their positions for extended periods of time (Droege & Hoobler, 2003). Clearly, employees who resign by giving a great deal of notice and are willing to go above and beyond to mitigate the impact of their departure should be better able to provide this assistance and to have their supervisors’ trust that such tasks will be carried out in a professional manner. However, employees who resign in a bridge-burning manner are unlikely to be given the responsibility for the training of a replacement. Of course, the question remains as to whether even the employees who engaged in more “professional” resignation announcements would still put forth full effort in such transition activities.

Voicing Behavior One particularly salient proactive performance-related situation involves whether exiting employees engage in voicing behavior during their notice period. As noted by Hirschman (1970) and Farrell (1983), dissatisfied employees voicing can be done from a positive perspective, such as constructive criticism, or from a negative one, such as filing grievances or incessant complaining. The positive nature of voicing is reinforced in the contextual performance literature where voicing is considered a form a proactive behavior (Chiaburu et al., 2014; LePine & Van Dyne, 1998). Employees who are turning over from their organization may feel less pressure to engage in impression management now that they are leaving and, in fact, regard the voicing process as cathartic. It is likely that employees who do see the notice period as a time to release pent-up emotions (Davis, Shaver, & Vernon, 2003) are characterized by greater variability in state affect through the day (Beal & Ghandour, 2011), which accordingly impacts performance and interactions with co-workers and/or customers (Beal, Weiss, Barros, & MacDermid, 2005), possibly producing negative consequences. Organizational Impact However, regardless of the intent of the employee, whether to affect positive change or negatively influence others, the content of the voicing behavior could ultimately have either a positive or negative effect on the

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organization. In regards to positive outcomes, attention called to organizational aspects that may be dissatisfying to numerous employees provides the organization with the opportunity to fix these issues. Departing employees who are willing to voice may provide a greater amount of information during their exit interviews compared to employees who want to avoid burning brides and therefore provide little feedback or “unavoidable” (Abelson, 1987) reasons to explain their departure. Even employees who give neutral reasons for their leaving the organization during their exit interviews may have voiced to co-workers, managers, and/or human resource representatives during the notice period. However, whether the organization acts upon this feedback is debatable (Knight, 2014). Exit Interviews Previous research on the exit interview has found that reasons provided by employees to company management are often different from reasons provided in either follow-up surveys or given to third-party consultants (Hinrichs, 1975). Knouse, Beard, Pollard, and Giacalone (1996) found that employee’s attitudes toward supervisors and authority impacted departing employees’ willingness to share information during the exit interview, as well as the topics the employees were willing to discuss. Because of this, some organizations (and researchers; e.g., Barrick & Zimmerman, 2005) have begun to use a triangulation approach for understanding the reasons for employee’s departures. Instead of merely relying on the exit interview as a source of information, co-workers, managers, and human resources personnel are also interviewed in an attempt to find out the true reasons why an employee has left. Of course, as discussed next, voicing may also have deleterious consequences for the organization.

Impact on Others Departing employees’ resignation, in general, and voicing behaviors, in particular, can have a large impact on peers, subordinates, and managers. A particularly relevant concern regarding peers and subordinates is the idea of turnover contagion (Koslowsky, 2009). Felps et al. (2009) found that employees’ job embeddedness and job search activities predicted embeddedness and job search in their co-workers. However, it would be useful to understand how the manner in which employees resign influences the degree to which turnover contagion affects their co-workers. It may be that the degree to which co-workers experience turnover contagion may be

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related to the manner in which their peer resigns. For example, when one employee engages in a more professional, or even grateful, resignation with little voicing of negative perceptions of the workplace, remaining employees may actually become more committed to their jobs after hearing how thankful their departing co-worker is for what the company has done for him or her. Conversely, having a co-worker voice their negative perceptions of the organization, whether with good or ill intentions, may cause employees to think more deeply about why they are working there, which may contribute to turnover contagion. If exiting employees are especially vocal about significantly better job offers they received from their new employers, this could pique fellow co-workers’ interest in at least engaging in job search behaviors in an effort to use a competing job offer as leverage on the current employer in order to get increase their compensation or to obtain a promotion to a better position and, if unsuccessful in utilizing this leverage, perhaps to ultimately leave (Boswell et al., 2004). Impact on Teams Employee resignations and voicing behaviors may also have unique effects on team-level outcomes. Different resignation styles could affect team processes (e.g., conflict), team emergent states (e.g., cohesion and psychological safety), and team performance. For example, in some teams, remaining members may rally around one another when one of their own resigns in a particularly vocal manner, whereas in other teams this voicing behavior may rupture group fault lines (Lau & Murnighan, 1998) and thus cause intergroup conflict. Indicators of turnover contagion (Felps et al., 2009; Koslowsky, 2009) could weaken the overall commitment and motivation of team members, thereby harming team performance (Mathieu & Schulze, 2006). A related question is whether employees who announce their resignation are immediately relegated to the “out-group” (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and are no longer included in in-group activities such as organizational gossip, social functions, or even formal team meetings. In essence, are departing employees regarded as “traitors” or “defectors” (Harvard Business Essentials, 2002), and even if they are willing and able (and, perhaps, needed) to continue to contribute to organizational functioning, are they simply not allowed to do so? And how do previously strong network ties (Granovetter, 1973) to other co-workers either dissolve or weaken during the notice period and as the employees move to their new organization, and does the remaining strength of the ties depend on how the employees manage their resignation process? And in regards to whether the ties to previous co-workers remain, whose choice affects this the most
remaining

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employees who reject the exiting employees or the exiting employees who seek to make a clean break from their organizations? Clearly, a significant gap in our understanding of the consequences of employee resignation is how it affects the small groups to which they belong.

Impact on Subordinates Beyond co-workers, when managerial-level employees decide to leave, especially when they engage in voicing behavior, to what extent do these actions affect the managers’ subordinates? Departing managers can severely disrupt their workgroups’ processes in numerous ways and, in effect, cause immediate and long-term collateral damage due to their exiting the organization. During the notice period, after managers announce they are leaving, subordinates may attempt to predict who will become the next manager of the unit. They may start a promotion tournament (Baker, Jensen, & Murphy, 1988) to become the new manager, including engaging in ingratiation toward either the likely replacement or to the individual(s) who will name that replacement, which could cause harm to the dynamics of the workgroup (Turnley, Klotz, & Bolino, 2013). These actions may ultimately influence who becomes the new leader in the group and rearrange the intergroup power dynamic. The disruption that occurs may harm the group in the short and/or long term due to intergroup conflict, lowered morale, perceptions of unfairness, turnover, lost productivity, and suboptimal promotion decisions (Grund & Sliwka, 2005; Romaine, 2014). Furthermore, if the idea that “people leave managers, not organizations” is correct (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999), will employees also follow managers out the door? Two constructs within the management literature seem to be especially pertinent in this scenario
turnover contagion (Felps et al., 2009; Koslowsky, 2009) and followership (Kelley, 1992, 2008). Certainly supervisor satisfaction, person
supervisor fit, and LMX affect subordinates’ work-related attitudes (Gerstner & Day, 1997; Griffeth et al., 2000; Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005), but will employees who hold positive attitudes about their managers and see themselves as similar to their manager end up leaving with the departing manager? And if so, is this effect magnified when the exiting managers are especially vocal in their reasons for leaving? In a way, the followership concept, which is typically considered an idea conducive to effective organizational functioning becomes a “dark side” of leadership (Hogan, Raskin, & Fazzini, 1990) if departing leaders’ influence on subordinates induces the subordinates to also leave the organization.

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Impact on Supervisor As previously mentioned, relationships between the resigning employee and his or her supervisor may change when the employee quits. Supervisors will arguably react more positively to more professional resignations than bridge-burning and impulsive quitting resignations. As such, although relationships with supervisors may be strained by even the most positive resignations, they will likely be more damaged by very negative resignations. The extent to which subordinate turnover affects supervisors is an underresearched question, and as such, it would be interesting to get supervisors’ reports of how they felt when their subordinates quit and whether their feelings changed based on the manner in which employees resigned, by the attributions supervisors made for the employees’ voluntary departures, or by individual differences among supervisors. For example, a manager with low self-esteem may take a subordinates’ exit very personally, while another supervisor who attributes an employees’ resignation to poor pay, may not take it personally at all. In addition, do numerous employee resignations alter how managers choose to interact with their employees and/or whether or not the supervisors remain in a management position or do they end up transferring back into non-managerial roles? Furthermore, the reactions of supervisors may influence subsequent communication from the supervisors to their remaining subordinates, which could positively or negatively affect the job attitudes of these remaining employees. When well-respected, key, and/or multiple employees resign, managers may want to discuss the situation with the remaining employees, either in an attempt to provide information to team members about possible changes to group functioning, the process of replacing the departing employees, or to engage in damage control and avoid rumors, politics, and additional turnover (Owles, 2012). However, there is little research to guide managers as to if/when they should address turnover issues with remaining employees or what is the most effective way of doing so and under which conditions. Farewell Messages A final way that departing employees may “voice” to their co-workers is through a “farewell” e-mail (Suddath, 2013). These farewell e-mails can run the gamut from communicating one’s heartfelt goodbyes to engaging in scorched-earth diatribes. Much like other voicing behaviors during the notice period, departing employees may see these e-mails as cathartic and/ or a final way to exert a modicum of power to influence others. However, as the tone of written communication is readily misinterpreted and e-mail messages, much like social media postings, can be stored electronically

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forever, the damage caused to the departing employee’s reputation may outweigh any possible benefit gained by sending these e-mails. If farewell e-mails are written when emotions are running high, such as at the end of one’s final day at work, the chances of miscommunicating one’s intent or using poor judgment regarding the content of the message is likely greater. From an organization’s perspective, managers must balance the need to allow exiting employees to say goodbye with minimizing the opportunity of potentially disgruntled employees to send damaging communications out to the entire organization. Obviously, vitriolic farewell e-mails are but one way that departing employees may engage in behavior counterproductive to the workplace.

Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors Besides employees expressing their voice in negative ways during the notice period, they may also engage in neglect behaviors (Farrell, 1983). Although Farrell conceptualized neglect behaviors as passive behavior including lower productivity, along with higher lateness and absenteeism, negative behaviors exhibited by departing employees undoubtedly venture into more active neglect behaviors such as employee theft and vandalism. Prior research has shown a negative relationship between positive work-related attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and justice perceptions) and counterproductive workplace behavior (Dalal, 2005), including organizational and interpersonal aggression/deviance (Berry, Ones, & Sackett, 2007; Hershcovis et al., 2007). Counterproductive workplace behaviors are comprised of various levels of severity and multiple targets including employee gossip, theft, property damage, co-worker harassment, interpersonal violence, work slowdowns, lateness, and absenteeism (Klotz & Buckley, 2013; Robinson & Bennett, 1995). Some theoretical work also suggests that it may not only be dissatisfied employees that engage in deviance during the notice period. Indeed, moral licensing theory supports the idea that employees who have been good soldiers throughout their organizational tenure may feel especially licensed or entitled to engage in bad deeds such as slacking off during their final days on the job (Klotz & Bolino, 2013). Finally, one could argue that departing employees voicing complaints with negative intention to co-workers would be an example of deviant behavior; however, exiting employees voicing complaints to customers may be a stronger example of when voicing becomes a counterproductive workplace behavior.

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The potential for deviant behaviors during the notice period leaves managers and organizations in a precarious position. Employers could engage in employee monitoring, however, if discovered, such monitoring may lower the morale of either the departing employee and/or remaining employees (Martin & Freeman, 2003). In addition, there is equivocal evidence as to whether employee monitoring actually discourages deviant behavior (e.g., Bhave, 2014). Some organizations may also be tempted to simply dismiss the employees once they announce their intention to leave (either with or without pay for the duration of the notice period provided by the employee), but this would likely discourage many employees from giving advance notice and encourage them to simply quit without providing notice even though their decision to leave was neither impulsive nor unplanned.

Remaining Engaged However, not all departing employees engage in negative behaviors during the notice period. Potential future employers sometimes directly ask job seekers for a recommendation from their previous employer (Knouse, 1983) or potential employers may call previous employers/supervisors to verify employment and attempt to ascertain the quality of the individual’s work performed for that organization (Knight, 2014). The degree to which job seekers feel comfortable asking for a recommendation letter from their previous supervisor may be influenced by how they resigned if they voluntarily quit their prior job. In addition, the increase in the frequency with which people change jobs and the increase in organizations rehiring former employees (Shipp, Furst-Holloway, Harris, & Rosen, 2014) may decrease the likelihood that employees will engage in negative voicing and/or counterproductive workplace behaviors during their notice periods. In their study, Shipp et al. (2014) found that boomerang employees were less likely to have indicated that they left the employer to which they were now returning due to job dissatisfaction. If one can assume that these differences existed in the reasons for departure given during their exit interviews by boomerangs compared to non-boomerangs (i.e., those who left and did not return to their previous employers), one explanation of why the previous employers hired the boomerang employees back may be due to the fact that the former employees did not vocalize negative job attitudes toward the organization during their departure. Certainly, beyond the desire for a positive reference or potential to be rehired at a later date, other differentiating factors that may determine whether or not employees will engage in

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voice, neglect, counterproductive behaviors, or remain engaged are their own individual differences.

Role of Individual Differences during the Notice Period There has been significant research detailing the effects that specific individual differences have on job performance, including both task and contextual performance. Employees who are more conscientious (Li, Barrick, Zimmerman, & Chiaburu, 2014) and intelligent (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004) tend to have higher task performance, while those who are higher in conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, and openness to experience tend to exhibit higher levels of contextual performance (Chiaburu, Oh, Berry, Li, & Gardner, 2011). The same aspects of conscientiousness and agreeableness that lead to higher performance in general (i.e., dutifulness, reliability, altruism, and compliance) also make it likely that such individuals will continue to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities even after announcing their eventual departures from the organization. Voice Behaviors In terms of employee voice behaviors, relevant personality traits may depend on the intentions behind why the employee is voicing. Much like contextual performance, conscientious individuals have been shown to be more likely to engage in voicing behavior (LePine & Van Dyne, 2001). Whether due to their inclination to be sociable or dominant, extraverts are also more likely to voice (Lepine & Van Dyne, 2001). Those with more proactive personalities are also more inclined to voice (Fuller & Marler, 2009), perhaps due to their wanting to evoke change within the organization. Interestingly, LePine and Van Dyne (2001) found that agreeable individuals are less likely to engage in voice behaviors. Or, from another perspective, disagreeable people are more apt to voice. While this finding, in and of itself, may not be surprising, the fact that conscientiousness positively predicts both contextual performance and voice, while agreeableness has a positive relationship with contextual performance but a negative one with voice is noteworthy. Impact on Others As the impact on others would be largely dependent on the degree to which departing employees interact with co-workers, extraverted

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employees would have greater opportunity to influence their peers and subordinates. Extraverts who spoke more frequently with others about their decisions to leave may have a higher likelihood of “spreading” the turnover contagion compared to introverts who talked less frequently and/or with fewer co-workers. Departing employees who have either historically not pulled their weight, or have ceased to do so since announcing their intent to leave, would be at greater risk for invoking the wrath of their work colleagues. Consistent with our prior discussion, disagreeable employees or those who are less conscientious may be less apt to continue to perform and therefore be prime candidates for repercussions from their peers and supervisors. In regards to managers who are leaving their organization, those who have engaged in transformational leadership behaviors tend to have more positive relationships with their subordinates (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). As extraverted and emotionally stable leaders are more likely to exhibit transformational leadership behaviors (Bono & Judge, 2004), leaders with these traits may have a greater influence on their subordinates than those lower in those traits. In terms of how managers of departing employees react, one could surmise that managers lower in emotional stability would be apt to doubt their managerial skills due to employee’s departures. In addition, agreeable managers who tend to be empathetic toward their subordinates may also take such departures more to heart.

Counterproductive Workplace Behaviors The personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability) that best predict (negatively) counterproductive workplace behaviors (Berry et al., 2007) are the same ones that best predict (again negatively) actual turnover (Zimmerman, 2008). Li et al. (2014) found that counterproductive workplace behavior, turnover, and absenteeism all loaded on a single “withdrawal” factor with the three aforementioned traits was the most predictive of this higher order construct. On this basis, organizations can assume that the types of individuals who are likely to leave are the same individuals who are more likely to engage in deviant behaviors. Individuals who are more likely to experience stronger emotions and mood swings, such as those lower on emotional stability, may also be more likely to send farewell e-mails that are written in the heat of the moment and/or are used to vent negative emotions keenly felt during the last day of their employment.

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Remaining Engaged Finally, on the opposite side of the spectrum, much of what we have already discussed is relevant in predicting who is apt to remain engaged during the notice period. However, two deviations may be pertinent. Although emotionally unstable individuals are more likely to engage in withdrawal behaviors, including counterproductive workplace behavior, such individuals may also worry about estranging a supervisor and/or organization that may be called as a reference for future employment opportunities. Additional research should investigate potentially other situational factors that may deter (or encourage) neurotic employees from engaging in counterproductive workplace behavior during the notice period. In addition to the other ways that the three “good soldier” (Li et al., 2014) traits of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability predict positive behaviors relevant to the notice period, all three also have been found to predict impression management behavior (Pauls & Crost, 2004). During the notice period, employees with these traits are more likely to want to maintain positive perceptions of them, but whether this is due to their values or concern about possible future repercussions for not doing so in unknown. However, as much of the discussion in this section on the effect of individual differences is based on tangential evidence, more direct research on these effects is warranted.

CONCLUSION As this chapter describes, employee resignations are frequently occurring, complex, and emotionally charged processes that have the potential to positively and negatively impact those who leave and those who stay, the workgroups they are a part of, and the organizations that are left behind. Unlike the process of joining an organization, though, the resignation process has been largely unexplored by scholars, in part for the legitimate reason that most researchers have conceptualized an employee’s decision to turnover as akin to organizational akin. As our three-stage model of the resignation process shows, however, a great deal of activity takes place between one’s turnover decision and his or her final exit from the organization. It is our hope that in developing this model, we have generated some interest in the process of turning away from one’s organization and have laid the groundwork for many future investigations of the different facets of the resignation.

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MANAGING WORKPLACE ETHICS: AN EXTENDED CONCEPTUALIZATION OF ETHICAL SENSEMAKING AND THE FACILITATIVE ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES Alexandra E. MacDougall, Zhanna Bagdasarov, James F. Johnson and Michael D. Mumford ABSTRACT Business ethics provide a potent source of competitive advantage, placing increasing pressure on organizations to create and maintain an ethical workforce. Nonetheless, ethical breaches continue to permeate corporate life, suggesting that there is something missing from how we conceptualize and institutionalize organizational ethics. The current effort seeks to fill this void in two ways. First, we introduce an extended ethical framework premised on sensemaking in organizations. Within this framework, we suggest that multiple individual, organizational, and societal factors may differentially influence the ethical sensemaking process. Second, we contend that human resource management plays a central role in

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sustaining workplace ethics and explore the strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. Future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains are provided. Keywords: Business ethics; ethical decision making; ethical sensemaking; ethics institutionalization; ethics management; ethics interventions “As agents of industrial capitalist organizations, HR managers are governed by the institutional setting and its required role performances. They are not free to introduce ethical criteria exclusively in or on their own terms. Their primary role is to manage the employment relationship with the purpose of sustaining the viability of the organization. Thus, HR managers operate within social, structural, political, and economic limitations and are unable to make entirely free ethical choices. Even so, they still have the opportunity to make some difference, but only in so far as moral choice and ethical actions are seen by the management to coexist with business interests.” (Pinnington, Macklin, & Campbell, 2007, p. 15)

Juxtaposed against the more concrete, easily quantifiable departments in an organization, the human resources department has often received a “soft” reputation, enmeshed with the dealings of people rather than numbers or production lines. Human resource management (HRM, HR) is fundamentally concerned with the employer/employee relationship, and thus has a hand in numerous core management processes such as selection, appraisal, rewards, and development. In this way, HRM perpetuates nearly every aspect of organizational operations by aligning organizational members, whether individually or collectively, to overarching strategic objectives (Anderson, 2006). As demonstrated in the above commentary by Pinnington et al. (2007), however, the reality of life in the human resources department is one characterized by serial constraints that present complexities in day-to-day functioning. Indeed, in addition to attending to strategic, often economic, goals, HR personnel must also consider the social performance and perceived legitimacy of the firm (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). This is no easy feat, considering regular changes in laws and regulations, varying stakeholder expectations, and constant pressures imposed by scrutiny from the media and other external sources (Heineman, 2007). Moreover, internal challenges such as pushback from organizational members must also be addressed. For example, ethics initiatives are often construed by management executives as costly

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(Swanson, 1995), despite evidence that business ethics provide a viable source of competitive advantage and profitability (Buller & McEvoy, 1999; Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003). Similarly, the common assumption in business that economic and social goals are incompatible and competing rather than complementary (Orlitzky & Swanson, 2006) place increased pressure on those implementing ethics programs to demonstrate not only their social value, but also their utility for the business (Watson, 2007). Much can be argued in the way of the benefits of corporate ethics for business success. A growing body of literature has highlighted the crucial role of ethics and corporate social responsibility in key organizational outcomes, such as financial performance (e.g., Becchetti, Di Giacomo, & Pinnacchio, 2008; Van Beurden & Go¨ssling, 2008), employee commitment and job satisfaction (e.g., Koh & Boo, 2004; Valentine & Barnett, 2003), and employee recruitment, attraction, and productivity (e.g., Albinger & Freeman, 2000; Turban & Greening, 1997), among others. On the contrary, research has demonstrated that consumer perceptions of unethical conduct in business practices can result in decreased consumer trust, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty (Leonidou, Kvasova, Leonidou, & Chari, 2013). Furthermore, as we have learned from the high-stakes ethics scandals spanning the turn of the 21st century, ethical misconduct threatens the long-term viability of the firm. Fines, penalties, and settlements have been recorded as costing hundreds of billions of dollars (Heineman, 2007), a drastic increase from the $40 million estimate of just two decades ago (Bartels, Harrick, Martell, & Strickland, 1998). In the cases of significant unethical behavior, companies may even collapse entirely. Nevertheless, ethical misconduct remains a crisis in the modern business world. In 2013, the National Business Ethics Survey (NBES) indicated that nearly half of over 6,400 workers reported observing misconduct at their place of employment (Ethics Resource Center, 2013). Furthermore, according to the NBES, most misconduct at work was committed by managers, the very people companies rely on to demonstrate ethical behavior and enforce proper conduct. A whopping 60 percent of observed misconduct was allegedly committed by first-line supervisors, middle, and senior management. These staggering numbers suggest that something is missing when it comes to ethics in organizations. We argue that the root of these problems is twofold, stemming from (1) individual breakdowns in the ethical decision-making process, and (2) the limited role of human resources in the institutionalization of organizational ethics. With respect to the first point, we must consider the nature of ethical decision making (EDM) in organizations. Ethical decisions are complex,

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and decision makers must be equipped to retrieve, evaluate, categorize, and synthesize relevant information (Connelly, Helton-Fauth, & Mumford, 2004). On their own, these steps are relatively basic cognitive processes. In the context of ethical dilemmas, however, they are clouded by the many constraints and pressures imposed on the situation from multiple levels both internal and external to the organization. When individuals succumb to these pressures, it may ultimately result in a breakdown in the decisionmaking process. Despite the recent surge in business ethics scholarship, this process remains largely unexplored, likely due to a seemingly false dichotomy among micro- and macro-level examinations of organizational ethics (Buckley, Hamdani, Klotz, & Valcea, 2011). In this regard, ethics scholars have tended to focus their efforts on either broad, environmental elements or lower-level individual practices, rather than considering how the two interact (Greenwood & De Cieri, 2007). Accordingly, we introduce a holistic conceptualization of how ethics operate in organizations. To achieve this goal, we contend that ethical decision making, guided by ethical sensemaking, is susceptible to a number of influences at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. Concerning the second point, we should also attend to the largely overlooked role of human resources in ethics institutionalization. Bearing in mind the notion that individual ethics are impacted by the broader organizational and environmental systems, and considering that HR has at its heart an employee orientation, it is seemingly apparent that HRM should play a vital role in the implementation of organizational ethics programs. Nevertheless, human resources often plays only a minor role in ethics initiatives (Pinnington et al., 2007), perhaps due to skepticism concerning the extent to which it can contribute (e.g., Garavan & McGuire, 2010). On the contrary, it is our belief that HRM has much to contribute in the quest to improve business ethics. To this end, we explore the main strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. In the remainder of this chapter, we provide a brief introduction to business ethics and ethical sensemaking. Next, we introduce an extended model of organizational ethics that places ethical sensemaking within the broader work environment. We provide a thorough discussion of the various model components and their respective facilitating or inhibiting influence on employees’ EDM. Subsequently, bearing in mind the theoretical underpinnings of the ethical sensemaking model, we highlight the many ways in which the HR department can contribute to creating and sustaining an ethical workforce. To this end, we suggest specific implementation

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strategies that may prove useful to HR personnel. We conclude by acknowledging limitations of our proposed model, offering theoretical and practical implications, and providing a number of future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS ETHICS AND SENSEMAKING The empirical literature has witnessed a significant increase in attention to the topic of business ethics over the last few decades. Indeed, research in business ethics and ethical decision making has grown drastically from a small niche within managerial and organizational research to a field of study in and of itself (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008). Broadly defined, business ethics refers to the evaluation of organizational goals, policies, practices, and decisions from a moral framework (Pinnington et al., 2007). Within this moral framework, a determination is made concerning “rightness” or “wrongness” on the basis of human well-being, long-term interests, justice, and humanity (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Since its inception, scholars have sought to determine what factors, whether individual, situational, or otherwise, promote business ethics and EDM. In light of these efforts, sensemaking has come to the forefront. At its core, sensemaking is a cognitive response to an event whereby one “turns [ambiguous] circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action” (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005, p. 409). When faced with situations that are complex and ill-defined, such as those characterizing ethical dilemmas, sensemaking provides a structure through which information can be organized. In particular, the sensemaking process involves three key functions: (1) gathering relevant information, (2) incorporating relevant information into a mental model, and (3) using the mental model to arrive at a course of action (Brock et al., 2008; Mumford et al., 2008). Of importance with respect to the ethical sensemaking model is that it accounts for flexibility and individual variation in the decision-making process. For example, sensemaking assumes that a variety of mental models can be applied to the same situation (i.e., ethical event) depending on how that event is interpreted (Mumford et al., 2008). Thus, individuals exposed to the same event may arrive at differing mental models, and subsequently, differing courses of action. Relatedly, the quality and accuracy of mental

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models created in response to ethical quandaries relies heavily on certain cognitive processes and capabilities on the part of the decision maker (Thiel et al., 2013). Again, considering that the mental model developed in turn guides decision making and action, this suggests that individuals may vary in their capacity to engage in ethical decision making. The value of the ethical sensemaking approach for ethical decision making is well-established (e.g., Bagdasarov, MacDougall, Johnson, & Mumford, 2015; Thiel, Connelly, & Griffith, 2012; Brock et al., 2008; Thiel, Connelly, & Griffith, 2011). At present, however, the sensemaking model is conceptualized as a highly cognitive, individualistic approach to ethics. To therefore increase the applicability of the ethical sensemaking approach to the business domain, an extended conceptualization is provided in the following section. Of note, while details concerning specific lines of research will be discussed in greater depth to follow, the proposed ethical sensemaking model is a culmination of ten years of development, validation, and exploration into the efficacy of ethical sensemaking as a viable method to improve EDM.

AN EXTENDED CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE ETHICAL SENSEMAKING MODEL Prior to delving into individual components of our model, let us begin by providing a brief overview. As Fig. 1 demonstrates, the ethical sensemaking process is cognitively complex with multiple relationships influencing every step. This cognitive component, designated in the lightly shaded box, begins with the consideration of constraints embedded within the organization. First-order constraints, such as laws, rules, norms, and stakeholder desires, and second-order constraints, including causes and constraints imposed on a given situation, often dictate the “playing field” upon which ethical sensemaking takes place. Directly affected by first- and second-order constraints are specific sensemaking processes including how individuals frame the ethical dilemma and whether or not visceral, affective reactions are successfully regulated. Depending on the manner in which the event is framed and emotions are regulated, an initial mental model is formulated. This initial mental model can then be modified as the decision maker forecasts potential outcomes and reflects on the situation. Accordingly, the interaction among these model components is highly cyclical until a final decision is made. In short,

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Extended Sensemaking Model of Ethical Decision Making.

sensemaking processes are anything but linear. On the contrary, they are often complementary; the ineffective use of one process often leads to decrements in sensemaking information gathered in other processes, subsequent model formation, and action (e.g., Martin, MacDougall, Bagdasarov, & Mumford, 2014). On either side of the model are internal and external factors that influence single or multiple parts of the ethical sensemaking process. Certain primary factors such as stakeholders, professional goals, personal worldview, and expertise impact the entire ethical sensemaking process whereas other factors (e.g., affect and personal goals) only influence specific sensemaking steps. Although some of these influences have been well-established in the literature, others have been largely ignored. As an example, the importance of stakeholder analysis is frequently raised in discussions of business ethics (Goodpaster, 1991), hence its relation to sensemaking in its entirety. However, the role of social press, and its indirect effect on ethical sensemaking vis-a`-vis stakeholder pressures, is not. Similarly, while the relationship between experience and business ethics has been largely

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explored with mixed findings (Loe, Ferrell, & Mansfield, 2000), less attention has been placed on how experience bears on social press, or how it is factored into the development of personal and professional goals and personal worldview. Finally, again noting the cyclical nature of the model, it is important to recognize that certain factors, such as experience, are not only outcomes of ethical sensemaking but also provide valuable information for future sensemaking efforts. Given the noted complexities of the ethical sensemaking model, the following sections elaborate and extend the Mumford et al. (2008) sensemaking model, providing a more comprehensive framework from which to view and understand ethical sensemaking in an organizational context. While the preceding paragraphs provided a “gestalt” view of how the elements of the ethical sensemaking model interact with one another, the following sections provide in-depth examination of each component of the model and provide empirical evidence to support model structure and efficacy.

First-Order Constraints Each step in the sensemaking process is inundated with extraneous influences, which is fundamentally what makes ethical sensemaking so complex. One set of extraneous influences that constrain and guide ethical sensemaking are first-order constraints. First-order constraints, unlike other situation-specific influences, set the “playing field” upon which ethical sensemaking takes place. These pre-existing, persistent constraints include established organizational hierarchies, local/state/federal regulatory bodies, institutional and organizational rules and guidelines, and societal rules, norms, laws, and customs. Of importance, understanding and acknowledging first-order constraints in ethical sensemaking can improve EDM. While ethical sensemaking takes place within the boundaries of firstorder constraints, first-order constraints also have a direct impact on situation-specific steps involved in ethical sensemaking. One type of firstorder constraint, available institutional and organizational codes of conduct, has been shown to have a significant impact on ethical sensemaking processes and overall EDM, particularly when codes were provided with contextual cues (Harkrider et al., 2012). Similarly, Barnett and Vaicys (2000) provided a theoretical review of how guidelines and procedures, normative structures (e.g., organizational hierarchy), and policies signal to employees an organization’s position on ethical issues. In contrast,

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organizations whose policies and structure promote unethical behavior, intentional or not, are likely to reward, sustain, and promote unethical behavior (Moore, 2007). In contrast to “hard rules,” organizational culture, values, shared beliefs, heroes, myths, and valued ideals informally provide ethical context for employees (Reidenbach & Robin, 1991). Perceptions of informal indicators of organizational climate, regardless of rules, regulations, and guidelines prohibiting certain behaviors, can signal that unethical behavior is tacitly encouraged (Langlais & Bent, 2014). The past 20 years has provided numerous examples (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, U.S. banking crisis) of how industries with toxic climates and practices, regardless of official policy, promote unethical organizational behavior. High-risk fields may also be predisposed to take risks that result in subsequent unethical outcomes. For example, previous research has demonstrated that professional fields related to health and medicine are predisposed to a higher risk of unethical conduct due to the high-risk nature of the field (Mumford, Connelly et al., 2009). Moreover, the affect-laden, high-risk situations characteristics of these fields may distort risk perception and lead to fluctuations in decision quality (Slovic, Peters, Finucane, and MacGregor, 2005). Finally, social anchors like norms, rules, and customs provide additional information about situation-specific elements. Sonenshein (2007) argued that social anchors provide information to help individuals overcome narrow, singular frames of reference and better understand personal/ situational constraints. Sonenshein stressed, however, interpretations of social anchors were subject to individual and collective motivations, meaning information gathered from others may be biased and the product of hidden motives. In short, individuals and organizations should be aware of who is considered a “role model” and what information is passed on through social anchors. When faced with an ethical quandary, organizational members will use information transmitted through these sources to engage in “role taking,” the process of considering others’ perspectives (Trevin˜o, 1986). Accordingly, effective role modeling and appropriate social anchors should be apparent to organizational members so as to promote ethical decision making and subsequent conduct.

Second-Order Constraints While first-order constraints are relatively static in nature, second-order constraints are both fluid and specific to each ethical dilemma. Examples of

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second-order constraints include situation-specific causes, constraints, internal and external influences, perceptions of personal/organizational accountability, and professional or personal biases. They take place within the context of first-order constraints, are highly context dependent, and are subject to change as other situational elements change (Correia et al., 2012). The ethical sensemaking model prescribes that second-order constraints directly impact both information gathering (e.g., framing, emotion regulation, forecasting, and self-reflection) and information integration via mental model formation. This makes the ethical sensemaking process extremely complicated and requires deliberate, cognitive effort for individuals to identify and integrate second-order constraints into the mental model formation process. Second-order constraints have a significant, overall effect on ethical sensemaking. Verge´s (2010), in a theoretical review of existing models of ethical decision making, suggested that most models failed to take into consideration the importance of context, or the specifics that make one ethical dilemma unique from another. This is problematic, however, given that quality EDM requires the consideration of situational context (Verge´s, 2010). Other research examining the impact of environmental elements on ethical decision making have corroborated the importance of situational context. Indeed, constraints such as stress, time pressure, excessive production demands, and perceptions of uncertainty relate to reduced quality of ethical sensemaking (Mumford et al., 2007; Mumford, Waples et al., 2009). In contrast, Bagdasarov et al. (2013) examined the influence autonomy supportive versus controlling environmental case content on ethical sensemaking and EDM. Autonomy supportive environmental content was associated with increased identification of constraints, ethical sensemaking strategy use, and overall EDM quality compared to oppressive, controlling social content (Bagdasarov et al., 2013). Constraints may also be personal in nature. For example, individual differences such as general cognitive ability, creativity, and traditional personality variables like agreeableness and cynicism are significantly correlated with overall EDM performance (Mumford et al., 2006). In a study of creativity, planning, and general decision making, Osburn and Mumford (2006) found that creativity significantly impacted sensemaking performance processes and planning quality. Moreover, Martin, Bagdasarov, and Connelly (2015) found that individual differences such as working memory capacity were significantly related to increased EDM quality. The authors further noted the high correlation between general cognitive ability, another individual difference characteristic, and EDM quality.

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In addition to influencing overall ethical sensemaking, second-order constraints can differentially impact specific sensemaking processes. For example, in a multi-part study by Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004), contextual elements such as organizational surveillance and sanctioning systems significantly impacted whether individuals framed a decision as either having ethical connotations or being a non-ethical business decision. Results indicated that situations framed to have moral implications are more likely to be treated as moral dilemmas. Tenbrunsel and Smith-Crowe (2008) demonstrated how framing causes, constraints, stakeholders, and other secondorder constraints of a situation initiated cognitive processes that considered ethical implications while situations framed not to have a moral frame did not. In terms of affect and subsequent emotion regulation, being aware of second-order constraints can facilitate emotion regulation cognitive processes. Sonenshein (2007), in discussing his SI model of moral reasoning, noted the potential influence of affect on sensemaking processes and how one’s rational cognitive processes may sometimes be at odds with reactive, instinctive affective reactions (Haidt, 2001). In addition, research has demonstrated that downward social comparison, a regulation strategy, can effectively reduce the negative impact of unregulated affect and can also facilitate ethical sensemaking (Thiel et al., 2012). Second-order constraints also significantly impact the sensemaking process of forecasting. For example, identification of critical causes and potential outcomes can significantly influence forecasting quality and subsequent EDM performance (Beeler et al., 2010; Stenmark et al., 2011). Moreover, identification of fewer, but clear, critical causes can aid individuals engaging in certain sensemaking processes such as forecasting valence and timeframe (Johnson et al., 2012). This is likely due to increased ease in identifying situational causes (e.g., second-order constraints) as compared to individuals who identify a larger number of obfuscating causes. Even more, second-order constraints may also impact self-reflection and successive model formation. However, this relationship is likely mediated via other, earlier sensemaking processes. For example, the process of self-reflection may be less dependent on situation-specific information in comparison to past experiences and expertise. Nonetheless, evidence exists that deliberate information gathering may initiate self-reflective sensemaking strategies. Johnson et al. (2014), for instance, determined having participants ask targeted “why” questions following a short case improved self-reflective sensemaking strategy use compared to those who did not. Finally, mental model quality may be

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affected by second-order constraints as mental model quality is directly related to successful information gathering.

Framing Situational framing, which occurs early in the ethical sensemaking process, influences whether or not ethical implications are recognized, and largely determines if ethical sensemaking takes place at all. According to Mumford et al. (2008), framing involves defining the nature of the problem at hand. In terms of ethical sensemaking, the process of framing involves obtaining an initial appraisal of a situation and whether or not the situation is ethical in nature. Failure to see ethical implications results in termination of the ethical sensemaking process unless additional, deliberate framing is conducted. In contrast, when a situation is framed as having ethical implications, framing then leads to additional sensemaking processes including emotion regulation, forecasting, and mental model formation. The relationship between framing and emotion regulation processes is unique compared to other sensemaking processes because they both take place early in the sensemaking process. For example, scholars have suggested that moral reasoning can be simultaneously conscious and unconscious, deliberate and intuitive (Haidt, 2001; Sonenshein, 2007). Whereas we often have instant, affective reactions to an ethical dilemma which then affects how we frame situations, we also have affective reactions based on our conscious recognition of an ethical crisis. Framing a situation as being “positive” or “negative” can increase sensitivity to further affective stimuli (Kisley et al., 2011). Kisley et al. (2011) demonstrated that adopting an initial negative affective frame can increase sensitivity to subsequent negative images while adopting a positive affective frame results in less affective reactivity to the same images. How ethical dilemmas are framed has a direct impact on affective reactions and the perceived need to regulate affect. Depending on framing, affect may not require emotion regulation, or framing may impact the effectiveness of certain emotion regulation strategies. The ethical sensemaking model also notes a causal relationship between the processes of framing and forecasting outcomes. Indeed, framing methods such as problem appraisal, goal assessment, and perceptions of threat and opportunity have been shown to influence forecasting, and forecasting cognitions are then constrained within these different frames (Brock et al., 2008). Moreover, examinations of affective framing on ethical sensemaking

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have concluded that framing cases with positive affect, rather than negative affect, facilitates ethical sensemaking performance (Antes et al., 2012; Martin et al., 2011). Furthermore, Johnson et al. (2012) examined the impact of cause and outcome case content on case-based ethics education performance, finding a clear relationship between cause identification (e.g., problem appraisal) and forecasting performance. Specifically, cases with clear, critical causes were found to produce higher quality forecasts and overall better EDM. Further research by Caughron et al. (2011, 2013) demonstrated that (1) framing an ethical dilemma as having organizational rather than personal outcomes and (2) framing competitors as part of an “in-group” rather than an “out-group” promotes sensemaking processes. In short, how ethical issues are framed have a significant impact on immediate ethical sensemaking and EDM outcomes. Framing can have a significant impact on not only immediate forecasting, but also forecasting for future, hypothetical ethical dilemmas. Harkrider, Tamborski, et al. (2013), for example, examined the impact of moral credentialing and the potential to reduce positive outcomes for others on moral cleansing behaviors and EDM. Interestingly, individuals who were found to cheat, and who were subsequently told that their performance would harm others, were more inclined to forecast that they would engage in highly prosocial behaviors. As first noted by Weick (1988), “our initial responses to situations do more than set the tone; they determine the trajectory for the crisis” (p. 309). This also applies to the relationship between framing and forecasting. How one frames an ethical dilemma impacts forecasting of contingencies, constraints, opportunities, and resources. Finally, the way in which a situation is framed can significantly impact mental model formation and subsequent decision making. During mental model construction, information previously gathered is systematically evaluated in terms of criticality, worth, importance, and relevance (Thomas, Clark, & Gioia, 1993; Weick 1988, 1995). Tversky and Kahneman (1986) demonstrated the framing of a scenario can significantly impact what individuals consider important and relevant. This initial framing, in turn, was found to influence mental model formation and downstream steps in the sensemaking process. Further research has suggested that framing solutions in terms of potential losses can result in higher risk-seeking behavior while framing in terms of potential gains can yield higher risk-avoidant behavior (Kuhberger, 1998). Finally, because the sensemaking model prescribes that mental models directly influence actions, framing indirectly influences final ethical decision making (Mumford et al., 2008; Weick, 1998).

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Emotion Regulation The literature on affect has long established that emotions have a significant impact on cognitive processing, decision making, and more specifically, ethical decision making (c.f. Gaudine & Thorne, 2001; Haidt, 2003; Kligyte, Connelly, Thiel, & Devenport, 2013). Emotion regulation is defined as controlling how, when, and what affect is experienced, and includes multiple emotion regulation strategies such as cognitive reappraisal, downward social comparison, and relaxation (Thiel et al., 2012). Empirical work in the domain of emotions and ethical decision making has indicated the inhibiting impact of negative emotions and facilitating influence of positive emotions on integrity and ethical judgment (e.g., Cianci & Bierstaker, 2009; Kligyte et al., 2013). As a result, failure to regulate disruptive affect has serious implications for the ethical sensemaking process. However, affective reactions are an inherent part of the EDM process and, therefore, make successful cognitive processing significantly more complex (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001; Mumford et al., 2008; Mumford et al., 2006). Consequently, unregulated affect has the potential to negatively influence ethical sensemaking, while successful affective regulation can significantly improve it. Like framing, emotion regulation takes place early in the ethical sensemaking process as a result of both conscious appraisal and reflexive reaction (Sonenshein, 2007). Externally, emotion regulation is influenced by affect, personal goals, and the sensemaking process framing. Just as framing can influence emotion regulation quality and strategies used, the regulation of affect also influences how situations are framed. Both Sonenshein (2007) and Haidt (2001) proposed individuals react instinctively and affectively to a situation, prescribing an initial “good or bad” affective frame to situations. Individuals then consciously search for confirmatory evidence of their initial, affect-laden appraisal. However, unregulated affect of fear or anger, two emotions regularly present in ethical dilemmas, may have a significant, negative impact on situational framing (Nabi, 2003). In contrast, the deliberate use of emotion regulation strategies can mitigate and even improve framing quality and subsequent ethical sensemaking. Miu and Cri ¸san (2011) demonstrated the emotion regulation technique cognitive reappraisal reduced the impact of the “framing effect” on subjective judgments on an economic decision-making task. In fact, several emotion regulation strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and downward social comparison explicitly involve deliberate reframing of a situation (Kligyte et al., 2013; Thiel et al., 2012).

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The ethical sensemaking model prescribes emotion regulation can also significantly impact forecasting. Ethical decision making is a form of highstakes decision making that frequently elicits affective reactions and preference for desirable outcomes (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001; Haidt, 2003; Kligyte et al., 2013; Thiel et al., 2011). While some evidence exists that certain emotions may promote decision making (Lerner & Keltner, 2001), other evidence suggests that affect may negatively impact recognition and response to ethical events (Gaudine & Thorne, 2001; Haidt, 2003). Affective anger often leads individuals to prefer punitive outcomes for an ethical transgressor and reduces the consideration of external, situational explanations for the transgressive behavior. Individuals subsequently fixate on pursuing self-serving outcomes at the expense of more amenable alternatives (Nabi, 2003). However, the effective use of emotion regulation strategies can mitigate potential negative effects of unregulated affect on forecasting. For example, overall regulation of incidental emotions has been shown to lead to increased accuracy in forecasting personal outcomes (Lerner & Gonzalez, 2005), whereas unregulated anger negatively impacts forecasting outcomes (Thiel et al., 2012). Moreover, in an examination of the impact of multiple emotion regulation strategies on ethical sensemaking, Kligyte et al. (2013) found that anger regulation via cognitive reappraisal and relaxation strategies leads to the identification of a larger number of ethical consequences for possible courses of action. Because affect has the potential to significantly influence ethical sensemaking processes, the use of effective emotion regulation strategies are critical to assure effective use other sensemaking processes such as forecasting. Finally, emotion regulation significantly impacts how individuals engage in information integration, subsequent mental model formation, and action. Thiel et al. (2012), for instance, demonstrated unregulated anger leads to a narrowing of cognitions, a reduced capacity to identify opportunities and restrictions, and decrements to overall planning quality. Other research has found that regulation of anger improves overall ethical sensemaking (Kligyte et al., 2013), and that effective emotion regulation improves moral reflection/judgment due to the neutralization of unmitigated affect (Dedeke, 2015). Finally, recall that Sonenshein (2007) asserted individuals retroactively seek confirmatory evidence of their initial, affective reactions. This affective narrowing, without the compensatory quality of emotion regulation, has the potential to significantly impact both information gathering and interpretation.

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Forecasting The next component of the ethical sensemaking model, forecasting, involves the identification a short- and long-term potential outcomes. Forecasting is best defined as the formulation of predictions based on observations of the present situation (Pant & Starbuck, 1990). Because quality forecasting provides individuals with information about future constraints, issues, resources, and opportunities, it is related to multiple ethical sensemaking processes. Unlike previous sensemaking processes, forecasting generally occurs after initial mental models have formed. Initial causes, constraints, and situational elements must be at least somewhat known in order to begin predicting outcomes for different potential courses of actions (Johnson et al., 2012). While the ethical sensemaking model suggests that forecasting occurs after framing and emotion regulation, forecasting occurs before, directly impacts, and is directly impacted by another sensemaking process, selfreflection. In order to accurately forecast, individuals must also self-reflect upon the outcomes of their past experiences, internal cognitions, and acquired knowledge; reflection of past outcomes serves as a comparison for currently forecasted outcomes (Mumford et al., 2006). Due to the symbiotic relationship between forecasting and self-reflection, the degree to which these two processes influence one another is highly reliant upon individual breadth and depth of experiential knowledge. Hogarth and Makridakis (1981) noted that experts frequently reflect on their personal experiences, particularly on how previous, similar cases turned out as a result of past actions, when engaged in cognitively demanding planning tasks such as forecasting. Similarly, Dorner and Schaub (1994) propose individuals first engage in “prognosis” (e.g., forecasting) and then monitor/self-reflect upon outcomes of their implemented plan. In short, initial forecasts are first made and then revised or refined based upon the results of self-reflection (Mumford, Schultz, & Van Doorn, 2001). However, how do novices who lack case-based, experiential knowledge forecast and revise via self-reflection? The use of case-based education may provide knowledge to novices lacking case-based, experimental knowledge. Harkrider et al. (2012), in an examination of case content on ethical sensemaking, demonstrated that providing forecasting case content to participants resulted in significantly higher levels of case-relevant knowledge retention and overall sensemaking strategy use compared to those who received no forecasting content.

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The process of forecasting also provides valuable information relevant to mental model formation. Recall that forecasting is the formulation of multiple predictions based on present observations (Pant & Starbuck, 1990). Forecasting influences mental model formation by providing multiple model alternatives that consider a variety of consequences, causes, contingences, resources, and opportunities. However, the type, complexity, and quality of forecasts individuals tend to produce are highly dependent upon expertise, experience, and previously acquired case-based experiential knowledge. As a result, inexperienced novices are notoriously poor at developing and considering multiple, quality forecasts. Furthermore, due to the cognitively taxing nature of forecasting outcomes, even experienced individuals often fail to produce quality forecasts (Dorner & Schaub, 1994). This makes forecasting one of the keystones of the ethical sensemaking model, and the only sensemaking process to affect or be affected by every other cognitive process; failure to produce quality forecasts has multiple significant, negative implications for overall ethical sensemaking quality. One element of forecasting is the utility of positive versus negative forecasts, as each provide unique information. For example, effective leaders are likely to consider a wider array of negative forecasts to avoid potentially disastrous outcomes and mitigate downstream consequences (Vincent, Decker, & Mumford, 2002), whereas novices tend to formulate overly optimistic forecasts and discount potential negative outcomes (Xiao, Milgram, & Doyle, 1997). Alternatively, positive forecasting has been shown to have a facilitative effect on overall ethical sensemaking strategies and EDM (Martin et al., 2011; Stenmark et al., 2011). Finally, Mumford, Lonergan, and Scott (2002) demonstrated that comprehensive forecasting (e.g., forecasting of both positive and negative outcomes) improved identification of contingencies, revision of mental models, and backup plans. In short, while negative and positive forecasts provide different outcome information, skilled forecasting that considers multi-valence outcomes will assist in overall information integration and result in superior mental models formation.

Self-Reflection The final cognitive process that takes place in the proposed ethical sensemaking model is self-reflection. Self-reflection involves reflecting upon

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one’s personally or vicariously obtained experiential knowledge (c.f. Mumford et al., 2008; Strange & Mumford, 2005) as well as an inward examination of one’s personal motivations, biases, and judgments (Johnson et al., 2014). Because self-reflection is inherently dependent upon experience and expertise, those with increased first-hand and vicarious knowledge will be better equipped to engage in self-reflection (Hammond, 1990). Novices, therefore, may find self-reflection extremely difficult due to a general lack of case-based experiential knowledge. An alternative to first-hand experiential knowledge, case-based education, uses carefully constructed hypothetical cases to provide novices with cases to reflect upon (Kolodner et al., 2003). The use of case-based education also allows novices a “safe space” to make errors in cognitive processing, but case-based education effectiveness is highly dependent upon elements like case content quality and instructional processes (Bagdasarov, MacDougall, Johnson, & Mumford, 2015). However, absent of case-based education opportunities, novices are at a distinct disadvantage regarding self-reflection compared to experts (Thiel et al., 2012). Self-reflection generally occurs after initial forecasting but before a final decision is made. Self-reflection and forecasting share a two-way complementary; they influence one another as well as overall mental model formation. As noted by Oyserman and Markus (1990), the process of forecasting outcomes in high-stakes events involve a great deal of self-relevant reflection. Indeed, a large component of forecasting outcomes involves the inward reflection on outcomes of past events. Self-reflection involves the critical comparison of current events to past mental models, and a viability judgment of potential courses of action in light of self-reflection of past experiences (Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs, & Fleishman, 2000; Scott, Lonergan, & Mumford, 2005; Strange & Mumford, 2005). During this process, initial forecasts are refined as additional information is gathered through self-reflection on accumulated experience and expertise (Mumford et al., 2001). Self-reflection and forecasting are two uniquely complementary sensemaking processes as one is past-oriented while the other is future-oriented. As a result, the strength of the relationship between self-reflection and forecasting is highly dependent upon selfreflection efficacy, again emphasizing that novices will be at a disadvantage compared to experts in regards to the usefulness of self-reflection as a sensemaking process (Mumford et al., 2008). The ethical sensemaking model notes self-reflection also has a direct impact on final EDM and action. Hammond (1990), for example, demonstrated self-reflection impacts decision making significantly, indicating that

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those with more experiential knowledge had significantly more “cases” from which to reflect upon. Extensive confirmatory evidence exists on the positive impact of case-based ethics education on ethical sensemaking for novice trainees (c.f. Harkrider, Bagdasarov et al., 2013) as well as organizational leaders (Thiel et al., 2012). For example, results from Martin et al. (2011) indicated adopting a future-oriented focus improved self-reflection and subsequent EDM decision quality. Complementing these findings, Antes et al. (2012) showed self-reflection on one’s relevant past, positive experiences while maintaining a process-oriented focus significantly improved final EDM quality. In short, multiple methods of self-reflection improve final EDM quality. While self-reflection refers to the inward examination of experiential knowledge, it also refers to self-examination of biases, motives, and cognitions. Experts of self-reflection are not only skilled in referring to their accumulated case-based knowledge, but also are more likely to accurately reflect upon and compensate for personal motives, biases, and cognitions (Brock et al., 2008). Interestingly, in a review of different critical reflection methods, Mezirow (1998) noted all methods similarly involved questioning one’s beliefs, constraints, rules, and norms to determine if one’s mental model was adequate or in need of improvement. Nonetheless, constant selfreflection, whether or not an ethical dilemma is present, can provide information about personal emotions, biases, and feelings, in turn improving risk management and coping skills when responding to a crisis (Crowley & Gottlieb, 2012). Self-reflection, in the form of identifying personal motives and biases, has further been found to lead to more accurate and higher quality decision making (Dorner & Schaub, 1994), and furthermore, elaborative “why” self-reflection questions have been shown to increase sensemaking strategy utilization (Johnson et al., 2014).

Mental Model Formation and Decision Making The final two components that comprise the central part of the ethical sensemaking model are mental model formation and decision implementation. A mental model is best defined as the “schematic, [structural] organization of knowledge” (Brock et al., 2008, p. 453; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Mental model formation serves as the culmination of information previously gathered earlier in the sensemaking process and serves as a reference point for action implementation. This makes the cognitive process of mental model formation arguably one of the most critical, unique elements of the ethical

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sensemaking model. Specifically, while other sensemaking processes primarily deal with information gathering, mental model formation and action encompass information gathering, interpretation, and execution, of a finalized mental model (Mumford et al., 2008; Thomas et al., 1993; Weick, 1988, 1995; Weick et al., 2005). Furthermore, mental model formation also occurs in parallel with other sensemaking processes (Thiel et al., 2012). Mental models provide a framework for initial understanding, a standard by which gathered information is evaluated, and predictive information and appraisal for multiple courses of action (Mumford et al., 2008). In short, the utilization, formation, refinement, and application of mental models are the foundations of ethical decision making. The ethical sensemaking model denotes a two-way relationship with most other ethical sensemaking processes and mental model formation as working mental models are regularly revised based on information gathered from other sensemaking processes. If available, initial mental models originate from previous experience or expertise (Mumford et al., 2008). In the absence of available mental models, such as the case with novices, initial models develop alongside early-stage ethical sensemaking processes such as emotion regulation and framing. These preliminary mental models are then appraised by later sensemaking processes forecasting and selfreflection if previous case-based experience is available (Antes et al., 2012; Brock et al., 2008; Martin et al., 2011). Finally, in response to these cognitive appraisals of mental models, insufficient mental models are either culled or revised until multiple comprehensive models are developed to implement via action (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Weick et al., 2005). While this process seems relatively straightforward, several factors such as memory, cognitive ability, and experience/expertise significantly impact successful mental model formation (Martin et al., 2015; Mumford et al., 2006). Thomas et al. (1993) note the fundamental function of mental model formation is to notice, bracket, and apply meaning to current and previously acquired knowledge to respond to a crisis. Applying this conceptualization to moral reasoning, Sonenshein (2007) posited what we often conceive as intuitions are, in fact, the internalization of knowledge gained from past experience and expertise into easily recalled mental models. As a result, and as previously noted, the perception of expert “intuition” is more accurately conceptualized as a cache of relevant mental models ready to be applied to a variety of decision-making tasks. A drawback of this conceptualization is realizing that mental model formation and quality is a function of experience and expertise (Brock et al., 2008; Mumford et al., 2008). This supports previous research that state expertise is directly related to the

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availability of rich, flexible, and well-integrated mental models (Chermack, 2003). Absent of expertise, adequate information gathering via other, viable sensemaking processes becomes absolutely vital. For example, in an examination of novice mental model complexity and EDM quality, a study by Bagdasarov et al. (2015) found that the relationship between mental model quality and EDM quality was fully mediated by quality information gathered through viable sensemaking processes. Bearing in mind these results, it is likely experts would be less reliant on sensemaking processes like framing and emotion regulation that contributed to this mediated relationship due to their pre-existing, extensive experiential knowledge. The ultimate goal of the ethical sensemaking model is to develop and initiate a course of action to remediate an ethical crisis. However, while the ethical sensemaking model culminates in a decision, it does not necessarily mean the ethical sensemaking process terminates. A critical outcome of the ethical sensemaking model is the generation of future cased-based experiential knowledge that contributes to an increased number of available mental models for future consideration and improves forecasting and selfreflection (Hammond, 1990). Furthermore, lessons learned from previous sensemaking efforts are also likely to improve framing and emotion regulation in future ethical dilemmas. This cyclical relationship within the ethical sensemaking model is ultimately the catalyst to developing critical, casebased experience and expertise. Finally, absent of throwing novices into “trial by fire” situations, the cyclical nature of the ethical sensemaking model establishes a theoretical basis for developing case-based ethics education programs to improve novice ethical sensemaking skills (Mumford et al., 2008; Mumford et al., 2006).

Affect Extant literature has indicated the relationship between emotions and various second-order constraints. Specifically, certain studies have clearly exemplified that presence of emotions or affective reactions can play a significant role in identification of relevant second-order constraints. Thiel et al. (2013), for instance, investigated the influence of emotionally rich case content on identification of relevant sensemaking processes, knowledge acquisition, and ultimately, ethical decision making. Results of this work indicated that ascribing emotional reactions to main case characters, and in turn, enhancing the richness of case content, promoted identification of critical causes and constraints, suggesting that emotional displays and

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reactions have an undeniable effect on second-order constraints. Thus, emotions appear to enhance identification of second-order constraints, which in turn leads to more informed mental model formation. Literature is replete with evidence for the effect of emotion on various sensemaking components and ethical decision making. Much information is available to suggest that emotions influence how information is acquired and processed during times of ethical risk. The majority of work in this arena has shown that negative emotions tend to inhibit the sensemaking process, and, as a result, EDM. Conversely, there is some evidence to suggest that positive affect may actually facilitate EDM. Kligyte et al. (2013), for example, demonstrated that anger inhibits the sensemaking process and results in decisions of lower ethicality, while fear was found to facilitate the sensemaking process and lead to better EDM. Similarly, Cianci and Bierstaker (2009) explored the impact of positive and negative affect on auditor’s ethical judgments. Findings indicated that auditors in negative affective states made poorer ethical judgments. Additionally, Thiel et al. (2011) investigated appraisals of certainty as underlying mechanisms for the negative relationship between anger and EDM. These researchers found that certainty appraisals associated with anger resulted in decisions of lower ethicality. Furthermore, Connelly et al. (2004) used a managerial inbasket task to show that certain positive and negative emotions facilitated EDM, while others hindered it. Finally, Gaudine and Thorne (2001) found that individuals experiencing positive affect were more likely to apply sophisticated moral structures to ethical dilemmas, which has been shown by Brock et al. (2008) to lead to decisions of better ethicality. Many other studies have indicated a direct influence of emotions on sensemaking and EDM. Thiel and Connelly (2010) showed that anger impedes EDM by disrupting the sensemaking process. Likewise, Krishnakumar and Rymph (2012) showed that aside from anger, sadness also inhibited EDM. Curtis (2006) investigated the impact of mood on intentions to report unethical behavior. Results of this study revealed that negative mood, specifically, was associated with lower intentions to report unethical acts within organizations to direct supervisors. In sum, these studies, along with many others, suggest that negative affective states tend to inhibit the sensemaking process, which in turn leads to poorer EDM. Various approaches exist explaining the relationship between emotions and goals, culminating in goal-directed behavior (Bagozzi, Baumgartner, & Pieters, 1998; Frijda, 1986; Oatley & Johnson-Laird, 1987). Most theories of emotions and goal-directed behavior suggest that elicitation of a particular emotional state denotes positive or negative aspects concerning goal

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attainment. Oatley and Johnson-Laird (1987), for instance, proposed that emotions assist individuals with goal management, specifically when those goals are multiple and the person’s resources are uncertain or few. Emotions, according to these authors, help individuals evaluate the probability of goal attainment. One’s positive affect is associated with successful goal attainment, while negative emotions normally result from failure to attain a goal or a problems arising on the road to goal attainment. Experiencing these negative emotions may lead to revision of a current plan toward a certain goal and even development of a new, more plausible plan (Bagozzi et al., 1998). Thus, in their view, emotions function to communicate an obstacle to the plan for goal attainment, and, thus, signal a need for renewed attention to the plan. In sum, emotions serve to motivate action in order to realize a particular goal. Various studies have been conducted in support of the reciprocal relationship between emotions and goals. Bagozzi et al. (1998) investigated their own proposed theory of emotions and goals in participants seeking to maintain or lose weight. This correlational study showed that participants’ goals regarding weight management evoked positive or negative anticipatory emotions, which, in turn, contributed to volitions (including both directive and motivational components) in the form of intentions and plans. Ultimately, volitions influenced goal-directed behaviors related to exercise and diet. Similarly, Brown, Cron, and Slocum (1997) investigated the motivational forces of emotions in salespeople via a longitudinal study. Results of this study revealed the importance of emotions as a driving force for sales performance. Finally, Nelissen, Dijker, and De Vries (2007) showed that emotions and values expressing similar goals were correlated. For example, self-reported frequency of anger experience was significantly positively correlated with ratings of importance of the power value. Based on this finding, authors confirmed their initial prediction that anger will be related to power because striving for power suggests a need for status and social dominance, which is frequently established by acts of aggression and accompanied by feelings of anger.

Personal Goals When individuals make decisions, they draw upon their personal goals and values and the values of their organization or work environment. Brunstein, Dangelmayer, and Schultheiss (1996) defined personal goals as “the consciously accessible and personally meaningful objectives people

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pursue in their daily life” (p. 1006). The authors further suggest that personal goals “indicate what individuals are striving for in their current life situations and what they try to attain or avoid in various life domains” (p. 1006). It is no wonder, then, that making decisions may sometimes result in conflicts between one’s personal goals and the goals prescribed by the organization. The conflict may arise because an employee’s personal goals are not in line with the goals of the organization, suggesting an influence of personal biases. Along similar lines, it is important to note that goals in organizations are inherently multi-level. Meaning, at times it is possible for employees within an organization to have negative goals (i.e., goals that function to overthrow organizational functioning), and at other times the negative goals may be held by management, or the organization at large. Mumford et al. (2008) proposed that personal goals of the decision maker influence his/her initial evaluation of the dilemma. Personal goals, as well as the means necessary to attain them, help a decision maker evaluate the nature of the problem and frame it as an ethical dilemma, if the situation is construed as one encompassing ethical implications. Aside from contributing to the initial appraisal of problem, goals are known to drive behavior and serve a motivational purpose (e.g., Locke & Latham, 2006). Given this, individuals’ goals inevitably shape their experiences (Cantor & Zirkel, 1990; Locke & Latham, 2006). Several studies have provided support for the influence of personal goals on personal experiences. Cantor and Zirkel (1990), for instance, suggested that people’s goals function to organize their behavior. Specifically, the authors proposed that individuals’ personal goals guide their daily experiences and choice of activities. Likewise, Cantor et al. (1991) showed that goals evaluated to be most important to the individual elicited a stronger emotional reaction and resulted in higher levels of emotional involvement in experiences considered to be more relevant to the attainment of those goals. Furthermore, the authors confirmed their hypothesis that personal goals regarded to be more important to the individuals influenced their experience of daily events more than less important goals. This evidence suggests that individuals ascribe different levels of importance to their personal goals, and in turn, use that information to regulate their daily activities via choices they make regarding opportunities to pursue (Zirkel & Cantor, 1990). Thus, personal goals are an important component of the decision-making process. Moreover, situations in which the attainment of personal goals is thwarted might elicit anger or other negative emotions (Oatley & JohnsonLaird, 1987), which may impact one’s decisions. As previously discussed,

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emotions have an irrefutable influence on EDM (Kligyte et al., 2013; Thiel & Connelly, 2010). Given that negative affective states, such as anger, have been shown to impede EDM (Cianci & Bierstaker, 2009; Kligyte et al., 2013; Thiel et al., 2011), it would follow that the influence of personal goals on sensemaking and EDM is mediated by individuals’ affective states and reactions. One example bolstering this proposition comes from Umphress, Ren, Bingham, and Gogus (2009). These investigators explored the influence of high versus low distributive justice and presence of codes of conduct on two unethical acts, lying to and stealing from a supervisor. Interestingly, the authors found an unexpected interaction demonstrating that unfair treatment with reference to distributive justice along with the presence of codes of conduct resulted in increased unethical behavior. Authors suggested that this finding indicates a more complex relationship between distributive justice and unethical behavior. It is possible that negative emotion arising from injustice may have affected the participants’ ultimate behavior when their personal goals of attaining rewards and compensation were thwarted. Another study by Bagdasarov et al. (2013) investigated the impact of personal goal focus (prevention-seeking vs. promotion-seeking) on sensemaking processes. Results showed that prevention goal focus, or participants’ aim to prevent negative outcomes, resulted in forecasts of better quality, which is crucial to EDM, than promotion goal focus (participants’ aim to promote learning and knowledge acquisition for selfimprovement purposes) or no goal focus conditions. This finding, again, shows that personal goals have an influence on sensemaking and EDM, and suggests that the specific type of goal individuals are seeking to attain may be important to decision making.

Expertise Expertise, or the vast knowledge and skill in a particular field, may be critical to ethical decision making. There is a big gap in the ethics literature when it comes to expertise. Although studies on expertise and EDM do not currently exist, literature from other domains suggests that expertise may be an important individual component to consider. There are many reasons for why expertise may play an important role in EDM. Literature is replete with evidence that experts, as opposed to novices, in specific domains have demonstrated better performance on decision-making tasks, are better at pattern recognition and are thus faster and more accurate when making

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decisions, tend to look downstream more, and expertise is known to reduce cognitive demands, workload, and false positives while also providing more and better organized prototypes and cases (Adams & Ericsson, 2000). Anderson (1985) proposed that experts store information in the form of schemas or mental models, which organize facts and interrelationships between available information. Mental models, in turn, are powerful mechanisms for decision making and problem solving. Research in the realm of pilot decision making has shown expertise to be highly beneficial at various stages of the decision-making process. Stokes, Kemper, and Marsh (1992), for instance, showed that expertise is useful during the diagnostic phase of decision making, or the phase associated with diagnosis of the problem at hand and discrimination of relevant and irrelevant causes. Researchers found that compared to novice pilots, experts identified a higher number of diagnostic cues and fewer irrelevant cues. Percentage of diagnostic cues identified, in turn, was the best predictor of decision optimality. Thus, better selection and attendance to diagnostic cues resulted in more optimal decision making. Similarly, Wiggins and O’Hare (2003) showed that expert pilots utilize diagnostic cues more than novice pilots when making weather-related decisions. Experts are also better at looking downstream and recognizing impending consequences. Forecasting potential short- and long-term consequences is a crucial component of the sensemaking process (Mumford et al., 2008). Adams and Ericsson (2000) provided support that expert pilots are adaptive and have the ability to plan ahead and infer actions. Wachs (1982) showed that more complex forecasting required a higher level of technical expertise, which is characteristic of pilots. This evidence suggests that experts, as opposed to novices, possess an ability to produce higher quality forecasts, which may lead to better EDM. Experts are faster and more accurate when making complex decisions (Wiggins & O’Hare, 2003). This is an important quality since ethical dilemmas are mostly ill-defined and very dynamic. In an organizational context, the capacity to make effective decisions in a timely manner is vital to organizational functioning. Evidence for experts’ aptitude to make fast and accurate decisions comes mainly from research in the realm of medical decision making. Christensen-Szalanski, Beck, Christensen-Szalanski, and Koepsell (1983) demonstrated that expert physicians gave substantially more accurate judgments, indicated by smaller percentage of error, of the risks associated with diseases than non-experts. Similarly, Nodine et al. (1999) evaluated radiologists across different levels of expertise (expert radiologists, radiology residents, and radiology technologists) with regard

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to mammography detection and interpretation. Data from this work indicated that experts were not only faster but also more accurate at recognizing lesions and differentiating more lesions into malignant and benign categories. This study also serves as evidence for the idea that expertise reduces instances of false positives. Findings further indicated that as the level of expertise decreased, false positives had a greater impact on decision accuracy. It may very well be that expertise exerts its positive influence on decision making partially due to a reduction in cognitive load or more efficient information search tactics (Anderson, 1985). Myles-Worsley, Johnston, and Simons (1988) conducted a study investigating the influence of expertise on X-ray imagining processing. Findings confirmed that expert radiologists processed X-ray images by detecting and devoting cognitive resources to elements that distinguish stimuli. Wiggins and O’Hare (2003) also showed that expert pilots required less information in order to formulate their decision. Non-experts, on the other hand, reviewed a greater number of information screens and spent more time examining the information than experts, all of which is a strain on cognitive resources. Experts used a more structured search pattern and were thus more efficient, requiring less cognitive resources. Evidence from various disciplines has revealed that one’s experience in a certain domain contributes to one’s expertise and vice versa. It is important to recognize that experience and expertise are discernable constructs. According to Collins and Evans (2002, p. 251) “Experience … cannot be the defining criterion of expertise.” Having experience in a certain domain does not necessarily mean that one can be classified as an expert. Based on extant literature, we propose a reciprocal relationship between expertise and experience in our model, ultimately influencing sensemaking and decision making. According to Adams and Ericsson (2000), experience influences expertise by building domain-specific knowledge, and knowledge, in turn, contributes to expertise. As discussed earlier, Nodine et al. (1999) showed that expert radiologists were faster and more accurate at identifying lesions and classifying them into appropriate risk categories. The authors explained these findings via the accumulated experience on the part of the expert radiologists, suggesting that experts were able to make more accurate decisions because of their accrued experience in the field. It is also safe to suggest that expertise influences one’s experience in a particular domain. Experts are likely to spend more time engaging in tasks known to hone the skills contributing to their domain-specific expertise.

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Experience As previously discussed, personal goals influence people’s daily experiences. It is important to note, however, that people’s experiences may also influence goal development, both personal and professional (e.g., goals related to one’s job, career, and work). At times, the social and work environment may dictate the type of goals one is able to formulate or achieve (Brunstein, Schultheiss, & Maier, 1999). When considering ethical misconduct specifically, individuals’ work environment and role models functioning in that environment influence their experiences (Mumford et al., 2007) and thus may have a direct influence on the type of goals they adopt. Brunstein et al. (1999) pointed out that people’s environment is composed of inherent opportunities and constraints that may either promote goal attainment or thwart it. Additionally, because people’s experiences differ, some may have ample support for goal achievement, while others may not fare as well due to hindrances in their environment (Ruehlman & Wolchik, 1988). Consequently, individuals’ experiences have a differential influence on both development of personal and professional goals and goal fulfillment. Experience may also influence people’s personal worldview, largely composed of their locus of control, negative life themes, and object beliefs. Evidence for this linkage is derived chiefly from studies based on adolescent samples. Nowicki and Barnes (1972), for instance, showed that adolescents from the inner-city area who experienced a structured camp program designed to draw a clear connection between behavior and resultant reinforcement for a duration of one week altered their locus of control orientation toward internality, a more positive orientation than externality. Similarly, Duke, Johnson, and Nowicki (1977) tested a fitness summer camp intervention as a method for altering adolescents’ belief system. Once again, male and female participants in the summer fitness camp program showed changes from an external to an internal locus of control following the intervention. Finally, Foulds (1971) explored the impact of a personal growth group intervention on locus of control orientations. Compared to the control group, the experimental group of undergraduate participants revealed altered locus of control orientations in the direction of internality. These examples, as well as many others, suggest that people’s experiences function to shape their personal worldviews. Specifically, evidence indicates that locus of control may be altered toward internality via specific experiences and interventions. It is desirable to discern how to alter one’s belief system toward internality because many studies have indicated that internal

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locus of control is positively related to EDM (O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2005). Finally, experience may also exert an influence on social press (e.g., media or general public), via one’s interpretation of the provided information. Although research to support this claim is limited, it is logical to propose that one’s experience may influence how information obtained from constituents of social press is framed and interpreted.

Personality and Beliefs People’s personality and social beliefs may influence their personal worldview, including locus of control orientation, negative life themes, and object beliefs, which in turn affect the sensemaking process. Personality has been largely defined in terms of five factors, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experiences. Typically, extraversion is defined as general sociability. Watson and Clark (1997) go a bit further by stating that “extraverts are more sociable, but are also described as being more active and impulsive, less dysphoric, and as less introspective and self-preoccupied than introverts” (p. 769). Neuroticism is broadly defined as a lack of emotional stability, while agreeableness is commonly characterized by cooperation and likeability (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 1999). Conscientious individuals tend to be described as dependable, achievement-oriented, organized, and perseverant, and those open to experience are designated as imaginative, nonconforming, and intellectual (Judge et al., 1999). Other personality traits, such as Machiavellianism, cynicism, and narcissism may also impact people’s worldview. Prior to our discussion of the influence of personality and beliefs on one’s worldview, we should address the current state of research on personality and ethical decision making. Consistent evidence exists indicating a positive relationship between conscientiousness and integrity (e.g., Ones, Viswesvaran, & Schmidt, 1993), while other work has shown a negative relationship between neuroticism and integrity (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1998). More recently, however, Antes et al. (2007) investigated the impact of personality on ethical decision making specific to the research context. Findings of this study revealed a consistent negative relationship between narcissism and EDM, as well as cynicism and EDM. Other personality traits, such as Machiavellianism, have also been negatively associated with the ethical decision-making process (e.g., O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2005).

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When it comes to the Five-Factor Model of personality, several studies have revealed relevant relationships between the five personality traits and elements of personal worldview. One such study comes from Morrison (1997). The author explicitly investigated the relationship between personality traits and other personality dimensions, including self-monitoring, locus of control, and type A behavior. Field data were collected from 307 franchise business owners and managers functioning in four different industries. Results of this work showed that extraversion and conscientiousness were positively related to internal locus of control. With regard to work demonstrating a relationship between personality and people’s social worldview, some evidence exists for associations between the five factors of personality and social attitudes. Sibley and Duckitt (2009), for example, revealed that disagreeable people tended to view the world as competitive and thus harbored beliefs of superiority and dominance. Van Hiel, Cornelis, and Roets (2007) also examined the association between personality and social attitudes, discovering a correlation between openness and right-wing beliefs. These studies suggest that one’s personality has an undeniable impact on components of personal worldview.

Stakeholders Broadly defined as “any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives” (Freeman, 1984, p. 46), stakeholders play a dominant role in much of organizational functioning. The relative impact of stakeholders in organizations, however, depends on a more nuanced view of the construct in terms of stakeholders’ power, legitimacy, and urgency (Mitchell, Agle, & Wood, 1997). Stakeholders may be both external and internal to an organization (Harrison & St. John, 1996). External stakeholders include shareholders, suppliers, customers, creditors, competitors, governments, and the communities wherein the firm operates, whereas internal stakeholders include employees and management, among others (Goodpaster, 1991). Each of these respective groups may, in their own right, impact organizational decision making and outcomes. In fact, stakeholder theory contends that managerial choice (i.e., decision making) with regard to business ethics, corporate governance, and corporate social performance will be influenced by relevant or salient stakeholders, suggesting that the role of stakeholders in their own right (Donaldson & Preston, 1995) as well as their relationship

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to management and the organization as a whole must be considered in organizational studies (Friedman & Miles, 2002). Stakeholders influence the formation of and adherence to organizational norms, as well as various rules, guidelines, and laws upheld within any given organization. Moreover, Scott and Lane (2000) argue that stakeholders play a central role in the construction of organizational identity through the interplay between managers, organizational members, and other stakeholders. Indeed, stakeholder theory of the firm holds that organizations must manage their stakeholders within all organizational levels and processes (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). As noted by Mitchell et al. (1997), stakeholders have the ability to influence a firm via the firm’s behavior, direction, process, or outcomes. Further, descriptive stakeholder analysis applies stakeholder theory in describing (1) the nature of the firm, (2) the way in which managers think about managing, (3) the make-up of board members and the way in which they think about corporate problems, and (4) the actual management of corporations (Donaldson & Preston, 1995). Donaldson and Preston (1995) argue that “stakeholder management requires, as its key attribute, simultaneous attention to the legitimate interests of all appropriate stakeholders, both in the establishment of organizational structures and general policies and in case-by-case decision making” (p. 67). In this way, stakeholders are impactful in influencing first-order organizational constraints. Stakeholders also have bearing on second-order constraints. Among identification of critical causes and contingencies, managers must engage in stakeholder analysis (Goodpaster, 1991) to better understand the relevant stakeholders and their role in any given ethical dilemma. This process involves interpreting the nature of stakeholder expectations as they relate to the dilemma (Balser & McClusky, 2005). Subsequent to engaging in stakeholder analysis, Goodpaster (1991) contends that decision makers must conduct stakeholder synthesis to ensure ethical values are embedded within the decision-making process. Accordingly, deeper questions must be asked pertaining to the ethical dilemma
questions surrounding the root and contingencies of the dilemma
to integrate and structure information in a meaningful way (Goodpaster, 1991). Moreover, the nature of stakeholder relationships (Friedman & Miles, 2002; Harrison & St. John, 1996) may influence the way in which managers identify underlying causes and constraints within a situation. For instance, managers must distinguish between those who are legitimate and those who are not (Friedman & Miles, 2002). Stakeholders commonly have an implicit or explicit contract which both constitutes and impacts the firm (Mitchell et al., 1997).

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Accordingly, stakeholders may present a bias in identification of alternate second-order constraints such that managers feel accountable to them (Goodpaster, 1991). Aside from the impact of stakeholders on structural components within organizations, managers must constantly engage in stakeholder management. When making firm decisions, managers must decide who and what really counts (Freeman, 1994). As previously noted, the relative influence of stakeholders is determined by their power, legitimacy, and urgency (Mitchell et al., 1997). These three attributes impact the salience of respective stakeholders to management (Mitchell et al., 1997), which has implications for framing, as well as forecasting and decision making when faced with a problem. Stakeholder influence is also impacted by the strategies that stakeholders use to try to get what they want. Specifically, this process is guided by the extent to which the stakeholder depends on the firm versus the extent to which the firm depends on the stakeholder (Frooman, 1999; Savage, Nix, Whitehead, & Blair, 1991). The strategies applied by stakeholders, in turn, have implications for managerial sensemaking and, ultimately, firm decision making. For instance, stakeholders might either threaten or cooperate with the organization (Savage et al., 1991), which differentially influences the sensemaking process. One example of threatening behavior would involve withholding valuable resources from the organization as a means of influence (Frooman, 1999). Stakeholders also influence the sensemaking process in a less direct manner. When making ethical decisions, it has been argued that ethically responsible management involves attending to stockholders as well as stakeholders in general when engaging in decision making (Goodpaster, 1991). Additional research has demonstrated that, in general, stakeholder relationships strongly influence both employee decision making as well as ethical climate (Weber, 1995). For example, upon identification and interpretation of stakeholder expectations, Balser and McClusky (2005) argue that managers must weigh the appropriateness of those expectations against the organizational mission and values, professional norms, and the public good. Further, Powell (1988) contends that when conflicting demands arise from stakeholders, managers have a greater amount of discretion when addressing such demands. Together, these processes suggest that stakeholders place a great need for managerial sensemaking in the face of ethical dilemmas. In addition to stakeholder influences on the decision-making process, stakeholders must also be considered with regard to decision outcomes. Firm-stakeholder relations have been suggested to influence both corporate

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social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (Barnett, 2007; Harrison & St. John, 1996). Corporate social responsibility has been characterized as arising from (1) social welfare orientation, and (2) stakeholder relationship orientation (Barnett, 2007). This suggests that organizations that place a greater emphasis on stakeholder relationships will be more likely to engage in CSR behaviors. An instrumental view of stakeholders suggests that adherence to stakeholder principles and practices leads to equal or greater corporate performance objectives than do approaches that do not, and normative concerns place emphasis on the moral or philosophical component of managerial thinking in achieving those goals (Donaldson & Preston, 1995; Harrison & St. John, 1996). Tenets of the normative stakeholder viewpoint including egoism, benevolence, and principle have been found to play a key role in ethical decision making (Upchurch, 1998).

Social Press Many years ago, Asch (1955) matter-of-factly stated, “That social influences shape every person’s practices, judgments, and beliefs is a truism to which anyone will readily assent” (p. 2). Although more than half a century has passed since these words were written, they very much remain true. Social press reflects the many external societal factors, whether public or private, that bear influence and place pressure on an individual’s thoughts and actions. As noted by Baron (2009), social pressure can come in the indirect form of public politics and government as well more directly via private politics. Aside from the political environment, social press may include cultural pressures (Delmas & Toffel, 2004) as well as pressure from both the media and the general public (Balser & McClusky, 2005). Each of these factors may place a unique burden on organizational stakeholders. According to Katz and Kahn (1978), organizations should be viewed as open systems, allowing the organization to be understood in a social context through its interaction with the environment, thus more closely mirroring reality. To understand this interaction, however, we must consider the influence of social systems and pressures on organizational members. In this way, whereas organizations are subject to scrutiny and accountability to stakeholders, stakeholders themselves are also accountable to the public (Balser & McClusky, 2005) via social press. Indeed, stakeholders are part of a network involving their social and political environment (Baron, 2009; Greening & Gray, 1994), with such social and political influences likely

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contributing to the social press felt by stakeholders. Further, institutional theory holds that factors such as public opinion and institutionalized pressure groups as well as media exposure may influence organizational functioning (Greening & Gray, 1994). While organizations themselves may buffer from such pressures through specified rules, procedures, and structures (Greening & Gray, 1994), relevant stakeholders cannot. Accordingly, the influence of social press on managerial decision making likely occurs via stakeholders, who due to organizational ties are particularly susceptible to social press. Social press may be adhered to by stakeholders with either altruistic or egoistic intentions. Scholars have recently suggested that individuals (Garicano, Palacios-Huerta, & Prendergast, 2005) and organizations alike (Baron, 2009) respond in varying ways to outside pressures. For instance, altruistic responses include placing priority on social benefits and the overall good that might be achieved from addressing and responding to external pressures. Conversely, egoistic responses emphasize personal satisfaction (e.g., feelings of accomplishment) and/or benefits (e.g., social, economic) that result from contributing to social pressure (Baron, 2009). Of note, social pressure has, at times, even been shown to lead to corruption vis-a`vis favoritism (Garicano et al., 2005). Specifically, Garicano et al. (2005) note that the social context and pressures which accompany it can drive individual behavior through the pursuit of social approval and interdependencies. Thus, depending on the nature of the social press, stakeholders may be influenced for the better or the worse, in turn impacting the organization accordingly.

Professional Goals Professional goals reflect an individual’s career or professional aspirations, or the things an individual wants to accomplish during his or her professional life. Professional goals are numerous, and may include earning a favorable performance evaluation, earning a raise or promotion, acquiring expertise through continued education, and starting a new business, among others. Although professional goals are specific to an individual, professionals within similar fields may hold similar aspirations. For instance, Ritti (1968) notes that engineers hold a number of professional goals, including but not limited to business goals, security goals, financial goals, managerial goals, and scientific goals. Other professionals, however, may focus on building their career network in hopes of furthering their

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professional endeavors (DiMicco et al., 2008). Inherent in one’s professional goals are their perceived requirements for reaching those goals (Mumford et al., 2008). Professional goals may therefore influence first-order constraints in several ways. First, professional goals of those higher in the organization may impact the initial formation and modification of ethical rules, guidelines, and codes of conduct. Indeed, in his discussion surrounding goals in complex organizations, Perrow (1961) suggests that organizational goals are reflected in their operating policies
these organizational goals reflect those professional goals of organizational founders and other individuals topping the organizational hierarchy. More frequently, however, professional goals may differentially impact the way in which first-order constraints are interpreted. For instance, professionals have been found to select and work toward the hypothetical future that most likely involves the attainment of their goals, in turn generating plans in hopes of meeting those goals (Martin et al., 2011). As a result, individuals may be biased in how they interpret information so as to reduce deviation from their plans and to progress toward their professional goals. Acknowledging that professional goals vary by individuals is thus of importance. Similarly, like personal goals, it is important to recognize that professional goals are multilevel. In other words, organizational members must balance their own professional goals with those of potential teams or supervisors as well as the organization or society at large. Goals should not be viewed as static or consistent, whether within or across individuals. Attempts made to generalize professional goals among individuals can at times result in misleading interpretations as well as a distortion of the facts. For example, Stevens (1994) holds that professional codes serve as a guide to individual practitioners, and that they specify the goals and beliefs that these professionals should hold. However, if these institutional goals conflict with an individual’s professional goals, the individual may be conflicted in determining which goals to abide by, relating to the multilevel nature of professional goals in organizations. This very argument has long been established in the literature. In 1961, Perrow contended that there are different types of goals in organization including official goals and operative goals. Whereas the official goals correspond to our conceptualization of first-order constraints (i.e., hierarchy, rules, guidelines, norms, laws), operative goals, particularly unofficial operative goals, relate more closely to group and individual interests (Perrow, 1961). In this way, while operative goals sometimes support official ones, they may also be either irrelevant or conflicting. Importantly,

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Perrow (1961) held that operative goals would be more influential on organizational functioning than would official ones through their influence on operating efforts and daily personnel decisions. Not long thereafter, Ritti (1968) similarly claimed that the goals of engineers and scientists, a subgroup of professionals inhabiting organizations, often clash with those of the business at large. For instance, many scientists and engineers hold as their primary role the development of knowledge for its own sake; nonetheless, managerial pressure for the production of practical knowledge may deter from this professional goal (Ritti, 1968). Moreover, professionals employed in an organization with a weak culture (Trevin˜o, 1986) or who work in bureaucratic organizations (Wallace, 1995) are more likely to rely on their professional goals and abide by cultural norms than organizational goals or norms. Taken together, professional goals influence first-order constraints at a number of levels, ranging from the initial formation and maintenance of organizational policies to employees’ interpretation and application of said policies when problem scenarios arise. When such an ethical problem situation arises, initial problem appraisal (i.e., assessment of second-order constraints) is also influenced in part through one’s professional goals (Mumford et al., 2007). In this regard, information concerning the ethical dilemma is filtered through professional goals, and may therefore impose bias on initial problem appraisal. Identifying and analyzing second-order constraints relates to a strategy often associated with the subsequent sensemaking process. Specifically, such analyses help for managers to recognize their circumstances prior to acting on a dilemma. One component of recognizing circumstances involves, in part, the identification of goals, principles, and values applicable to the situation at hand (Mumford et al., 2008). If competing goals arise in the context of one’s own goals, bias may be induced in the initial analysis and interpretation of the dilemma related to second-order constraints. Beyond first- and second-order constraints, the Mumford et al. (2008) sensemaking approach to ethical decision making holds that both personal and professional goals influence the sensemaking process. Professional goals, as well as goal orientation, may influence the sensemaking process in a number of ways. Indeed, ethical problems are characterized by complex, dynamic situations. These situations are further characterized by multiple guidelines and goals which frequently compete with one another (Martin et al., 2011). Given the complexities and conflicting goals, sensemaking is a necessary means toward problem resolution. For instance, the work goals

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adopted by employees and managers may clash with those of the larger business (Ritti, 1968). When this is the case, conflict may arise in properly navigating problem scenarios. Several examples help to demonstrate the role of professional goals on sensemaking. As previously noted, DiMicco et al. (2008) recently suggested that individuals have professional motives or goals for building relationships as a means of social networking. Accordingly, where potential relationships are threatened via ethical implications, and where sensemaking is applied to a corresponding dilemma, the role of relationships may impact the framing, emotion regulation, and forecasting components of the sensemaking process. Another professional goal, professional loyalty, or the abidance by company values and goals (Khabakuk, 1972), may also impact sensemaking. Specifically, where the moral or ethical solution is not in accordance with company policy, conflict may arise, influencing a number of components relevant to sensemaking. In addition, when situations are viewed as having ethical implications, and when those implications are relevant to the attainment of one’s professional goals, affect is invoked (Mumford et al., 2008). Thus, where ethical dilemmas have professional implications for the manager engaging in decision making, the emotions induced by the situation will influence EDM via affect and cognitive processing (Mumford et al., 2007) and the role of emotion regulation becomes incredibly important. Lastly, a number of strategies have been identified as facilitating the sensemaking process. One such strategy involves analyzing personal motivations, or looking within oneself to consider the effects of individual values and goals and how those goals might bias the decision-making process (Caughron et al., 2011; Mumford et al., 2008). Thus, while professional goals may complicate or bias the sensemaking process, actively acknowledging and reflecting on those goals can facilitate ethical decision making.

Personal Worldview Personal worldview is defined as “a set of assumptions about physical and social reality that may have powerful effects on cognition and behavior” (Koltko-Rivera, 2004, p. 3). The concept of a personal worldview is perhaps best captured through common maxims such as “everyone sees the world differently” and “everyone has their own reality.” In this way, a worldview is how individuals generally describe the world and life within it including what objects, experiences, relationships, and behaviors are good

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or bad, appropriate or inappropriate, and one’s outlook on life, society, and its institutions (Koltko-Rivera, 2000, 2004). Subsumed by personal worldview are locus of control, negative life themes, and object believes (Mumford et al., 1993), each to be described further to follow. Implied through these constructs are the notions that (1) individuals vary in the extent to which they believe they have control over their own lives, and (2) some individuals tend to hold positive beliefs whereas some tend toward negative beliefs about others, and thus exhibit a willingness to use others for personal gain (Mumford, Costanza, Connelly, & Johnson, 1996). Personal worldview may have a powerful influence on first-order constraints. Recent literature has suggested that leaders whose worldview includes an internal locus of control demonstrate stronger ethical leadership than do those with an external locus of control (Brown & Trevin˜o, 2006). Where the leader, or an upper level manager, is the one engaging in a decision-making effort, personal worldview may exhibit a positive impact on first-order constraints such that ethical leadership informs organizational practices vis-a`-vis norms. Given that first-order constraints are preexisting and relatively fixed, however, it is likely that such an event would occur with rarity. Of central concern, then, is the manner in which these existing first-order constraints are interpreted. Indeed, certain attributes relevant to an individual’s personal worldview are likely to influence one’s interpretation and application of first-order constraints to a problem scenario, characterizing an initial element of the sensemaking process. As noted by Koltko-Rivera (2004), an individual’s sets of beliefs and assumptions surrounding life and reality in general can powerfully dictate his or her cognition and behavior. Because an individual’s personal worldview represents his or her core beliefs, it acts as a filter through which information and events are perceived and made sense of, in turn guiding action (Miller & West, 1993). In this regard, some argue that individuals’ knowledge and consciousness is actually located and embodied through their worldview (Koskinen, Pihlanto, & Vanharanta, 2003). Accordingly, it is likely that individuals interpret and glean meaning from first-order constraints in a manner that is consistent with their worldview. Of note, this filtering process introduces a bias in the way different individuals interpret the various rules and guidelines present in an organization, as well as their own place in the organizational hierarchy. It is therefore important to note that leaders can influence the way in which these constraints are interpreted. To this end, frequent organizational communication of policy and climate may prove imperative for individuals exhibiting negative worldviews.

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Another component of the worldview construct which may also influence individuals’ interpretation of first-order constraints is professional training (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006). Of importance, many business students are taught to adopt an organization-centered worldview as opposed to a human-centered worldview. Specifically, the authors hold that a worldview with a strict organizational orientation places the business at the center of society and emphasizes the importance of monetary outcomes, assuming that they will in some way advance society as a whole. Lost in this mindset is the importance of business ethics in general, as well as a consideration of stakeholders and the best interest of all constituents involved (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006). Accordingly, under the organizationcentered worldview, individuals may not attend to overarching laws, rules, and guidelines, but instead may focus their efforts on the most efficient and profitable business route without considering first-order constraints. In addition to first-order constraints, individuals must also interpret the second-order constraints. When individuals characterize a destructive personal worldview, or adopt negative life themes and object beliefs, their initial event interpretations may be negatively swayed. Negative emotions in the appraisal process likely feeds into two discrete emotions which influence ethical decision making including fear (Rutter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001) and anger (Hazebroek, Howells, & Day, 2001) which can, in turn, reduce reasoning processes (Eva et al., 2012). Furthermore, Zahra (1989) found that managers who exhibit a high external locus of control are more inclined to view organizational politics as ethical. One explanation is that these individuals have a sense of helplessness, perhaps viewing politics as a viable self-enhancement strategy. Accordingly, when engaging in causal and constraint analysis, those who are high in external locus of control may be biased, therefore leading to an inaccurate initial situational appraisal. Sensemaking is also impacted by personal worldview. One form of personal worldview is reflected through relevant self-system variables (Holt et al., 2006), including negativity and cynicism, alienation, and low or no self-regulation and self-esteem (Mumford et al., 1993). These constructs, which characterize negative life themes, foster additional outcomes related to the decision-making process. According to Holt et al. (2006), this destructive outlook results in motivational factors such as selfaggrandizement, narcissism, high need for power, and high fear. Similarly, it leads to increased object beliefs and a willingness to use others to benefit oneself, an external locus of control, negative beliefs about humanity, and perceptions of distributive injustice (Holt et al., 2006). Object beliefs

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and negative life themes are both believed to lead to destructive acts (Mumford et al., 1996). When managers exhibit this destructive worldview, it likely permeates the entire sensemaking process, contributing to the occurrence of destructive decision making vis-a`-vis a disregard for others’ needs (Mumford, Gessner, O’Connor, Connelly, & Clifton, 1992). In this regard, individuals with a destructive worldview are more likely to frame the situation in favor of themselves, with perhaps less emphasis placed on emotion regulation efforts and forecasting with regard to other relevant stakeholders. In fact, similar findings were provided by Mumford et al. (1993), who found that individuals high in negative life themes, need for power, and object beliefs make worse decisions, particularly when under threatening circumstances. Given that ethical dilemmas are inherently threatening, this likely extends to the ethical decision-making domain. On the contrary, life themes that exhibit a strong commitment to others may reduce destructive acts (Mumford et al., 1992), thus facilitating ethical decision making via the sensemaking process. Moreover, locus of control has been suggested to relate to ethical decision making both directly and indirectly through outcome expectancies (Trevin˜o, 1986; Trevin˜o & Youngblood, 1990). Research has supported this notion such that individuals with internal locus of control were found to behave more ethically, engaging in higher levels of ethical decision making (Trevin˜o & Youngblood, 1990).

Model Summary In drawing from previous research and the extant literature, our extended sensemaking model provides an overview of the many internal and external influences on ethical decision making in organizations. Within this framework, we propose that ethical sensemaking, composed of interrelated cognitive processing mechanisms, is susceptible to pressures at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. In addition, consistent with previous literature, we suggest that when engaging in ethical sensemaking, individuals must work within the constraints imposed on the situation. This presents added complexity to an already complex processing effort. This is especially pertinent to the organizational context, given the many intricacies of day-to-day organizational functioning. In sum, our model begins addressing these intricacies by providing a more holistic lens through which human resources managers may understand and promote

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the ethical decision sensemaking.

making

of

their

employees

vis-a`-vis

ethical

THE FACILITATIVE ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Given the theoretical underpinnings of ethical sensemaking in organizations, we now turn to the ways in which HRM can contribute to build ethical capability. First, we explore HR interventions targeted toward preventative risk management efforts. Through this discussion, we consider how various aspects of the organizational environment as well as functional areas of HRM lead to conditions that promote ethical behavior and limit misconduct. Relatedly, we highlight how certain HR practices can serve to build ethical competencies among organizational members. Second, we discuss strategies related to the maintenance of ethical conduct in the face of ethical quandaries and potential restorative efforts following ethical breaches. Before delving into this discussion, however, it is important to note that there is not one prescribed set of interventions to follow. On the contrary, what is effective in one context might not be beneficial in the next. Accordingly, initiatives should not be uniformly applied, and instead should be tailored to the specific needs of a particular job, department, or organization.

Preventative HR Interventions Organizational Culture and Leadership At the core of organizational practices is an organization’s culture. Culture refers to the pattern of basic assumptions, values, and beliefs shared by organizational members and taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel (Schein, 1990). While culture is generally lacking in physical manifestations, it permeates the organizational system by influencing thoughts and feelings, in turn guiding the behavior of organizational members (Trevin˜o, 1986). In this way, culture reflects an implicit component of ethics institutionalization. Compared to explicit aspects of ethics initiatives such as codes of conduct, policy manuals, and ethics officers, implicit components reflect valued behaviors not formally expressed

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(Brenner, 1992). Culture thus sets the tone for ethical expectations and provides support for organizational members to prioritize ethics. A strong ethical culture will provide organizational members with an ethical orientation that affords them a sense of flexibility in navigating ethical dilemmas. In the absence of formal codes or guidelines relevant to a scenario, employees are empowered to search for creativity in their resolutions (Costa, 1998), a necessity given the ill-defined nature of ethical dilemmas. When given such freedoms, common in democratic cultures, employees may actually enhance their level of cognitive moral development and learn the importance of considering others’ points of view and interests (Trevin˜o, 1986). On the contrary, where there is little freedom for organizational members to make their own decisions, as is typical in autocratic or mechanistic organizational settings, moral development may be stinted (Trevin˜o, 1986). Moreover, when the culture is one that emphasizes economic goals over ethical considerations, a culture of corruption may arise wherein competition and risk taking are valued above honesty and integrity. In this respect, the imperative role of leadership in establishing and maintaining an ethical culture must also be addressed. As noted by Heineman (2007), “in no area of corporate life is leadership commitment more important than in creating an integrity culture” (p. 2). Although culture creates shared mindsets among employees, these mindsets must be reinforced through management practices and governing processes (Buller & McEvoy, 1999). Company leaders play the role of hardwiring ethics into organizational practices by providing authentic, and not simply espoused, support for ethics initiatives (Orlitzky & Swanson, 2006). Ethical leadership is therefore at the heart of an ethical culture; company CEOs must build ethical HRM systems, and mid- and lower-level managers must mirror the sentiment. Recruitment and Selection For recruitment and selection, the newly developed model underscores the importance of individual differences. Specifically, organizations would benefit from considering various personality attributes of prospective employees. Given that personality tests are already frequently adopted by employers for screening on traits such as conscientiousness (c.f. Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), the consideration of additional traits would cause little disruption to established practices. Of those traits that might be considered, narcissism and cynicism would be particularly valuable given their negative relation to EDM (Antes et al., 2007) and locus of control (Twenge, Zhang, & Im, 2004). Further, managers might consider selecting on cognitive

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constraints, such as working memory capacity, as it has been shown to positively influence key sensemaking processes over and above intelligence, ethics education, and exposure to ethical issues (Martin et al., 2015). In other words, those with higher working memory capacity are better inclined to effectively navigate and make sense of ethical issues, which could minimize organizational involvement and resources when such situations arise. Employers would also benefit from screening based on integrity as well as cognitive moral development. Integrity testing for personnel selection has long been discussed by educators and practitioners alike. The predictive utility of integrity tests has been well-documented with regard to job performance as well as counterproductive work behaviors (e.g., theft, absenteeism) (Ones et al., 1993; Sackett, Burris, & Callahan, 1989). Given the usefulness of integrity tests, organizations may wish to utilize them in the form of situational judgment tests (SJTs) (McDaniel, Morgeson, Finnegan, Campion, & Braverman, 2001) to assess sensemaking components. For example, identification of first- and second-order constraints may be facilitated via SJTs. Moreover, screening on cognitive moral development, could be useful in identifying individuals who feel comfortable discussing with others their values and beliefs, thus fostering transparency in decisionmaking efforts (Watson, 2007). Even more, selecting experts in ethics may be of importance, particularly for large companies. Ethics officers, for example, could help to write, revise, and update codes of conduct, monitor and enforce ethical standards, and create and administer ethics training (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2013). Ethics officers are considered experts in ethical standards and regulations and are thus prepared to deal with changes in the legal system and to serve as spokespeople for companies regarding ethics (Morf, Schumacher, & Vitell, 1999). At present, few companies choose to hire ethics officers due to the specificity of their work. While their utility would likely be limited in a small firm, ethics officers could benefit large corporations, even if their role serves only a symbolic purpose. On a related note, aside from hiring experts in ethics generally, firms may seek to recruit and pay a premium for workers who have experience dealing with the type of ethical issues that arise in a specific job. Given the usefulness of case-based knowledge in navigating ethical events, these individuals are likely at an advantage to others. Employee Socialization and Training Socialization reflects the process by which newer employees learn to abide by company standards in terms of organizational rules and norms, in turn

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leading to shared values (McManus & Russell, 1997). Although socialization should be done in a manner that promotes ethical conduct, this is unfortunately not always the case. As noted by Trevin˜o, Weaver, and Reynolds (2006), there are numerous ways in which socialization can actually promote and sustain an unethical organizational culture. To this end, previous research has suggested that socialization is a key mechanism through which organizational corruption is accepted and perpetuated (Anand, Ashforth, & Joshi, 2004). Accordingly, human resource personnel need to be cognizant of the information transmitted to newcomers through socialization. As an example, an individual socialized into an organization with a prominent outcome orientation (i.e., concern about outcomes such as the bottom line rather than the process of obtaining outcomes), may learn to achieve desired outcomes by whatever means necessary, and subsequently rationalize their behavior as acceptable due to organizational norms and goals (Anand et al., 2004). Moreover, care should be taken when deciding who employees are exposed to early on and what types of formal and informal socialization programs should be implemented. For example, mentors are often issued to new employees. This can be valuable by making new employees feel welcome and connected within the organization. Moreover, mentors can serve as an informal outlet for employees facing an ethical quandary that do not feel comfortable bringing the issue to the attention of more formal systems (Taylor & Curtis, 2010). However, when mentor-prote´ge´ values are incongruent, mentoring may negatively impact ethical decision making in one of two ways. First, if the mentor holds values that are deemed unethical, they may steer their prote´ge´ down the wrong path. Second, this misalignment of values may complicate the sensemaking process for the prote´ge´, in turn inhibiting ethical decision making. Although mentoring is only one component of organizational socialization processes (McManus & Russell, 1997), the logic extends to alternate socialization processes as well. Effective ethics training is also central to maintaining an ethical workforce. As previously noted, the ethical sensemaking model is particularly advantageous as it has been extended to and validated in a training paradigm (Mumford et al., 2008). Thus, exposing employees to professional ethics programs and including content which speaks to the many distinct elements of the sensemaking process would greatly facilitate employees’ ethical decision making. For example, employees should be able to practice engaging in various sensemaking processes, such as identifying key causes and constraints, to facilitate the decision-making process. Of importance when implementing such training programs, however, is the necessity of

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training evaluation data to quantitatively establish training effectiveness. Prior evidence demonstrates that training individuals in ethical sensemaking is highly effective and can substantially increase ethical decision making. In fact, effect sizes (Cohen’s d) corresponding to evaluation data assessing pre-post EDM change are consistently very large, often exceeding 1.0 (Brock et al., 2008; Mumford et al., 2008). Accordingly, practitioners should ensure that the programs applied within organizational contexts are also found to be effective. Aside from training employees in ethical sensemaking, training interventions should be designed to train leaders as well. As with all organizational members, leaders should be trained to effectively engage in ethical decision making and sensemaking processes. Moreover, organizational leaders should be trained to adequately monitor employees vis-a`-vis ethics and to promote ethics during interactions with subordinates, whether formal (e.g., meetings, performance appraisals) or informal (e.g., everyday interactions). In this way, leaders should be encouraged to foster trusting, dialogue-based relationships within the organizational context, wherein subordinates feel comfortable voicing their concerns. Performance Appraisal and Compensation Of all HR functions, performance appraisal and reward systems are likely of the greatest importance to fostering workplace ethics. From B. F. Skinner’s classic work on operant conditioning, we have long known that people will do what is rewarded while avoiding what goes punished. Performance appraisal and compensation deliver a clear message to employees about what behaviors are expected and rewarded (Trevin˜o & Brown, 2004). Thus, if an organization truly prioritizes ethics, it should be reflected in feedback and appraisal systems (Cardy & Selvarajan, 2006), where both economic (i.e., task) and social (i.e., ethical) factors are attended to. We offer two noteworthy implementation strategies that could prove worthwhile in this regard. One plausible method for embedding ethics within a performance appraisal system would adopt a balanced scorecard approach (Orlitzky & Swanson, 2006). A balanced scorecard provides a quick yet comprehensive snapshot of organizational criteria. These criteria, or indicators, often reflect customer satisfaction, internal processes, innovation and improvement activities, and financial measures (Kinicki & Williams, 2013). Such a method could be easily adapted, however, to more explicitly monitor ethical performance and to do so at various organizational levels (i.e., organization, department, team, individual). Alternatively, another

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implementation approach is the critical incident technique. Given the abstract nature of ethics, critical incidents would serve to operationally define ethical versus unethical conduct as it relates to work duties (Cardy & Selvarajan, 2006). During evaluation, these criteria would be useful benchmarks for feedback and compensation purposes. To this end, compensation and incentive systems should be designed, at least in part, on employee ethicality. Without aligning ethics initiatives to compensation decisions, the ethical infrastructure established through other HR functions can easily break down. For example, a program that rewards employees based only on their financial performance may very well create a value system that reinforces meeting the bottom line by whatever means necessary. In this regard, organizations could benefit from quite literally “putting their money where their mouth is” when it comes to ethics and employee compensation. Through the process of establishing clear ethical criteria and explicitly considering these criteria along with task performance as part of compensation and promotion decisions, managers can ascertain that they are rewarding the types of behavior that they are seeking. Moreover, by doing so, it is likely that employees will experience a heightened interest in and consideration of ethics in day-to-day activities as they become accustomed to it (c.f. Gagne & Forest, 2008).

Maintenance and Restorative HR Interventions Analysis of Ethical Events Perhaps less definitive than other proposed interventions, the current model suggests that when confronted with ethical issues, employees and managers (HR and otherwise) should be prepared to actively analyze various aspects of the situation. Arguably of greatest importance here is managerial identification of constraints, as sensemaking occurs within the context of these constraints. Although managers may be skilled at identifying such constraints, they do not always effectively articulate those constraints and embed them within the sensemaking system. Active consideration of constraints is, in this regard, essential to effective sensemaking. Moreover, managerial responses to ethical events provide behavioral examples for subordinates to follow. Accordingly, leaders can influence employees’ personal worldview beliefs both with respect to localized and, to some extent, more global beliefs, as individuals often defer to those with expertise or power. Modeling appropriate behaviors, including a thorough analysis of ethical events, is therefore imperative for senior organizational members.

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Also important during ethical analysis is consideration of interpersonal relationships and group structures. Of importance here is the potential for the ripple effect, or emotional contagion among group members (Barsade, 2002). In this regard, team affect, and analysis of team affect, can have a strong bearing on the way in which an ethical event is interpreted. Indeed, negative group members undeniably have a detrimental impact on team members and groups as a whole (Felps, Mitchell, & Byington, 2006). There are two key explanations for this effect. First, complex relationships and interpersonal interactions can impact values at the individual and team level such that negative values, or values promoting unethical conduct, can gradually disseminate among others. Second, one’s social network, if composed of individuals with weak ethical values, will provide more opportunities for unethical behavior (Ferrell et al., 2013). Taken together, analysis of interpersonal relationships, and in particular of team affect, is essential to ethical analysis. HR might therefore benefit from occasionally monitoring workgroups for shared values to maintain consistency with broader organizational values. Finally, as a means to sustain institutional legitimacy, HR personnel must frequently engage in stakeholder analysis. As described previously, stakeholders have a bearing on all aspects of sensemaking, including the pre-existing first-order constraints, second-order constraints, and cognitive processing mechanisms. Accordingly, our model encourages awareness of stakeholder concerns. Moreover, it suggests that ethical dilemmas should be filtered through stakeholder perspectives and, to the extent possible, should address stakeholder concerns. Analysis of a situation bearing stakeholders in mind reflects a stakeholder orientation, requiring individuals to first generate and examine data from stakeholder groups, to then transmit this information to others as needed, and finally to respond to a given situation with stakeholder concerns in mind (Ferrell et al., 2013). Engaging in this process through constant, constructive dialogue with stakeholders can lead to increased HR capabilities in the form of higher order learning and continuous innovation, thus offering a unique source of competitive advantage (Buller & McEvoy, 1999). Reporting and Accountability Systems Human resources should have an effective accountability and oversight program in place. Even where a culture promotes ethical conduct, individual difference attributes and employee worldviews as well as various situational elements may negatively impact the sensemaking process. Accordingly, if exposed to the unethical conduct of coworkers, employees

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should have a safe outlet to voice their concerns. In this way, internal reporting systems and human resources elements such as call centers or hotlines, whistle-blower programs, reward systems, ethics officers, codes of conduct, and ethics programs, are of great value to human resource management. Although initial communication of ethical values and policy is important, continued communication and follow-through on policies via sanctioning is also crucial. Various levels of accountability may be embedded within an organization. For example, a behavioral oversight program that involves regularly monitoring and evaluating employees based on their ethical conduct will communicate that the organization truly prioritizes ethics. In particular, embedding ethics within reward systems, perhaps through the addition of an ethics component to performance reviews, would indicate to employees that their ethical conduct is crucial to their professional success. Previous research has suggested that such reward structures are important determinants of ethical decision making and behavior, particularly when employees sense that rewards are associated with unethical conduct (Hegarty & Sims, 1978). To this end, reacting to unethical conduct via penalties or termination, depending on severity, also signals to employees that ethics matter and should be considered in day-to-day functioning. Aside from accountability from a supervisor, employees should also be able to hold each other accountable. Accordingly, the implementation of early warning systems, for example, an ethics hotline, would provide employees with a forum to hold others accountable by raising concerns to human resource personnel. Unfortunately, such programs are either symbolic or underutilized, thus limiting their utility in combating unethical conduct (Weaver, Trevin˜o, & Cochran, 1999). Organizations should therefore emphasize the importance of such programs to employees, and offer protections to those who do choose to speak up when confronted with ethical scenarios. After-Action Reviews and Remediation A final intervention recommended for potential application within the context of human resource management involves after-action reviews and remediational training. In the case of ethical breaches occurring, managers must conduct an ethics assessment and subsequently address the ethical breach in full. As part of this process, managers should walk through the ethical sensemaking model so as to identify the root of the problem vis-a`vis constraints on the situation. Discussion of this process with all involved

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in the breach is imperative to improving future sensemaking efforts. Moreover, it will facilitate the continued development of shared values, communicating to employees what is expected of them when faced with ethical issues. Finally, depending on the severity of these issues, individuals should be held accountable for their actions as previously discussed. Recent literature has suggested that remediation programs may be one effective response to disruptive or problem behavior. For instance, DuBois, Anderson, and Chibnall (2013) recently advocated a remediation program for wrongdoing in a university domain. Similarly, Samenow, Swiggart, and Spickard (2008) demonstrated that physicians exhibiting destructive behavior could be remediated through a course aimed at better controlling anger and corresponding outbursts. There are a number of reasons an organization may choose to remediate an employee rather than terminate them (DuBois et al., 2013). For example, termination can be quite costly to organizations and may open the door for subsequent legal suits. Similarly, remediation can help to achieve a number of goals within the organization such as restoring trust and managing risk through the development of a proactive response plan (DuBois et al., 2013). Accordingly, remediation programs may be an effective course of action in response to ethical violations. Again, it is of note that when implementing remedial training, quantitative evaluation of training effectiveness must be assessed. As noted within the earlier training discussion, trainers should take care in identifying potentially disruptive trainees, as consideration of individual differences such as one’s personal worldview might suggest that some cannot be easily remediated.

LIMITATIONS Before discussing the implications to be drawn from this effort, certain limitations must be noted. First, although substantial empirical support exists demonstrating the efficacy of Mumford et al.’s (2008) sensemaking model of ethical decision making, the extended model that we propose is, in part, inductively premised. Given the complexity of our proposed model, not all components or interactions among components have been empirically assessed, thus presenting a need for future research in this domain. Second, the current model reflects managerial and professional ethics as opposed to integrity. Rather than focusing explicitly on employees’ integrity, or their internal values of right versus wrong, we emphasize ethics that are

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embedded in a broader system of institutionalized values. Although we do suggest that integrity matters (through discussion of individual difference variables), it is not directly captured through our model. Along similar lines, the proposed model does not focus on broader societal issues, although they influence ethics within the system. Accordingly, future research would benefit from addressing these broader societal elements that place added pressures on organizations and organizational members. Additional limitations correspond to several assumptions inherent in the current model. First, it is assumed that an individual has already become aware of the ethical issue present. In this regard, ethical issue intensity and awareness (e.g., Jones, 1991) is not addressed. An individual may have the requisite knowledge and be effective at ethical sensemaking; without awareness that one is facing a dilemma, however, this is a moot point. Second, our model assumes that an individual navigating an ethical situation has the time needed to effectively work through the issue (MacDougall et al., 2014). As previously noted, it is likely that compensatory strategies and tactics are used by individuals pressed for time when making ethical decisions (Mecca et al., 2014; Thiel et al., 2012), but these potential tactics are not embedded within our model. Lastly, an assumption here is made that ethical decision making will lead to ethical conduct, but this is not necessarily the case. The evidence discussed in this model is mostly based on ethical decision making, not behaviorally based ethics in an organizational setting. Thus, there is a question concerning the generalizability of the conclusions drawn here to ethical conduct rather than ethical decision making alone.

IMPLICATIONS Even considering these limitations, we believe that the present effort sheds light on a number of significant theoretical and practical conclusions. As previously described, ethical sensemaking has progressed substantially since its first introduction to the scientific literature. Ethical decision making is necessarily a complex, dynamic process that involves active processing of information. The research outlined in this effort substantiates this argument, suggesting that ethical decision making involves several complex processing operations. The current effort therefore provides a logical, continued evolution of Mumford and colleagues’ (2008) sensemaking model, providing unique contributions to theory. For example, important within this system is the role of forecasting. Forecasting has typically been

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ignored in terms of who and what is being forecasted. Without acknowledging the role of forecasting and its relation to framing, emotion regulation, mental model formation, and self-reflection, a key component of the ethical decision-making process is negated. Additionally, self-reflection may play a similar role. Given that expertise is central to all aspects of sensemaking, reflecting on one’s expertise and acknowledging the boundaries of this expertise in the context of a given dilemma is highly important. Similarly, reflecting on the situation in and of itself and one’s planned reaction prior to action may help individuals find and address potential flaws in their plans before carrying them out. Effective execution of the sensemaking process is, in this way, contingent upon one’s requisite knowledge and the application of strategies used to facilitate sensemaking. Moreover, influences on an individual’s information processing are numerous, spanning individual, team, organizational, and societal levels, and our model provides a context for these influences. To this end, the research highlighted in this effort has offered a clearer framework to view the key processes involved in ethical decision making. For example, the model implies that ethical decisions are based on experience working in a social system. Moreover, the system is both rule bound and individual, or unique to any given situation. This accounts for the confusion that surrounds rule violations, given that at times, ethical conduct may actually conflict with rules. Specifically, the extended model suggests that the sensemaking process is influenced by external factors such as first-order constraints (i.e., laws, rules, guidelines, hierarchy, and norms), second-order constraints (causes, constraints, accountability, and bias), and the impact of stakeholders and social press on the decision-making process. Accordingly, conflicting impositions from these differing sources likely contributes to the complexities associated with ethical quandaries and must be addressed to effectively navigate such situations. In addition to external components, our extended conceptualization also accounts for individual factors which may impact the sensemaking process. Included in such individual factors are one’s experience and expertise, personality and beliefs, personal worldview, personal and professional goals, and affect, and these individual difference variables have a bearing on the way in which ethical events are understood and managed. As an example, whereas a Machiavellian will still engage in the sensemaking process, the process will likely be filtered through a teleology perspective, thus resulting in a decision with outcomes deemed most beneficial for him or herself rather than for the greatest good. A diverging example, bearing in mind locus of control, would suggest that individuals exhibiting an external locus

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of control may respond to an ethical event with learned helplessness, viewing themselves as unwilling or unable to effectively manage the situation. On the contrary, individuals with an internal locus of control may act more proactively in the face of an ethical issue, in turn processing information in a more active and efficient manner. Another important contribution of the extended sensemaking model is consideration of how people actively interact with their environment to understand ethics. This interaction occurs on a daily basis, regardless of the presence of an ethical event. For instance, individuals are constantly exposed to environmental cues from external sources such as the media and popular press, which influence our ideas about what is culturally deemed ethically appropriate or inappropriate. Similarly, briefings from organizational events such as board meetings and discussions with stakeholders, whether internal or external to the organization, influence our perceptions about how organizations prioritize ethics. Moreover, information gleaned from these interactions become particularly salient when ethical events are encountered. Previously omitted from discussions surrounding ethics, particularly in the realm of HR, this interaction is thus a key point of ethical sensemaking and warrants attention. Furthermore, this highlights the importance of case-based knowledge. As noted previously, this knowledge may be acquired either first-hand through personal experiences, or vicariously through others. Regardless of how it is obtained, case-based knowledge can help individuals differentiate relevant and meaningful information from extraneous details when gathering and making sense of information. In this way, case-based knowledge can also contribute to the development of expertise. In addition to the theoretical conclusions provided by our extended sensemaking model, there are notable practical implications worth discussing. As eloquently stated by Reynolds (2006), models of ethical decision making advanced in the empirical literature “serve as a wellspring for prescriptions to organizations” (p. 737), and our extended conceptualization of ethical sensemaking is no exception. Before recapping some of the significant contributions of our model with respect to strategies for HR implementation, however, we turn to proper preparation of candidates for the business world. In this regard, our proposed model offers applied insights beneficial for individuals prior to entering the corporate world. Currently, much of the business ethics pedagogy does not appear to be improving ethical conduct in students (Simha, Armstrong, & Albert, 2012), despite evidence suggesting that it increases ethical reasoning, awareness, and perceptions of importance (Lau, 2010), and that it bolsters students’

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confidence and willingness to work through and discuss ethical issues (May, Luth, & Schwoerer, 2014). Accordingly, it would seem that there is something missing in current business ethics curriculum. For instance, rather than being trained to adopt an organization-centered worldview, students should instead be trained to hold a human-centered worldview (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006). By transitioning to a human-centered worldview, greater emphasis would be placed on higher-order goals and promoting working toward the greater good rather than solely for profitability or business (Giacalone & Thompson, 2006). This, in turn, would likely facilitate organizational ethics and students’ preparedness to face ethical dilemmas. Moreover, drawing from our model, course instructors should explicitly highlight the importance of stakeholder relationships and stakeholder analysis, social responsibility, ethical decision making, ethical leadership, and the development of effective ethics education programs so as to prepare their students for the realities of the business world. Over and above candidate preparation, our model speaks to several functional areas of HRM and the methods through which HR can move organizations past symbolic ethics management practices (c.f. Weaver et al., 1999) toward high-commitment, integrity-based ethics management. Indeed, HR plays a fundamental role in the institutionalization of organizational ethics. From recruiting and selecting ethical employees to socializing, evaluating, and compensating them with ethics in mind, HR is at the heart of all organizational ethics initiatives. In addition to embedding proactive, preventative strategies within the HRM system, HR personnel are also responsible for proper oversight and control with respect to organizational ethics. As previously discussed, imperative to the success of such interventions, however, is establishing a strong ethical culture with accompanied leader support and role modeling. Without the perception that the organization truly cares about and supports ethics, all other interventions lose significant value. Thus, organizations must demonstrate a strong commitment to ethics at both the explicit and implicit levels.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Before closing, we would like to note several promising research directions flowing from the current effort. Acknowledging that the already complex process of sensemaking is susceptible to a number of extraneous individual, organizational, and societal factors opens the door for scholars to

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empirically assess the relative influence of each. Although the initial sensemaking model put forth by Mumford et al. (2008) has been substantiated extensively in the empirical literature, the role of individual difference and contextual factors on the various elements of the sensemaking process remain largely unexplored. Overall, this effort thus provides the theoretical groundwork scholars can draw from in justifying their continued investigation of ethical sensemaking in organizations, especially through the elucidation of various HR elements that may prove favorable. Specifically, work is needed to better understand how the various components of the model interact to influence employee ethicality. For instance, what is more important to employees, the behavior of role models and leaders, or rules that have been embedded within the organizational context vis-a`-vis human resources? How do employees perceive the ethical environment and subsequently prioritize information gathered from different sources such as codes of conduct, organizational leadership, and stakeholder concerns? Through exploration of questions like these, researchers might uncover the types of environments, or combinations of influences, that best promote employee ethicality. In this regard, hierarchical examinations integrating multiple units of analysis as they are influenced by human resources would be beneficial. For example, scholars might seek to examine the respective influence of significant others (i.e., peers, managers, coworkers, subordinates) as compared to work groups, departments, organizational entities, or the broader organizational environment (Robertson, 1993). Future research is also needed to identify the processes that correspond to unethical conduct. The current model suggests that individuals might arrive at unethical conduct through one of several paths. First, individuals who engage in sensemaking in a suboptimal fashion are more likely to arrive at an unethical decision. Second, individuals may not have the proper oversight or resources available to them to adequately navigate an ethical event. Third, individuals may feel pressures, such as pressure from supervisors, colleagues, or customers, for example, which may lead them down an unethical path. Fourth, some individuals may simply not care about or understand components of the system, thus hindering their ability to engage in ethical decision making due to a lack of consideration of those elements. Finally, some people, by their very nature, may be more inclined to act unethically, despite resources being available or their ability to engage in sensemaking. Each of these varying paths differs in terms intentionality, thus providing scholars with options for targeted examinations of unethical behavior.

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For example, pertaining to the final path, do unethical people actively identify constraints and learn to work around them to suit their own needs? With regard to the less intentional routes, how do ethical people who engage in unethical conduct resolve their cognitive dissonance? At what stage in the sensemaking process does this occur, if at all, and how does it influence future conduct? One potential answer, drawing from the foot-in-the-door (Freedman & Fraser, 1966) and slippery slope theories (Gino & Bazerman, 2007) would suggest that individuals might rationalize their behavior, and subsequently continue down the path of unethical conduct. On the other hand, after engaging in unethical conduct, individuals might seek to rectify their behavior through compensatory methods such as organizational citizenship behavior (Spector & Fox, 2010). Yet another possibility that is more neutral in nature holds that individuals would store the experience with their case-based knowledge, using it as a reference to learn from when faced with future situations (Kolodner, 1992, 1993). As a means of deterring individuals from the aforementioned rationalizations, scholars might examine the impact of individualized ethics audits on employee conduct. Whereas audits are typically focused at the unit or departmental level, individualized audits would signal HR’s dedication to individual ethics by (1) communicating the organization’s commitment to ethics vis-a`-vis monitoring and (2) holding organizational members accountable for their actions. This logic, however, should be empirically tested. On the contrary, for those individuals seeking to engage in reparative behaviors following ethical violations, benchmarking might prove helpful. Benchmarking refers to the process of determining “best practices” and then comparing individual or organizational performance to said best practices. While typical of other control mechanisms (i.e., total quality management), benchmarking has received scant attention with respect to ethics. To this end, future research might work to identify ethical benchmarking techniques, and then to link ethical benchmarking to outcomes at the individual, team, department, and organizational levels. Numerous other questions could be answered through future research, particularly concerning how various elements of human resource management might encourage employee ethicality. For example, the model suggests that accountability counts in ethical decision making. What we do not know, however, is what dimensions of accountability are most important. Whereas some individuals will hold themselves accountable, others may need explicit monitoring by a direct supervisor. Furthermore, some individuals may feel that without proper sanctioning, they will not be held accountable through penalties for unethical conduct. To this end,

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variability in the amount, source, and intensity of accountability may very well influence employee ethicality. Future research, however, would help to shed light on this possibility. Another potential research path focuses on developing valid ethics criteria. As previously discussed, HR professionals are encouraged to embed ethics criteria within their performance management systems. However, questions remain concerning how best to define and measure ethics in this context. For example, research would benefit from identifying the underlying dimensions of ethical performance in business, and moreover, from examining the extent to which these dimensions, once identified, are generalizable across job type. Similarly, future research could help to determine when and how managers should respond to poor ethical performance, and particularly ethical breaches (i.e., hold their employees accountable), to most optimally address these issues. Moreover, research examining leader risk prevention and assessment would likely prove valuable. Although it is clear that leaders impact subordinates’ ethical decision making, it is less clear exactly how this occurs. Accordingly, research might explore the extent to which leaders openly communicate with followers about ethics, and whether expectations concerning ethical conduct are made explicit and clear. Along similar lines, future work is needed to identify how various resources, and variations on these resources, may facilitate ethical decision making. As previously noted, although early warning systems such as whistle-blower programs and ethics hotlines likely encourage employees to seek help earlier when confronted with an ethical dilemma, they are vastly underutilized (Weaver et al., 1999). It would therefore be interesting to examine the attributes associated with these early warning systems that (1) make human resource departments more likely to adopt them, (2) bolster their accessibility to employees, and (3) increase their effectiveness. Relatedly, whereas training has been shown to be a highly effective ethics intervention (e.g., Mumford et al., 2008), no work to our knowledge has empirically explored the efficacy of preventative training programs. For example, Crowley and Gottlieb (2012) suggested that proactive risk management may help to not only confront ethical dilemmas, but perhaps to avoid them altogether. Nonetheless, this potentially fruitful research avenue, and its corresponding applicability for human resources, has received scant attention. Taken together, it is our hope that this work will promote continued research examining ethical decision making in organizations, and more specifically, the particular avenues through which human resource management can maximize employee ethicality.

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CONCLUSION The current effort sought to bring together research in ethical decision making and human resource management with a dual focus. First, to introduce an extended conceptualization of ethical sensemaking, and second, to highlight the many ways in which human resources can create conditions that facilitate ethical decision making. The ethical sensemaking approach offers an integrated conceptualization of ethical decision making by explaining individual cognitive processing while accounting for peripheral factors. In the current effort, we sought to expand Mumford and colleagues’ (2008) sensemaking model to increase its applicability to the business world and in particular to human resource management. In doing so, a variety of additional constructs pertaining to the individual, the organization, and the society as a whole are conceptualized as having a contributing influence on the sensemaking process. Through the elucidation of these supplementary influences, a comprehensive model is proposed which sheds light on the sensemaking process as it occurs in an organizational setting. Bearing in mind this model, human resources is touted for its capability to spearhead ethics initiatives. Through strategic tailoring of HR interventions to organizational needs, and by fostering a sustainable ethical culture, HR has much to offer in the way of creating and maintaining an ethical workforce.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was made possible through funding from the National Science Foundation (Grant No. 0931539) and the National Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5R01NS49535-2), and Michael D. Mumford, Principal Investigator.

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DIVERSITY CLIMATE IN ORGANIZATIONS: CURRENT WISDOM AND DOMAINS OF UNCERTAINTY Patrick F. McKay and Derek R. Avery ABSTRACT Over the past decade, the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse. In response, scholars and practitioners have sought to uncover ways to leverage this increasing diversity to enhance business performance. To date, research evidence has failed to provide consistent support for the value of diversity to organizational effectiveness. Accordingly, scholars have shifted their attention to diversity management as a means to fully realize the potential benefits of diversity in organizations. The principal aim of this chapter is to review the current wisdom on the study of diversity climate in organizations. Defined as the extent that employees view an organization as utilizing fair personnel practices and socially integrating all personnel into the work environment, diversity climate has been proposed as a catalyst for unlocking the full value of diversity in organizations. During our review, we discuss the existent individual- and aggregate-level research, describe the theoretical foundations of such work, summarize the key research findings and

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themes gleaned from work in each domain, and note the limitations of diversity climate research. Finally, we highlight the domains of uncertainty regarding diversity climate research, and offer recommendations for future work that can enhance knowledge of diversity climate effects on organizational outcomes. Keywords: Diversity; diversity management; diversity climate; leveraging diversity

Over the past decade, the U.S. workforce has become increasingly diverse, with racial-ethnic minorities and women comprising nearly 75% of net entrants (Toossi, 2012). In addition, generational diversity at work has proliferated with roughly four generations of employees (i.e., Traditionalists, Baby Boomers, Generation Xers, Millennials) working side-by-side (Westerman & Yamamura, 2007). These increases in workforce diversity, as well as others (e.g., growing female labor force participation), have prompted scholars and practitioners alike to seek out ways to fully leverage the purported benefits of diversity on the organizational bottom line. Namely, diversity is proposed to provide advantages such as coverage for projected labor shortages (Doverspike, Taylor, Shultz, & McKay, 2000), increased access to a more diversified client base (Cox, 1993; Herring, 2009; Thomas & Ely, 1996), greater creativity and problem-solving ability (Cox & Blake, 1991; Richard, Roh, & Pieper, 2013), improved corporate image (Cox, 1993; Robinson & Dechant, 1997), and ultimately, higher organizational performance (Richard, Barnett, Dwyer, & Chadwick, 2004; Sacco & Schmitt, 2005). The extant diversity literature, however, has painted a mixed view of diversity’s main effects on organizational performance that includes positive, negative, and null effects (Joshi & Roh, 2009; Kochan et al., 2003; van Dijk, van Engen, & van Knippenberg, 2012; Webber & Donahue, 2001). Owing to uncertainty regarding diversity effects on organizational performance, diversity scholars shifted their focus to potential moderating factors of the diversity
performance relationship. A key consideration raised in diversity work has been the extent that a work setting is viewed as strongly committed to pursuing and managing diversity (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Thomas & Ely, 1996). The logic underlying this “managing diversity”

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perspective is that the benefits of diversity on performance are maximized to the extent that diversity is perceived as valuable to organizational functioning. When valued, diversity is emphasized in all areas of a business to impact how work is performed, the strategic objectives that are chosen, consumer markets to pursue, and the extent worker differences are leveraged to improve business. One of the preeminent concepts in the diversity management literature has been that of diversity climate, defined as the extent that employees view their work environment as fair and socially inclusive of all personnel (McKay, Avery, & Morris, 2008). Limited evidence has shown that diversity (gender and racial) has more facilitative effects on business-unit productivity, return on income, and return on profit in work units with climates perceived to be supportive versus unsupportive of diversity (Gonzalez & DeNisi, 2009). In recognition of the burgeoning interest in the diversity climate construct, the purpose of our chapter is to summarize existing and stimulate further diversity climate research. The chapter is formulated in the following fashion. First, we review the current wisdom on diversity climate, focusing on field studies wherein general diversity climate was the focal construct. Because general climate has been the predominate subject of diversity climate work, we did not review work on diversity climates targeted toward specific demographic categories such as gender (King, Hebl, George, & Matusik, 2010) or age (Bo¨hm, Kunze, & Bruch, 2014). During the review, we sort studies by levels of analysis, as diversity climate has been studied at the individual (i.e., employee level) and aggregate levels (e.g., business unit, workgroup, and firm levels). Also, the theoretical foundations utilized across studies are briefly described, along with the general patterns of findings. After the review sections, we note particular limitations across the diversity climate research base, and conclude with new directions for important lines of inquiry. Before proceeding, we provide a brief overview of the origins of diversity climate research.

ORIGINS OF DIVERSITY CLIMATE RESEARCH Initial interest in diversity climate followed largely from publication of Cox’s (1993) seminal book, Cultural Diversity in Organizations: Theory, Research, and Practice. Cox conceptualized diversity climate as consisting of individual- (i.e., identity structures, prejudice, stereotyping, and personality), group/intergroup- (i.e., cultural differences, ethnocentrism, and

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intergroup conflict), and organizational-level factors (i.e., structural integration, informal integration, and institutional bias in human resource systems). The first of these concerns the extent to which employees’ group memberships (e.g., race-ethnicity and gender) subject them to various forms of biased treatment such as prejudice and stereotyping. The second emphasizes how employee differences in perspectives influence intergroup relations among personnel. As an example, people from Eastern cultures tend to have less rigid time orientations than individuals from Western cultures. Accordingly, a culture clash may ensue if employees from these different cultures are scheduled to attend the same meeting. Finally, the organizational-level involves firm-level considerations of diversity management such as fairness in human resource processes (e.g., standardized selection procedures and performance appraisals), and the integration of traditionally disparaged groups (e.g., women and minorities) across hierarchical levels in an organization and within informal communication channels. Often, members of these lower-status groups are excluded from high-level positions and informal influence networks within organizations (Ibarra, 1995; Lyness & Thompson, 2000). In addition, Cox formulated the Interactional Model for Cultural Diversity (IMCD) to specify how diversity climate relates to organizational effectiveness. Specifically, diversity climate was proposed to influence firstlevel (i.e., attendance, turnover, productivity, work quality, recruiting success, creativity/innovation, problem-solving, and workgroup cohesiveness and communication) and second-level outcomes (i.e., market share, profitability, achievement of formal organizational goals) through its impact on employees’ affective (e.g., job/career satisfaction, organizational identification, and job involvement) and achievement outcomes (i.e., job performance ratings, compensation, and promotion/horizontal mobility rates). Essentially, the IMCD suggests that supportive diversity climates enhance organizational effectiveness through (a) a motivational/affective path (i.e., enhanced work attitudes and identification with the firm) and (b) behavioral/performance path (i.e., improved job performance and advancement opportunities), thereby bolstering employees’ work efforts and organizational loyalty, and their internalization of firm objectives. As reviewed later, a number of subsequent studies have utilized Cox’s IMCD as a theoretical framework. Thus, his work is a landmark in that it established the conceptual underpinnings for much of the subsequent diversity climate research. Nonetheless, in the “Domains of Uncertainty” section, we also note how the diversity climate literature has tested very few of the relations posed in the IMCD.

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Around the same time Cox (1993) was introducing the IMCD, Kossek and Zonia (1993) conducted an early empirical assessment wherein they examined whether individual-level diversity climate perceptions varied as a function of race-ethnicity and gender among a sample of university faculty members. Individual diversity climate perceptions, also known as psychological diversity climate, involve individual employee perceptions of the degree that work settings are fair and inclusive (e.g., Boehm et al., 2014; McKay et al., 2007). The authors used a single survey to collect data from 775 employees (281 White men, 318 White women, 83 racioethnic minority men, 40 racioethnic minority women) of a large, U.S. Midwestern university. In line with their hypotheses, Kossek and Zonia (1993) found that women and minorities reported significantly lower perceived value for diversity than their male and White counterparts, respectively. Countering expectations, a race by gender interaction on climate perceptions (favoring minority women) failed to emerge. Importantly, this early study provided some evidence that demographic groups differ in their perceptions of their firm’s support for diversity. As an extension of Kossek and Zonia’s (1993) work, Mor Barak, Cherin, and Berkman (1998) assessed the dimensionality of diversity climate and examined the extent of racial-ethnic and gender differences in climate perceptions among personnel in an electronics firm. The authors distinguished diversity climate into an organizational-level component, consisting of organizational fairness (i.e., the extent that personnel selection, promotions, etc., are conducted in a nondiscriminatory manner) and organizational inclusion dimensions (i.e., the degree that the work setting is free from interpersonal biases and prejudices), and individual-level component comprised of personal diversity value (i.e., the degree employees view diversity as providing added value to the workplace) and personal comfort dimensions (i.e., the extent that employees are at ease interacting with people from different demographic groups). Importantly, the authors validated a survey instrument designed to measure the four diversity climate dimensions that has been employed in a number of subsequent investigations. Mor Barak et al. (1998) gathered data from 2,686 employees (64% White, 15% Asian, 7% Hispanic, 6% Black, and 5% other; 33% female) of a large, U.S. electronics company. The authors administered a single organizational survey designed to evaluate the firm’s diversity climate. Study findings revealed that White employees reported significantly higher scores on the overall diversity climate scale, organizational fairness subscale, and organizational inclusion scale than their Black colleagues. This indicates that Whites viewed the organization as more supportive of

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diversity overall, and in terms of fairness and inclusion, than Blacks. Likewise, men perceived greater organizational fairness than women. In contrast, Whites’ overall diversity climate perceptions did not differ significantly from Hispanics, Asians, and others (i.e., race-ethnicity unspecified). Women reported significantly higher personal value for diversity than men, whereas racial-ethnic group disparities in scores on this subscale were nonsignificant. Interestingly, Hispanics and Blacks reported significantly higher personal comfort than Whites and Asians. Finally, race-ethnicity and gender interactions emerged such that White males reported significantly higher overall diversity climate perceptions, as well as stronger sentiments regarding organizational fairness, organizational inclusion, and personal value for diversity compared to White women and racial-ethnic minority men and women. A key contribution of this study was the validation of a diversity climate scale for future research use. The study showed additional evidence of race-ethnic and gender differences in diversity climate perceptions, such that White men reported generally more favorable views of diversity management compared to White women, and minority men and women.

CURRENT WISDOM ON DIVERSITY CLIMATE Early diversity climate work established the nature of the construct, and showed that there are gender and racial-ethnic mean (or average) score differences in perceptions of diversity climate. Moving from the origins of diversity climate thought and research, we now turn to reviewing the extant literature. Although our review is not exhaustive, we seek to articulate the general themes gleaned from diversity climate research to date. As noted previously, we classify our review by levels of analyses, individual level and aggregate level diversity climate.

Individual-Level Studies Individual-level studies of diversity climate operationalize the variable in terms of employees’ individual views of how strongly a work context is viewed as fair and inclusive (or as valuing diversity). The bulk of work on diversity climate has been focused at the individual level of analysis. Termed by some as psychological diversity climate, individual-level

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diversity climate research has been limited, by and large, to predicting worker attitudes (Buttner, Lowe, & Billings-Harris, 2009, 2012; ChrobotMason & Aramovich, 2013; Hicks-Clarke & Iles, 2000; Hofhuis, van der Zee, & Otten, 2012; Hopkins, Hopkins, & Mallette, 2001; Kaplan, Wiley, & Maertz, 2011; McKay et al., 2007; Singh & Selvarajan, 2013; Stewart, Volpone, Avery, & McKay, 2011; Volpone, Avery, & McKay, 2012), followed by worker behaviors to a much lesser extent (Avery, McKay, Wilson, & Tonidandel, 2007; Leslie & Gelfand, 2008; Singh, Winkel, & Selvarajan, 2013; Triana & Garcia, 2009). In the following sections, we review studies that are representative of particular schools of thoughts concerning diversity climate, and investigations designed to extend earlier works. During our review, we emphasize the theoretical bases of, and key findings from, each study. We conclude our review by summarizing the key themes gleaned from individual-level studies of diversity climate and noting the limitations of this research. Theory and Findings The majority of investigations that have explored individual-level diversity climate perceptions have utilized Cox’s IMCD framework and/or social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Studies in this domain extend previous work that has established the presence of racial-ethnic and gender differences in how personnel perceive the diversity climates of their work environments. As previously reviewed, the IMCD has been used to establish that a company (or work unit) thought to espouse diversity as an imperative will tend to minimize identity threats within work settings such as various forms of bias and discrimination, thereby enhancing workers attitudes and behaviors. Favorable attitudes and behaviors, in turn, are predicted to translate into improved employee job performance, reduced employee withdrawal (e.g., absenteeism, turnover), and subsequently, increments in overall organizational effectiveness (i.e., market share, profitability, achievement of formal organizational goals). IMCD-based reasoning has been integrated with social identity theory to explain why employee reactions to diversity climate should vary by employee race-ethnicity and/ or gender. Social identity theory posits that people categorize themselves and others into social groups based upon salient personal characteristics (e.g., raceethnicity, gender, age). Because individuals are motivated to advance in-group interests and bolster self-esteem, they prefer social interactions with people perceived as similar to themselves (in-group members) and tend to derogate those deemed as dissimilar or out-group members

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(Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Hogg & Terry, 2000). Furthermore, people are apt to occupy contexts wherein their particular identity groups are treated amicably, as disparate treatment is perceived as discriminatory and a threat to one’s identity (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Hogg & Terry, 2000; Thompson, 1999). Owing to racial-ethnic minorities’ and women’s relatively lower status and higher reports of discrimination compared to Whites and men (Avery, McKay, & Wilson, 2008; Deitch et al., 2003), respectively, social identity theory is useful for asserting why minorities and women are likely to view supportive diversity climates as means to mitigate bias and mistreatment relative to their respective counterparts. Such organizational efforts should bolster members of disadvantage groups’ tendency to identify with firms that foster congenial diversity climates (Avery et al., 2013; Hofhuis et al., 2012). In addition, social identity theory is applicable to explaining in-group/out-group dynamics that underlie intergroup conflict between groups. Namely, strong identification with one’s own group, relative to the organization as a whole, can undermine cooperation and cohesion with members of other groups, with negative ramifications for leveraging diversity in work settings (Hofhuis et al., 2012). Hopkins et al. (2001) conducted an early study that typifies the examination of diversity climate’s relations with worker attitudes (i.e., organizational commitment) as moderated by race-ethnicity. These authors studied a sample of 156 White male and 77 minority working managers enrolled in a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program to assess the extent that they differ in their views on organizational commitment to diversity, and how strongly these perceptions correlate with their emotional or affective commitment to the organization. Furthermore, the researchers studied psychological contracts (e.g., general and relational) as potential mediators of the commitment to diversity
organizational commitment relationship. The logic regarding psychological contracts held that organizational commitment to diversity would be viewed by White male managers as a form of organizational change. In response, these individuals were purported to react by reporting reduced general psychological contract perceptions (i.e., the extent that the firm has fulfilled its initial promises to employees) and relational psychological contract perceptions (i.e., the degree that the firm has fulfilled its long-term obligations to employees such as job security and advancement opportunities). These views of psychological contracts were expected to reduce White male managers’ commitment to the organization. In contrast, minority managers were predicted to respond favorably to organizational commitment to diversity, viewing such organizational efforts as means to reduce their experiences of biased treatment and

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increase their integration within the firm. These perceptions, in turn, were predicted to enhance their feelings that their general and relational psychological contrasts have been fulfilled by the organization, and strengthen their organizational commitment. Contrary to previous research, Hopkins et al. (2001) found that minority and White male managers reported similar perceptions of commitment to diversity. In addition, the results showed that the direct commitment to diversity
organizational commitment relationship was significantly positive for White male managers, and nonsignificant (and negative in sign) for minority managers. Also, mediation analyses showed that commitment to diversity exhibited significant, indirect relationships with organizational commitment, as mediated by general psychological contracts and relational psychological contracts for minority managers. These results showed that among minority managers, perceptions of high commitment to diversity enhanced their organizational commitment by strengthening views that the firm lived up to its general and relational psychological contracts. For White male managers, the indirect commitment to diversity
organizational commitment association was partially mediated by relational contracts. Accordingly, and contrary to hypotheses, White male managers also reacted positively to high commitment to diversity by reporting higher organizational commitment, as a function of stronger views the organization satisfied its relational psychological contracts. Overall, Hopkins et al. (2001) provided early evidence that commitment to diversity led to enhanced psychological contract perceptions and organizational commitment irrespective of employee race-ethnicity. Furthermore, commitment to diversity fostered perceptions that the firm was fulfilling its obligations to employees, thus strengthening their organizational commitment. Extending the findings of Hopkins et al. (2001), McKay et al. (2007) assessed the diversity climate
turnover intentions relationship, as mediated by affective organizational commitment. These researchers employed the IMCD and social identity theory to predict that the mediated diversity climate
organizational commitment
turnover intentions pathway would be stronger among Blacks and Hispanics than among White men and women. The authors collected data from 2,282 White male, 2,446 White female, 314 Black, and 328 Hispanic retail store managers who completed the annual organizational survey administered in a large, U.S. national retailer. Study results partially supported the authors’ hypotheses. Specifically, although negative, the mediated relationship between diversity climate and turnover intentions was significantly stronger for Black managers compared to all other managerial subgroups; this pattern did not

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hold for Hispanic managers relative to their White male and White female counterparts. Across all participants, perceptions that the workplace was supportive of diversity increased organizational commitment, which in turn, reduced managers’ intentions to leave the organization. An additional merit of the McKay et al. (2007) study was their demonstration of the measurement equivalence of diversity climate survey scales across racial-ethnic groups. This suggests members of the various groups interpreted the diversity climate items similarly. Importantly, they also provided strong support to Cox’s IMCD model, and showed that the predicted relations are moderated by race-ethnicity. The latter contribution has served as a strong basis for subsequent work on diversity climate at the individual level. A number of subsequent studies followed up on McKay et al.’s (2007) findings to assess additional mediators and/or moderators of diversity climate effects on outcomes. For instance, Avery et al. (2007) examined the extent that racial-ethnic differences in absenteeism, disfavoring minorities, are moderated by diversity climate perceptions and supervisor
subordinate racial similarity. Using IMCD- and social identity-based logic, the authors proposed that congenial diversity climates would be more identity affirming for Black and Hispanic personnel than hostile climates, thereby reducing previously demonstrated racial-ethnic differences in absenteeism. Also, the authors predicted that racial-ethnic differences in absenteeism would be greatest in work environments with less supportive diversity climates with racially or ethnically similar supervisors. The latter hypothesis implies weaker facilitative effects of diversity when minority employees encounter mixed signals about the value of diversity in the work setting (i.e., an unsupportive diversity climate with a racially similar supervisor). Avery et al. (2007) analyzed data gathered from a single, U.S. Gallup Organization survey administered to 294 White, 172 Black, and 193 Hispanic survey respondents (minorities were intentionally oversampled). Results supported their predictions such that racial-ethnic differences in absenteeism were lower in workplaces perceived as having supportive diversity climates, particularly when minority personnel worked for racially ethnically similar supervisors. Importantly, Avery et al. (2007) extended diversity climate research to a behavioral outcome, showing that its moderated effects on outcomes extend beyond worker attitudes to actual behaviors. As an additional extension of McKay et al. (2007), Kaplan et al. (2011) examined calculative commitment (i.e., the strength of commitment based upon employee perceptions of tangible, future benefits of remaining in an organization such as promotions, raises, and job security). The authors employed signaling theory (Spence, 1973) to propose that employees would

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view organizational diversity efforts as symbolic of the firm’s support, thereby ensuring the likelihood of receiving future rewards to their employment, and thus, lowering intentions to leave. These relationships were predicted to be stronger for employees with higher pay satisfaction and perceived supervisor effectiveness. The authors collected their study data using a single Gantz Wiley Research survey administered to U.S. national sample of 4,184 survey respondents (86.3% White, 8% Black, 3.5% Latino/a, 1.5% Asian, and 0.8 other). Study findings supported the mediated effects of diversity climate on turnover intentions, through calculative commitment. Namely, supportive diversity climate perceptions enhanced calculative commitment, which lowered intentions to turnover. In addition, diversity climate interacted with pay satisfaction to predict calculative commitment. More specifically, the positive diversity climate
calculative commitment relationship was more strongly positive when pay satisfaction was high versus low. Notably, the authors demonstrated the mediated diversity climate
calculative commitment
turnover intentions relationship held for White male and minority participants. In a similar vein, Singh et al. (2013) assessed psychological safety as a mediator of diversity climate relations with organizational citizenship behaviors emitted to assist organizations (OCB-O) and individual employees (OCB-I), and in-role performance. Essentially, the authors posited that hospitable diversity climates should enhance psychological safety, in that employees would feel freer to express their true selves and a reduced sense of risk from interacting interpersonally with employees from different demographic groups. In line with social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), hospitable work settings were expected to compel personnel to reciprocate organizational goodwill by performing more extra-role helping behaviors, and increasing in-role performance. Moreover, the authors employed social identity theory to argue that the proposed diversity climate
psychological safety
outcome pathways would be stronger among racial-ethnic minority compared to White personnel, owing to their greater (a) exposure to adverse treatment in organizations and (b) appreciation of organizational efforts to mitigate such treatment (i.e., fostering supportive diversity climates). The authors collected diversity climate and psychological safety data from a survey administered to subordinates (100 Whites and 65 minorities), whereas in-role performance, OCB-I and OCB-O data were collected from employees’ supervisors, all employed in a Midwestern U.S. production company. The results provided support for the mediated effects of diversity climate on OCB-I and OCB-O, as transmitted through psychological safety. Employee perceptions of supportive diversity climates

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enhanced their feelings of psychological safety, which resulted in a higher propensity to perform pro-social behaviors directed toward the overall organization and individual employees. Moreover, although race-ethnicity moderated the diversity climate
psychological safety and psychological safety
OCB-I relationships, Singh et al. (2013) did not observe significant racial-ethnic differences in any of the diversity climate
psychological safety
outcome mediation pathways. As a follow-up study to Singh et al. (2013), Singh and Selvarajan (2013) expanded consideration of diversity climate effects on worker intention to stay with an organization to the community context. Community diversity climate refers to the extent that employees perceived their residential location as inclusive and free from intergroup conflict (Ragins, Gonzalez, Ehrhardt, & Singh, 2012). Borrowing from Mitchell and Lee’s (2001) job embeddedness theory and spillover theory (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000), the authors examined the spillover of community diversity climate perceptions to work-related, intention to stay, and whether the experience of supportive climates in one setting (the organization) compensates for unsupportive diversity climates encountered in another setting in the community. Data were collected using a single survey administered to 100 White and 65 minority employees of a U.S. Midwestern production company. Corroborating earlier work, organizational diversity climate correlated positively and significantly with intentions to stay; yet, community diversity climate failed to directly relate to stay intentions. In addition, employee race-ethnicity, organizational diversity climate, and community diversity climate interacted such that a significant, positive organizational diversity climate
intention to stay relationship was strongest among minorities who reported low (or unsupportive) community diversity climates. Of particular importance to diversity climate research, the above pattern of results extended prior work by highlighting the interplay between diversity climates in the work and nonwork domains. It appears that favorable diversity climates at work can compensate for acutely negative diversity climates in the nonwork domain, particular among minority personnel. Departing from previous research, Leslie and Gelfand (2008) examined the interactive effects of diversity climate with constructs such as gender identity (i.e., the degree that one’s gender is viewed as a central part of one’s self-concept) on employees’ internal gender discrimination claim filing behavior. Focusing on Study 2 of their article (conducted in a field setting), the authors proposed that gender identification would influence how diversity climate perceptions relate to claim filing. Borrowing from social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), they posed competing predictions for

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employees who strongly identify with their gender and those for whom gender was less central to their self-concepts. Strongly identified individuals hold their gender as a central feature of the self; therefore, they are more likely to react negatively to evidence of gender discrimination against irrespective of organizational sanctions to do so. Consequently, such individuals were predicted to file claims more readily in more supportive diversity climates. Less supportive climates, however, were proposed to represent further identity threat to strongly identified personnel, thus reducing their likelihood of claiming in reaction to allegations of gender discrimination. In contrast, workers with weak gender identification were posited to be more likely to file discrimination claims in negative diversity climates. The authors reasoned that weakly identified individuals would be less threatened by the negative consequences associated with filing claims. Owing to this reduced threat, these employees would be more motivated to redress discrimination given its greater prevalence in less supportive diversity climates. In diversity-supportive work contexts, weakly genderidentified personnel would be less prone to file claims as such contexts should be less characterized by pervasive gender discrimination. Leslie and Gelfand (2008) collected study data using a single organizational climate and culture assessment survey administered to 209 library employees from a mid-Atlantic, U.S. university. Supporting their hypotheses, the authors found that the propensity to file internal gender discrimination claims was higher among employees who possessed stronger gender identification and worked in settings with more positive climates for diversity. Alternatively, personnel with weaker gender identification were more likely to file a gender discrimination claim in work environments perceived to have more negative climates for diversity. Importantly, this study highlighted the role of a key individual difference variable, gender identity, and provided empirical support for the social identity theory reasoning characteristic of individual-level diversity climate studies. In an international context (the Netherlands), Hofhuis et al. (2012) explored the degree that identification processes account for diversity climate
outcome relationships (i.e., job satisfaction, perceived job recognition, and diversity-related conflict). The researchers theorized that supportive diversity climates are likely to perpetuate differing identification processes among majority and minority racial-ethnic group members. Utilizing social identity theory reasoning, the authors predicted that organizational support would increase the salience of cultural identity more intensely among majority members, thereby leading to a stronger diversity climate
cultural identity relationship for majority compared to minority

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employees. In contrast, support for diversity was posited to influence greater organizational identification among minority personnel, relative to their majority colleagues. Diversity efforts should strengthen minorities’ perceptions that the organization is more open and accepting of differences, thereby increasing their propensity to identify more strongly with the organization. Moreover, using the common in-group identity model (Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000), the authors reasoned that supportive diversity climates should relate to dual identities, consisting of cultural and organizational components. This latter expectation basically collapsed the separate predictions for diversity climate
identity relationships between majority and minority employees. The study also proposed relationships between diversity climate and three outcomes, job satisfaction, perceived job recognition, and diversity-related conflict. Hofhuis et al. (2012) administered a single survey to collect data from 795 majority and 316 minority employees of a Netherlands public service organization. Results showed that diversity climate was significantly and more positively related to cultural identity (organizational identity) for majority (minority) personnel, thus indicating that supportive diversity climates foster stronger identification with one’s culture (organization) for majorities (minorities). Furthermore, supportive climates were also significantly associated with higher job satisfaction, perceived job recognition, and fewer diversity-related conflicts. Notably, the diversity climate
perceived job recognition and diversity climate
diversity-related conflicts relationships were significantly stronger among minority compared to majority personnel. In addition, follow-up analyses showed that the mediated effects of diversity climate on job satisfaction were fully mediated by organizational identity for both majority and minority workers. Prodiversity climates strengthen organizational commitment, and results in higher job satisfaction. For minority employees, partial mediation effects were observed for the diversity climate
organizational identity
perceived job recognition mediated pathway. Favorable diversity climates led to stronger organizational identification, which in turn, increased minorities’ perceptions that their work efforts were recognized. Overall, Hofhuis et al.’s work offered support for Cox’s IMCD concerning the importance of organizational identification as an outcome of diversity management efforts, and its influence on worker attitudinal outcomes. Also, their work demonstrated the generalizability of diversity climate research findings to an international context. Recently, Stewart et al. (2011) explored the interactive effects of diversity climate and ethics climate on employees’ turnover intentions. This study

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addressed Kuenzi and Schminke’s (2009) recommendation for climate scholars to examine the simultaneous influence of multiple climates on work outcomes. The authors relied upon IMCD-based logic to propose that supportive diversity climates foster stronger identification with the organization, thereby increasing employee attachment to it. Ethics climate, defined as the extent a work setting is viewed as possessing policies that enforce strong codes for ethical behavior, was posited to enhance worker attitudes by reducing ambiguity regarding how to handle potentially unethical situations. Moreover, a strong ethics climate assures personnel that they will be treated justly by the organization, thus strengthening their bonds with the firm. Interactively, supportive diversity climates and strong ethics climates were hypothesized to be associated with the lowest level of turnover intentions relative to other joint configurations of diversity climate and ethics climate. The authors used a single annual organizational survey to collect data from 326 warehouse workers from a large, U.S. national retailer. Study results supported hypotheses such that turnover intentions were lowest among personnel who reported their work settings foster highly supportive diversity climates along with a strong ethics climate. This study made an important contribution to diversity climate research by demonstrating that the facilitative effects of diversity climate on worker outcomes are further enhanced in combination with other complementary climates. Chrobot-Mason and Aramovich (2013) also examined the diversity climate
turnover intentions relationship, but examined possible mediation by four psychological variables: organizational identification, climate for innovation, psychological empowerment, and identity freedom. These concepts were included to assess the degree that supportive diversity climates enhance employees’ sense that they feel shared values with the firm, reinforced for coming up with new ideas, autonomy to solve problems as they deemed fit, and free to express their identities openly, respectively. The authors administered a single survey to 1,731 employees (1,400 Whites, 179 Hispanics, 86 Blacks, 32 Asians, and 34 Native Americans) of a large municipality, as part of the company’s diversity training initiative. Study results supported the mediated effects of diversity climate on turnover intentions through organizational identification, climate for innovation, empowerment, and identity freedom. These findings indicate that employees who perceive strong support for diversity tend to identify more strongly with the organization, perceive a stronger climate for innovation, feel more empowered and free to express their true identities at work, all of which correspond with lower intentions to leave the organization. Interestingly, the proposed mediated pathways did not vary in strength by employee

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race-ethnicity (contrasted between White and minority personnel). This study was noteworthy in that it extended consideration of a wide variety of mediating variables on diversity climate
outcome relationships in line with Cox’s (1993) original IMCD logic. Triana and Garcia (2009) investigated the effects of perceived workplace discrimination on workers’ perceptions of procedural justice (i.e., the extent that employees view organizational procedures as fair), affective organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors toward the organization (OCB-O). The authors utilized organizational justice theory to assert that worker perceptions they have been discriminating against should diminish their perceptions of procedural justice. Perceived organizational effort to support diversity (conceptually similar to psychological diversity climate) was expected to mitigate the proposed negative perceived workplace discrimination
perceived procedural justice relationship. The researchers posited that a firm’s efforts to support diversity would bolster employees’ trust in the organization, and view firm actions as racially neutral. Consequently, the negative perceived workplace discrimination
perceived procedural justice was hypothesized to be attenuated when perceived organizational effort to support diversity was high. The authors conducted a two-wave data collection wherein predictor data (e.g., perceived workplace discrimination and perceived organizational efforts to support diversity) was collected during Phase 1, and outcome measures (e.g., procedural justice, affective organizational commitment, and OCB-O) were collected 15 days later during Phase 2. Study participants include 181 working MBA students (77% Hispanic, 8% White, 7% Asian, 1% Black, 1% Native American, and 6% other or biracial minorities). Study findings revealed that perceived workplace discrimination significantly interacted with diversity climate in predicting perceived procedural justice. As hypothesized, the significant, negative discrimination
procedural justice relationship was stronger when perceived organizational effort to support diversity was low and weaker when perceived organizational effort to support diversity was high; however, procedural justice failed to mediate the perceived workplace discrimination × perceived organizational effort interactive effect on affective organizational commitment. Similar to earlier work (e.g., McKay et al., 2007), perceived organizational effort to support diversity was significantly and positive related to affective organizational commitment. Furthermore, findings indicated that the effect of perceived workplace discrimination on affective organizational commitment was mediated partially by perceived procedural justice, and the procedural justice
OCB-O relationship was mediated fully by affective

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organizational commitment. In sum, Triana and Garcia’s (2009) study is notable for showing that supportive diversity climates can mitigate the negative effects of perceived discrimination on worker’ perceptions of procedural justice, with facilitative effects on affective organizational commitment, and the performance of extra-role behaviors targeted to benefit the organization. Finally, Volpone et al. (2012) investigated the mediating effects of diversity climate perceptions on the performance appraisal reactions
employee engagement relationship. The authors employed Kahn’s (1990, 1992) theory and research on engagement to contend that employees would disengage in response to perceivably inaccurate performance appraisals. Employee engagement refers to the extent that employees invest all of their cognitive, physical, and emotional resources in performing their work roles. Volpone et al. (2012) reasoned that employees would react negatively to perceptions that their work efforts have not been fully acknowledged by their supervisors. The authors also proposed that diversity climate would link appraisal reactions and employee engagement. They borrowed from Cox’s (1993) IMCD to assert that performance appraisal, an aspect of an organizations HR system, is diagnostic of a firm’s diversity climate. Specifically, a fair performance appraisal system is symbolic of the organization’s emphasis on maintaining a nondiscriminatory work environment. As such, employees who perceive a firm’s appraisal system as fair also should express more favorable views of the firm’s diversity climate than personnel who view the appraisal system in a negative fashion. Subsequently, and in line with the IMCD, positive diversity climate perceptions were expected to improve employee engagement. Furthermore, Volpone et al. (2012) noted that racial discrimination in organizations is reported most prevalently among Blacks, followed by Hispanics, and then Whites (Avery et al., 2008; Deitch et al., 2003). Consequently, this drove their prediction that the appraisal reactions
diversity climate
employee engagement mediation pathway would be strongest among Blacks, followed by Hispanics and Whites. Volpone et al. (2012) gathered data using a single, annual organizational survey administered to 4,963 managerial employees (2,129 White males, 2,253 White females, 286 Blacks, and 295 Hispanics) of a large, national U.S. retailer. Study results provided support for the hypothesized appraisal reactions
diversity climate
employee engagement mediation pathway. Importantly, the mediation pathway was significant across the four managerial subgroups such that favorable appraisal reactions were related to higher perceptions of a supportive diversity climate which,

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in turn, were linked to higher employee engagement. The mediated appraisal reaction
engagement relationship was significantly stronger among Black managers compared to all other managerial subgroups, whereas the mediated relationships were stronger for White male and Hispanic managers compared to their White female colleagues. Overall, the Volpone et al. (2012) advanced diversity climate research by showing that employees’ reactions to performance appraisals, an important HR functional area, influences how strongly they are engaged in their work, as a function of its influence on diversity climate perceptions. The clear implication, in support of the IMCD, is that fair personnel procedures enhance diversity climate perceptions, with beneficial effects on employees work attitudes. Summary Several themes were evident from our review of individual-level diversity climate studies. First, this research provides solid evidence that diversity climate perceptions are significantly related with a wide range of worker attitudes, and to a lesser extent, employee behaviors. These studies generally support the predictions of Cox’s (1993) IMCD and social identity theory by showing that supportive diversity climates enhance worker attitudes and/or behaviors. Second, diversity climate
outcome relationships are significantly moderated by race-ethnicity, such that these associations are stronger for minority personnel compared to their White colleagues (Avery et al., 2007; McKay et al., 2007; Singh et al., 2013; Volpone et al., 2012). This finding is not surprising considering that minorities generally report more incidents of discrimination in organizations than Whites (Avery et al., 2008; Deitch et al., 2003); however, hospitable climates do not result in negative outcomes for majority personnel. Instead, racial-ethnic moderation effects involve differential strength of relationship versus direction of relationship between diversity climate and its outcomes. Third, evidence suggests that diversity climate has mediated relationships with outcomes (Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013; Hofhuis et al., 2012; Kaplan et al., 2011; McKay et al., 2007; Singh et al., 2013). These findings also corroborate Cox’s (1993) IMCD, which posits that congenial diversity climates enhance worker outcomes by improving their work attitudes. Lastly, Volpone et al. (2012) provided initial evidence that diversity climate is a significant mediator variable. Their study demonstrated that employee reactions to personnel procedures (i.e., performance appraisals) have ramifications for diversity climate perceptions, and how strongly they engage in their work roles.

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Limitations of Individual-Level Studies As noted, individual studies of diversity climate have formed the foundation of work in the diversity management domain. Consequently, this body of research has proven insightful in demonstrating the value of diversity climate as a significant predictor of myriad worker attitudes and behaviors. Although we now shift our attention to the limitations of this climate research, we strongly acknowledge its immense value to diversity scholarship. A primary limitation of individual-level studies is that they are virtually all cross-sectional in design. Accordingly, diversity climate researchers in this domain are precluded from making strong claims as to the causal orderings of diversity climate
outcome relationships (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005). A related concern is that with a single exception (e.g., Singh et al., 2013), the authors of individual-level studies have collected all data from a single source. This data collection strategy raises concern about common-method bias inflating analyzed relations between diversity climate and outcome measures (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). In addition, studies of diversity climate at the individual level have, almost redundantly, assessed climate effects on employee attitudes (e.g., organizational commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intentions) to the relative exclusion of exploring climate effects on behavioral criteria such as job performance, tardiness, grievances, etc. Exceptions to this trend include Avery et al. (2007) and Singh and Selvarajan (2013). Our critique implies that studies in this domain have been highly incremental in nature, and they do not offer highly novel contributions to extant theory beyond the IMCD and social identity theory. In fact, several investigations appear nearly identical with the exception of introducing a different moderator and/or mediator variable. Moreover, most individual studies have focused on either race-ethnicity or gender as moderators of diversity climate linkages with outcomes. Concerning race-ethnicity, the lion’s share of investigations to examine racial-ethnic moderation collapsed minority groups into a single category (exceptions include Avery et al., 2007; Kaplan et al., 2011; McKay et al., 2007). This tendency, driven by low minority subgroup sample sizes, is problematic owing to well known, racial-ethnic minority disparities in strength of racial-ethnic identification (Gaines et al., 1997; Phinney, 1992), nature of prevailing stereotypes (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002), and workplace experiences (Avery et al., 2008; McKay et al., 2007). Generally, it is also disheartening that the oft-employed social identity theory reasoning has not been extended to other disparaged social

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groups such as older adults (Redman & Snape, 2006), the disabled (Schur, Kruse, Blasi, & Blanck, 2009), gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered (GLBT) individuals (Button, 2001; Ragins & Cornwell, 2001), obese individuals (King, Shapiro, Hebl, Singletary, & Turner, 2006; Roehling, Roehling, & Pichler, 2007), and religious minorities (King & Ahmad, 2010; King, McKay, & Stewart, 2014). Furthermore, despite recognition that women, minorities, GLBT people, older adults, the disabled, obese persons, and religious minorities face disparate treatment in organizations, most individual-level diversity studies have studied the impact of diversity climate perceptions on positive outcomes. In fact, only two individual-level studies (Leslie & Gelfand, 2008; Triana & Garcia, 2009) have examined the extent that diversity climate can mitigate the negative outcomes (i.e., filing of internal gender discrimination claims and negative effects of perceived workplace discrimination on procedural justice) faced by people from disadvantaged groups. Owing to the capacity of supportive diversity climates to improve disparaged workers’ employment experiences, it seems fruitful to assess how effective, supportive diversity climates might aid in reducing racial-ethnic discrimination (Avery et al., 2008; Deitch et al., 2003; Schneider, Hitlan, & Radhakrishnan, 2000), gender bias and sexual harassment (Gutek, Cohen, & Tsui, 1996; Willness, Steel, & Lee, 2007), ageism (Redman & Snape, 2006), disability-based discrimination (Colella & Varma, 2001), weight-based discrimination (King et al., 2006; Roehling et al., 2007), heterosexism (Button, 2001; Ragins & Cornwell, 2001), and religious bias (King & Ahmad, 2010; King et al., 2014). Another limitation of employee-level diversity climate work involves the extent of conceptual and measurement “confusion” regarding what comprises individual-level perceptions of diversity climate. A handful of scholars have stuck closely to Cox’s IMCD conceptions of climate (e.g., vertical and horizontal integration, intergroup conflict; Chrobot-Mason & Aramovich, 2013), whereas most climate researchers have adhered to Mor Barak et al.’s (1998) fairness and inclusion components as indicators of diversity climate. Still, other investigators operationalized climate as the openness to and appreciate of diversity (Hofhuis et al., 2012). The point here is not to criticize any particular researcher’s views of the diversity climate construct. Instead, we merely highlight that there is no strongly agreed-upon notion as to what diversity climate represents or clear recommendations for how it should be measured. A final concern is that no individual-level studies have examined potential antecedents of incumbent employee views regarding diversity climate

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(see Avery & McKay, 2006 for examples of antecedents for prospective employees). Essentially, this literature is moot regarding what steps organizations can take to perpetuate employees’ impressions that the firm is supportive of diversity.

Aggregate-Level Studies Aggregate-level diversity climate studies consist of (a) multilevel studies that consider individual-level and unit-level variance in employee outcomes (e.g., Chung et al., in press; Gonzalez & DeNisi, 2009; McKay et al., 2008), (b) unit-level/group-level studies designed to explore climate effects on unit-level outcomes (Boehm et al., 2014; McKay, Avery, Liao, & Morris, 2011; McKay, Avery, & Morris, 2009), or investigations that examine the antecedents of unit-level diversity climate (Herdman & McMillanCapehart, 2010; Pugh, Dietz, Brief, & Wiley, 2008), and (c) firm-level studies (Chen, Liu, & Portnoy, 2012). Contrary to individual-level studies, aggregate-level diversity climate studies examine the influence of aggregated diversity climate scores (i.e., the average climate perceptions of all employees working in each business unit or firm). Diversity climate is conceptualized in these studies at the unit-level (or firm-level) of analysis, so scores on the variable represent shared perceptions of climate. Aggregate-level diversity climate research builds upon several limitations inherent in individual-level work. First, aggregate-level studies tend to collect multisource data, thus rendering the results less prone to commonmethod variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Second, while individual-level studies, by definition, are targeted toward first-level organizational effectiveness outcomes in Cox’s (1993) IMCD (e.g., attendance, turnover (intentions)), aggregate-level research has included criteria more aligned with second-level organizational effectiveness outcomes of the IMCD (e.g., market share, customer satisfaction). Accordingly, aggregate studies are better positioned than individual-level diversity climate research to directly test the “business case for diversity” to determine the business performance implications of diversity management (Cox, 1993; Robinson & Dechant, 1997). Finally, aggregate-level research has employed organizational climate reasoning (e.g., Bowen & Ostroff, 2004; Kopelman, Brief, & Guzzo, 1990; Reichers & Schneider, 1990; Schneider, 1987) to a greater extent than individual-level studies. Consequently, these studies have addressed the compositional models underlying diversity climate (Chan, 1998), which is important for demonstrating whether employees’ idiosyncratic views of

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climate possess sufficient consensus to imply existence of a shared climate. It is important to demonstrate sufficient agreement among personnel’s diversity climate perceptions. Such evidence can be used to establish diversity climate as a meaningful climate referent among other more established climate referents such as innovation (Baer & Frese, 2003), safety (Zohar, 2000; Zohar & Luria, 2005), and service (Liao & Chuang, 2007; Schneider, Ehrhart, Mayer, Saltz, & Niles-Jolly, 2005). In the sections that follow, we review the extant, aggregate-level theory and research on diversity climate. During our review, we highlight the theoretical foundations and key findings of each study. We conclude this section by summarizing the key themes of aggregate-level studies of diversity climate and noting the limitations of this research. Theory and Findings Aggregate-level diversity climate studies have relied predominately upon organizational climate theory (Kopelman et al., 1990; Reichers & Schneider, 1990), the IMCD (Cox, 1993), and social identity theory to ground study predictions. Scholars have employed Kopelman et al.’s (1990) climate model of firm productivity to explain why supportive organizational climates enhance organizational effectiveness. This model holds that companies that develop supportive work climates communicate organizational goodwill toward personnel. These supportive acts foster more favorable worker attitudes and performance, which in turn, improve overall organizational performance. Extending this thinking to diversity climate, aggregate-level diversity climate researchers have employed Cox’s (1993) IMCD to explain why hospitable diversity climates are expected to enhance employee attitudes and performance and, by extension, lead to higher organizational effectiveness. Finally, social identity theory logic has been utilized to explain why the facilitative effects of diversity climate on employee outcomes and unit-level outcomes are likely to be stronger among members of disparaged groups (e.g., women and minorities) or work settings containing a confluence of members from these groups (e.g., minority and/or gender representation). McKay et al. (2008) examined racial-ethnic differences in employee sales performance, and sought to determine if diversity climate mitigates such disparities. This study was a response to research that has established the existence of significant White
Black and White
Hispanic mean (or average) differences in job performance (McKay & McDaniel, 2006; Roth, Huffcutt, & Bobko, 2003). The authors utilized Roberson and Block’s (2001) organizational context model of racial differences in job

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performance, which asserts that worker race-ethnicity and aspects of the work environment (e.g., structural integration, cultural distance, and diversity climate) interact to influence the magnitude of performance disparities between racial-ethnic groups, to explain why diversity climate might affect the magnitude of racial-ethnic disparities in performance. Furthermore, the researchers followed IMCD-based logic to propose that supportive diversity climates would be seen as serving employees’ best interests, thereby increasing their identification with the firm, and efforts to perform well on the firm’s behalf. In addition, these facilitative effects of supportive diversity climates on performance were expected to be larger among racialethnic minority personnel, owing to their greater exposure to disparate treatment. Accordingly, minority employees were predicted to work even harder on the firm’s behalf given that hospitable diversity climates should be more affirming of their identities compared to White personnel. McKay et al. (2008) gathered annual organizational survey data from 6,130 sales associates (4,454 White, 771 Black, 659 Hispanic, and 246 Asian) employed in 743 stores of a large, U.S. national retailer. Employee sales performance (i.e., sales per hour) was collected electronically during each sales transaction, and was provided at the end of the fiscal year. Accordingly, survey data were gathered prior to sales per hour information, and the two data sources were lagged by roughly two months. Study findings showed that significant White
Black and White
Hispanic mean differences (favoring Whites) on employee sales performance (i.e., sales per hour) were moderated by store-level diversity climate. White sales associates outperformed their Black and Hispanic coworkers to a significantly larger extent when their stores were perceived to have less supportive diversity climates. Notably, for the White
Black comparison, Black sales personnel outsold their White colleagues in stores deemed to have highly congenial diversity climates. Similarly, White
Hispanic disparities in sales per hour were markedly reduced (though still favoring White personnel) in stores deemed to maintain hospitable diversity climates. McKay et al. (2008) contributed to diversity climate work by providing early indication that supportive diversity climates not only mitigate racial-ethnic differences in performance, but improve the organizational bottom line in terms of enhanced performance across personnel. This study offered clear evidence supporting the “business case for diversity.” In a follow-up study, McKay et al. (2009) explored the interactive effects of store-unit diversity climate, as perceived by subordinates and their managers, on store-unit-level sales growth. The authors invoked the IMCD and organizational climate theory (reviewed above) to explain why subordinate

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and manager diversity climates should enhance sales growth. Furthermore, the researchers utilized the situational strength notion (Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989; Mischel, 1976) to contend that the facilitative effects of supportive diversity climates on performance should be strongest when there is sharp agreement in climate perceptions across employee levels. The authors gathered data as part of an annual organizational survey administered to 56,337 subordinates and 3,449 managers employed in 659 store units of a large, U.S. national retailer. Store-unit sales growth data were gathered at the end of the year, and lagged the survey data collection by approximately two months. Study findings revealed that subordinate diversity climate and manager diversity climate interacted to predict store-unit sales growth. Specifically, the authors found that store-unit sales growth was highest when both subordinates and managers perceived highly supportive diversity climates. McKay et al. (2009) provided additional evidence for the “business case for diversity” by demonstrating how strong agreement on the value of diversity, across job levels, enhanced overall store-unit financial performance. Around the same time, Gonzalez and DeNisi (2009) conducted a multilevel study designed to assess the moderating effect of diversity climate on gender, race, gender dissimilarity, and racial-ethnic dissimilarity relations with organizational attachment (i.e., affective organizational commitment, organizational identification, and intention to quit). The authors also explored whether diversity climate moderated racial heterogeneity (or diversity) and gender heterogeneity (or diversity) relationships with unit effectiveness (i.e., return on profit, return on income, and productivity). The authors reviewed social identity theory to express why female and minority personnel would report lower attachment to firms than their respective counterparts. Specifically, members of these disadvantaged groups experience more adverse treatment in work settings than men and Whites, respectively, thereby reducing their identification with and attachment to firms. Moreover, relational demography theory and research (e.g., Pelled, Eisenhardt, & Xin, 1999; Riordan, 2000) was utilized to establish that workers who belong to different racial or gender groups than their colleagues often experience heightened salience of their group identity, lower social integration with coworkers, increased conflict, and ultimately, they express lower attachment to the work environment (Jehn, Northcraft, & Neale, 1999; Tsui, Egan, & O’Reilly, 1992). Also, diversity climate was predicted to moderate the negative effects of race and gender and racial and gender dissimilarity on organizational

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attachment. Supportive diversity climates were expected to enhance women’s and minorities’ integration into the work environment, thereby enhancing their attachment to it. In addition, the researchers explored the extent that racial and gender diversity predicted firm (unit) effectiveness, and whether these relations were moderated by unit-level diversity climate. To support their moderation hypotheses, the authors advanced the information-based perspective on diversity (Cox, 1993; Ely & Thomas, 2001; Thomas & Ely, 1996). This perspective holds that a firm is better positioned to leverage the diverse knowledge and viewpoints inherent in a diverse workforce when diversity is viewed as valued strategic objective. Yet, the authors also acknowledged the potential for negative intergroup processes to emerge in less supportive diversity climates, particularly at moderate levels of diversity. At such levels, competing factions comprised of roughly equally sized identity subgroups could form, thus precipitating intergroup conflict. The authors used a single survey to collect data from 271 employees (57.4% White, 33.5% Hispanic, 9.6% Black, and 2.2% were Asian, members of non-listed ethnic groups, or omitted their ethnicity; 56.3% female) working in 26 units of a regional restaurant chain. The organization’s corporate office provided data on employee demographics and restaurant financial performance. Study results showed that diversity climate moderated several effects of demographic dissimilarity at the individual level. These result suggest that (a) the negative effect of gender dissimilarity on turnover intentions is attenuated in supportive diversity climates, (b) Blacks reported significantly higher affective organizational commitment than members of other races-ethnicities when diversity climates were deemed supportive, and (c) Hispanics expressed significantly higher intentions to turnover than other racial-ethnic groups when they were highly dissimilar to colleagues and worked in adverse diversity climates. At the firm (or unit) level, diversity climate moderated the racial-ethnic diversity
productivity and racial-ethnic diversity
return on income relationships, such that diversity enhanced productivity and return on income in supportive diversity climates, and reduced performance on these financial metrics in adverse climates. Diversity climate also moderated observed curvilinear relations between gender diversity and productivity and return on profit. These results showed that in hospitable diversity climates, moderate levels of gender diversity were associated with higher productivity and return on profit. By contrast, in more negative diversity climates, low and high levels of diversity were linked to higher productivity and return on

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profit. Gonzalez and DeNisi (2009) extended previous, aggregate-level diversity climate research by integrating additional theories (e.g., relational demography and information-based perspective of diversity) to establish how diversity climate moderates (and can mitigate) the adverse effects of demographic dissimilarity on individual worker attitudes and unit-level business effectiveness. McKay et al. (2011) assessed the implications of diversity climate to third-party evaluators, namely retail customers. The authors consulted a mix of organizational climate, service climate, the IMCD, social identity theory frameworks to examine the interplay between store-unit diversity climate, store-unit service climate, minority representation, and gender representation on store-unit-level customer satisfaction ratings. Analogous to previous work, climate theory and the IMCD were utilized to establish the motivational and attitude-enhancing properties of supportive diversity climates. Such climates were expected to strengthen retail associates’ efforts to provide high-quality service. Importantly, customer service research suggests that service personnel extend the nature of treatment they receive in their organizations to the customers they serve (Bowen, Gilliland, & Folger, 1999). Moreover, the facilitative effects of positive diversity climates were expected to be amplified for store units deemed to emphasize high customer service (Schneider et al., 2005; Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). Finally, social identity theory reasoning was used to further predict that the dual enhancing effects of diversity climate and service climate on customer satisfaction would be stronger in work units comprised of high proportions of racial-ethnic minorities and women. McKay et al. (2011) collected annual organizational survey data from 59,592 full- and part-time sales associates employed in 769 retail store units of a large, U.S. national retailer. Customer satisfaction data were collected one year later via an Internet survey of store patrons’ perceptions of their most recent store visit. In other words, the measure of predictor measures preceded the criterion measure by one year. The study findings revealed that stores with strongly pro-diversity work climates earned significantly higher customer satisfaction ratings. This effect was moderated by service climate and minority representation among store associates, such that the significant, positive diversity climate
customer satisfaction relationship was significantly stronger in store units with a higher emphasis on service (i.e., strongly pro-service climates), and a high proportion of racial-ethnic minority personnel. The McKay et al. (2011) study augmented earlier unitlevel analyses of diversity climate by illustrating that diversity management has important ramifications for third-party evaluators such as a business’

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customer base. Moreover, the study added to organizational climate work by considering the interactive effect of two unit-level climate referents (diversity and service) on business-unit performance (Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009). Subsequently, Boehm et al. (2014) designed a study to uncover the mediating mechanisms that link diversity climate with business outcomes. The authors utilized IMCD-based and social identity theory reasoning to propose that workgroup diversity climate improves workgroup performance (measured perceptually, via respondent survey) by reducing the extent of racially discriminatory behavior between workgroup members. Specifically, supportive diversity climates were expected to minimize the extent that negative intergroup processes emerge in diverse work contexts. In turn, the reduction of discrimination associated with congenial diversity climates was posited to increase workgroup performance through enhanced workgroup cohesion and cooperation. Furthermore, they predicted the proposed workgroup diversity climate
workgroup discrimination
workgroup performance mediation pathway was moderated by group size. Owing to the relatively higher communication difficulties faced by larger groups compared to smaller ones, the authors hypothesized stronger indirect relations between diversity climate and workgroup performance in larger versus smaller groups. Boehm et al. (2014) used a single survey (i.e., DEOMI Organizational Climate Survey) to collect all study data from 7,689 military personnel (59.1% White, 15.2% Black, 5.4% Asian, 4% Hispanic, 1.5% Native American, 1.3% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 7.6% missing responses) from 211 workgroups. The authors attempted to address common-method bias concerns by using the split sample design. One half of their sample contributed data on predictor measures (e.g., diversity climate and perceived discrimination), while the other half contributed workgroup performance ratings. The authors observed significant and negative workgroup diversity climate
workgroup discrimination and workgroup discrimination
workgroup performance relationships. Supportive diversity climates corresponded with lower perceptions of workgroup discrimination, whereas low levels of workgroup discrimination related to heightened workgroup performance. In addition, significant moderated mediation emerged such that the significant indirect effect of diversity climate on workgroup performance, as transmitted through workgroup discrimination, was stronger in larger versus smaller workgroups. Importantly, Boehm et al. (2014) established a mediating mechanism linking diversity climate with workplace outcomes. The study demonstrated the value of

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supportive diversity climates for reducing discrimination, and thereby, enhancing workgroup performance. A recent, multilevel study (Chung et al., in press) applied demographic faultline theory to consider the joint effects of work-unit level gender faultlines, function faultlines, and diversity climate on employees’ loyalty behavior in firms (i.e., discretionary, task-related behavior that involves expending extra effort to help the organization). According to faultline theory (Lau & Murnighan, 1998), members of groups are prone to form subgroups based upon their sharing of common demographic attributes (e.g., subgroups based upon gender, age, or work function). Consequently, these individuals will develop strong allegiance to their particular subgroup rather than the larger group as a whole. This tendency is exacerbated when demographic distinctions are strongly aligned with other contextual features (e.g., women tend to work in a particular functional area relative to men). Ultimately, these intergroup processes perpetuate intergroup conflict by way of in-group favoritism (i.e., preferential treatment of fellow subgroup members) and out-group derogation (i.e., disparate treatment of people who do not share subgroup membership). Chung et al. (in press) argued that the negative effects of faultlines might be mitigated if the work context emphasizes diversity as a strategic imperative, thus leading to enhanced loyalty behavior. The valuing of demographic differences was expected to reduce the negative intergroup processes associated with strong demographic faultlines. Chung et al. (in press) collected data from 1,652 managerial employees working in 76 units of a Fortune 500 global manufacturer as part of its annual employee survey. The authors also gathered data from 257 working adults to validate their newly developed loyalty behavior and diversity climate measures. Results showed that unit-level diversity climate moderated the work-unit gender faultine strength
loyal behavior and function faultine strength
loyalty behavior relationships. Specifically, when gender and function faultlines were strong, their negative effects on loyalty behavior were reduced in work units perceived as strongly supportive of diversity. Chung et al. (in press) make a nice addition to aggregate-level diversity climate work by showing that the negative intergroup dynamics associated by demographic faultlines (which are likely as work environments become more diverse) can be mitigated by focusing upon supporting the strategic value of diversity in an organization. Two unit-level diversity climate studies considered the antecedents of diversity climate. In the first investigation, Pugh et al. (2008) theorized that community racial composition is used as a frame of reference against which

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to gauge the effect of workforce diversity on unit-level diversity climate. Their logic suggests that the impact of workforce diversity on diversity climate should be more salient for business units located in relatively nondiverse communities. A higher level of diversity within the firm relative to outside of it should engender attributions of a favorable climate for diversity. In contrast, the racial composition outside the organization should be less diagnostic of how well the firm manages diversity, as high workforce diversity may simply be a function of hiring from its inherently diverse labor market. The authors used a single employee opinion survey to collect diversity climate scores from 2,369 employees working in 142 units of a regional bank. The organization provided workforce racial composition information, whereas the authors used bank zip codes to collect community racial composition data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Study results showed that the workforce racial composition (i.e., percentage of minority employees)
diversity climate linkage was most strongly positive in banks located in communities with few minority residents. These findings suggest employees infer stronger valuing of diversity when a business employs a large number of minority personnel, despite the low representation of minorities in the community. Pugh et al. (2008) offered a key insight to diversity climate research, by showing that perceptions of strongly pro-diversity climates are contingent upon comparisons between the racial compositions of business units and their outside communities. Herdman and McMillan-Capehart (2010) also studied the antecedents of diversity climate, and focused upon diversity programs (i.e., the extent that a firm has formal diversity policies and programs, recruitment programs targeting minorities, and mechanisms for considering a broad array of viewpoints and management team heterogeneity) as predictors of climate. The authors drew from organizational climate research to propose that the presence of diversity programs and managerial diversity represent salient signals that a firm values diversity as a strategic objective. In addition, the researchers highlighted management team relational values (i.e., the extent that managers value investing in employees’ longterm well-being through career development, advancement opportunities, and employment security) as a possible moderator of the anticipated positive diversity program
diversity climate relationship. The researchers contended that managers who highly value investing in their personnel are more likely to advocate diversity programs than those with lower relational values. Such program support was further predicted to enhance the positive effects of diversity programs on diversity climate. Similarly, managerial diversity was hypothesized as a second moderator of the

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diversity program
diversity climate linkage. Herdman and McMillanCapehart (2010) reasoned that, in combination, the presence of diversity programs and high manager diversity offer mutually reinforcing signals of support for diversity. The authors collected multisource data from 163 HR managers (or general managers), 879 managers, and 3,578 employees working in 163 U.S. hotels. Each HR manager provided data on diversity programs, whereas managers completed the managerial values survey (i.e., managerial relational values), and employees were administered the diversity climate survey. Study findings showed that the positive diversity program
diversity climate relationship was most strongly positive when (a) managerial diversity was high and (b) managerial relational values were high. These results indicate that the presence of diversity program fosters more hospitable diversity climates in contexts with high managerial diversity and strong managerial adherence to relational values. Herdman and McMillan-Capehart’s (2010) study provided additional insight regarding the antecedents of diversity climate, and highlighted the boundary conditions associated with diversity program effects on diversity climate. Specifically, diversity programs enhance employee perceptions of diversity climate when managerial diversity and relational values are viewed as complementing a firm’s emphasis on diversity. A relatively recent study, Chen et al. (2012), broadened the study of aggregate-level diversity climate to cross-cultural concerns. These authors investigated the interrelationships between individual motivational cultural intelligence (CQ), firm-level CQ, firm-level diversity climate, and individual cultural sales (i.e., sales to people from different cultures from one’s own). Individual motivational CQ was defined as “individuals’ mental capacity to direct and sustain energy toward learning about and functioning in situations characterized by cultural differences” (Chen et al., 2012, p. 94). The authors theorized that sales personnel who possess high CQ will be better equipped to serve customers who differ culturally from them. High-CQ individuals are posited to hold higher cooperation motives and exhibit better cultural adjustment and adaption, thus resulting in smoother cross-cultural interactions with clients. In addition, firmlevel CQ was conceptualized as the firm’s overall capability to function effectively in cross-cultural situations. Finally, the authors noted firm motivational CQ and firm diversity climate as moderators of the individual motivational CQ
cultural sales relationship. Firm motivational CQ was expected to represent the extent of shared perceptions that CQ is valued in the work context. To the extent that firm-level CQ was high, it

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would amplify the positive individual motivational CQ
cultural sales relationship. Likewise, diversity climate was proposed to symbolize the degree to which a firm values individual motivational CQ as a resource to enhance cultural sales. Firms with supportive diversity climates were expected to reinforce employees for expressing capability to sell products across cultures, thereby strengthening the positive individual motivational CQ
cultural sales linkage. The authors gathered multisource data to assess the study hypotheses. They used a survey to collect individual motivational CQ and diversity climate data from 526 real estate agents working for 26 real estate firms located in the northwestern United States. Organizations provided firm total sales and cultural sales for the past two years prior to the survey data collection, along with real estate agent demographic information. Results confirmed study hypotheses by showing that high individual motivational CQ improved cultural sales, particularly in firms with high motivational CQ and highly pro-diversity climates. Chen et al. (2012) presented a unique analysis of how diversity management concerns extend to serving a crosscultural clientele. This study symbolizes a step forward in diversity climate research considering its ramifications for intercultural competency at work and organizational effectiveness. Summary A number of themes emerged from our review of aggregate level diversity climate studies. First, diversity climate is significantly related to Cox’s (1993) IMCD second-level outcomes such as store-unit sales growth and customer satisfaction (McKay et al., 2009, 2011), which are more strongly indicative of bottom-line, organizational performance. Second, diversity climate moderates (a) gender and racial-ethnic disparities in the effects of demographic dissimilarity on workplace attachment (Gonzalez & DeNisi, 2009), (b) racial-ethnic differences in employee sales performance (McKay et al., 2008), (c) the influence of gender and racial diversity on businessunit financial performance (Gonzalez & DeNisi, 2009), and (d) the individual motivational CQ
cultural sales relationship (Chen et al., 2012). Collectively, this pattern of findings provides strong support for the “business case for diversity” by demonstrating that supportive diversity climates enhance not only worker attitudes, but also their work performance and business-unit (or firm) performance. Third, the beneficial effects of pro-diversity climates on business-unit financial performance are magnified when employees and their managers hold congruent views that the business unit maintains a supportive diversity climate (McKay

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et al., 2009). This finding illustrates how a strong, consistent adherence to effective diversity management enhances business performance. Fourth, diversity climate effects on business performance are moderated by complementary climates and business racial-ethnic composition (McKay et al., 2011). This finding is a notable extension of Cox’s (1993) IMCD by showing that supportive diversity climates are complemented by a strong emphasis on service, with stronger motivational effects in predominantly minority work contexts. Fifth, preliminary evidence suggests that hospitable diversity climates are useful in reducing the negative intergroup processes associated with gender and function demographic faultlines (Chung et al., in press). This study extends current work by integrating diversity climate research with other organizational diversity theories to highlight the joint effects of organizational contextual features on employee outcomes. Such research offers some insight into how diversity climate augments work outcomes, namely by reducing the negative intergroup dynamics that can then arise within diverse work contexts. Sixth, the research revealed that the presence of diversity programs has interactive effects with managerial diversity and managerial relational values to predict diversity climate (Herdman & McMillan-Capehart, 2010). Also, Pugh et al. (2008) showed that workplace racial composition interacts with community racial composition in relation to diversity climate. Important, these two studies highlight that the predictive capacity of diversity climate is improved when its contextual cues provide mutually reinforcing signals that diversity is valued. For example, Herdman and McMillan-Capehart observed that diversity programs perpetuated more endorsement of supportive diversity climates when there was (a) greater manager diversity or (b) high managerial investment in employees, which signaled strong, complementary support of diversity. Similarly, Pugh et al. (2008) reported that high proportion of minority personnel was indicative of a strongly supportive diversity climate especially when minority workers could not be selected readily from the business-unit’s geographic location (i.e., when community minority representation was low). Finally, Boehm et al. (2014) provided initial evidence of mediated effects of workgroup diversity climate on workgroup performance. The authors showed that hospitable diversity climates reduce perceptions of workgroup discrimination, which results in improved workgroup performance, particularly in larger workgroups. This investigation bolsters previous research by elucidating the mediating mechanism linking diversity climate to business performance.

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Limitations of Aggregate-Level Studies Aggregate-level studies of diversity climate have been valuable in demonstrating the impact of diversity climate on second-level organizational outcomes such as financial performance and customer satisfaction. These merits aside, this literature suffers from the following limitations. First, these studies have focused nearly exclusively upon how diversity climate influences the effects of race-ethnicity and gender (McKay et al., 2008), as well as unit-level racial-ethnic and gender demography (Gonzalez & DeNisi, 2009; McKay et al., 2011) on employee and organizational outcomes. Accordingly, this research is virtually silent about how diversity climate affects the work experiences of members of other stigmatized groups such as women, older adults, GLBT individuals, the disabled, and religious minorities. Owing to the increasing diversification of the U.S. workforce, it behooves diversity climate scholars to embark upon studies to determine if effective diversity management improves the work lives of people from other disparaged social identity groups. Second, with one exception (Boehm et al., 2014), aggregate-level diversity climate research has not explored the mediating mechanisms that link diversity climate with employee and/or organizational outcomes. Consequently, there is little knowledge about the processes that underlie diversity climate
outcome relationships. Diversity research has offered myriad ideas about how supportive diversity climates might reduce intergroup conflict (Ely & Thomas, 2001; King, Hebl, & Beal, 2009) and reinforce the sharing of diverse perspectives across employees (Homan, van Knippenberg, Van Kleef, & De Dreu, 2007), thus positioning firms to better leverage the benefits of diversity. We encourage diversity scholars to consult such research and design studies that can elucidate the processes by which diversity climate improves workplace outcomes. Finally, aggregate-level diversity climate research has provided limited knowledge on the antecedents of diversity climate. This is surprising since a number of studies have utilized Kopelman et al.’s (1990) climate model of firm productivity in building study hypotheses (e.g., Boehm et al., 2014; McKay et al., 2009, 2011). Kopelman and colleagues propose that HR practices are likely precursors to the climates experienced at work. The Pugh et al. (2008) and Herdman and McMillan-Capehart (2010) studies offer preliminary insight into the contextual conditions of firms and their locations that perpetuate employees’ perceptions that work climates are strongly supportive of diversity. Additional work is needed in this area to better inform scholars and practitioners alike about the various conditions that influence how organizational personnel view workplace diversity climates.

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DOMAINS OF UNCERTAINTY Whereas the previous sections have sought to illustrate what is known about diversity climate, we now turn our attention to what remains unknown. Our hope is that by calling attention to these gaps in the diversity climate literature, we will stimulate future scholarship aimed at filling these voids. We acknowledge that this list is not exhaustive. However, it is intended to represent what we see as the most noteworthy oversights of the existing work and, therefore, the most promising avenues for future work. We focus primarily on four issues: lagging theoretical development, construct validity, levels of analysis, unclear antecedents, and strategic integration.

Theoretical Development As indicated throughout this review, much of the theory used to ground empirical research on diversity climate stems largely from management practice (e.g., IMCD) or from other disciplinary domains (e.g., social identity theory). Consequently, much of the literature seems either redundant (i.e., studies the same relationships with little incremental variation) or disjointed and, collectively, fails to present a unified picture. We encourage scholars to devote more theoretical effort to enhancing understanding of the origins of diversity climate perceptions, how they are transmitted, and why they exert the influence we have seen demonstrated in the studies reviewed here. Moreover, any such treatment should pay particular attention to identifying those processes that are universal (i.e., operate the same for everyone) and differentiating those from others that may differ depending on identity.

Construct Validity By definition, diversity climate pertains to perceptions of fairness and inclusion within organizational settings (Mor Barak et al., 1998). However, such a definition clearly overlaps with existing constructs like organizational justice, perceived organizational support, and inclusiveness. Consequently, many items used to assess diversity climate tap procedural (i.e., the fairness of processes used to determine organizational outcomes) and distributive (i.e., the fairness of organizational outcomes themselves) justice in assessing the extent to which human resource management decision-making is

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deemed to be free of bias. Likewise, other items capture inclusion, or “the degree to which an employee perceives that he or she is an esteemed member of the work group through experiencing treatment that satisfies his or her needs for belongingness and uniqueness” (Shore et al., 2011, p. 1265). Given that both justice (e.g., Roberson, 2006) and inclusion (e.g., Nishii, 2012) have been conceptualized as climates in recent research, it is difficult to determine how much these constructs are independent or redundant. Though authors have put forth theoretical arguments to differentiate them (often largely to justify one’s own choice of construct), the literature would truly stand to benefit from empirical work focused on illustrating how these (and other related constructs) converge and diverge in meaningful ways.

Levels of Analysis Related to the issue of construct validity are the questions remaining about the appropriate unit of analysis for diversity climate. On the one hand, climate researchers have argued that a minimal level of agreement is required for a variable to be considered a climate. Holders of this perspective often contend that psychological climate is a misnomer because climate refers to shared perceptions. On the other hand, the demonstrated gender and racial differences in diversity climate perceptions (e.g., Kossek & Zonia, 1993) suggest that more diverse units will experience less agreement about how diversity is valued and managed. This calls into question the appropriateness of aggregating everyone’s perceptions into a single score for the entire unit. This has considerable implications for diversity climate research. If perceptions lack meaning at the unit level, how can this research hope to inform practice aimed at identifying evidence-based, macro-level management initiatives? Perhaps, referents must be adjusted to appropriate levels of sub-climates that might be compared to one another to assess diversity management efficacy (Chan, 1998). For instance, if the diversity climate among Black workers differs significantly from that among White workers in the same establishment, this could suggest a need for greater attention to issues of race.

Antecedents of Diversity Climate One obvious shortcoming of the diversity climate literature is the underdevelopment of theory and evidence identifying antecedents. Initially,

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researchers focused a good deal of their attention to linkages with consequences. Such a strategy was both well intentioned and sound. In fact, it is now readily apparent that diversity climate matters because it influences so many outcomes of importance (e.g., employee attitudes, individual performance, and unit-level performance). Unfortunately, however, practitioners are left with little-to-no guidance as to how they might achieve or maintain a hospitable diversity climate. The strategic human resource management literature would seem to be a prime prospective starting point in this regard, as logical arguments could be formed for how personnel practices and policies might best be bundled to optimize diversity management. Moreover, as this literature develops, it will be important to determine whether antecedents demonstrate universality or whether the factors influencing perceptions of fairness and inclusion differ depending on one’s absolute (i.e., who am I?) and relational identity (i.e., is my identity unique?).

Strategic Integration A final significant prospect for future research is to better integrate diversity climate into the larger managerial landscape. With very few exceptions (e.g., McKay et al., 2011; Stewart et al., 2011), scholars have studied diversity climate in relative isolation from other potentially relevant managerial issues. This may stem from diversity research still having some form of a stigma associated with it (see Cox, 1990) or from it simply not being seen as relevant by those exploring more mainstream issues. It is quite likely, however, that the impact of other seemingly unrelated factors (e.g., leadership, incivility, resource availability) could be influenced by the level of diversity climate experienced within the unit. For instance, the previously demonstrated motivational value of diversity climate (e.g., McKay et al., 2008) could help to offset a leader’s inspirational shortcomings.

CONCLUSION Taking stock of the diversity climate literature has shown that there has been enormous progress in recent years. Perhaps the best synopsis of this assessment is a brief S-W-O-T analysis. The strength of the diversity climate literature is in its breadth and consistency. Diversity climate is clearly impactful and appears to have positive effects for all (though they

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sometimes differ in magnitude). Perceptions (shared and unique) that one’s organization values diversity correspond in more favorable attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, engagement), lower withdrawal (e.g., intentions to turnover, absenteeism), and better performance (individual and organizational), among other desirable outcomes. Weaknesses center primarily around theoretical development and operationalization, as theory has lagged behind empirical investigation and several pressing questions remain about the appropriate means of measurement and level of analysis. Despite these weaknesses, there is tremendous opportunity for substantive contributions. Most notably, there is a need for work identifying additional antecedents of this valuable construct to help facilitate better (a) understanding of how diversity climate functions and (b) diversity management in organizations. Finally, the clearest threat to the literature appears to be possible cannibalization. Namely, if scholars continue to identify and pursue conceptually similar constructs (e.g., inclusion), there is a chance that diversity climate may lose its relevance and fail to continue capitalizing on its enormous potential.

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SAFETY AT WORK: INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS IN WORKPLACE ACCIDENTS AND MISTREATMENT Stephanie A. Andel, Derek M. Hutchinson and Paul E. Spector ABSTRACT The modern workplace contains many physical and interpersonal hazards to employee physical and psychological health/well-being. This chapter integrates the literatures on occupational safety (i.e., accidents and injuries) and mistreatment (physical violence and psychological abuse). A model is provided linking environmental (climate and leadership), individual differences (demographics and personality), motivation, behavior, and outcomes. It notes that some of the same variables have been linked to both safety and mistreatment, such as safety climate, mistreatment climate, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Keywords: Occupational safety; occupational accidents; workplace violence; employee mistreatment; personality; climate

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The modern workplace can be a dangerous place with many potential safety hazards adversely affecting both physical and psychological health (Levi, 2011). Physical hazards are aspects of the work environment that are potentially dangerous, either because of the manner in which the environment is designed, or because employees fail to follow safe practices. Both of these expose employees to unnecessary hazards, for example, by their failing to wear protective equipment. The nature of the job and job tasks can place individuals into high-risk situations, such as farm workers who handle potentially toxic chemicals, or health professionals who are exposed to infectious diseases. Safety hazards can also arise through interactions among people on the job. Both physical violence and psychological abuse are forms of workplace mistreatment that are commonplace (Schat, Frone, & Kelloway, 2006). In this chapter we will focus on hazards that come from both the physical and interpersonal environment, and which can result in physical and/or psychological injury and illness. Together both kinds of hazards represent threats to physical and psychological safety at work. Certainly, we have come a long way in terms of research examining workplace physical and psychological safety. However, up to this point, the literature concerning safety from physical injury and illness due to accidental exposure to physical hazards has for the most part been segregated from the literature on mistreatment. For example, the comprehensive Handbook of Workplace Violence (Kelloway, Barling, & Hurrell, 2006) does not have a chapter on accidents/safety, nor is it mentioned in the index. The lack of safety content reflects the rarity of sources that include both physical and interpersonal hazards in the same study. This is unfortunate as there are some findings suggesting that both physical and interpersonal risks can be related (e.g., Gazica & Spector, 2013). The main purpose of this chapter is to integrate the literatures on potential safety antecedents from a variety of physical and interpersonal factors to illustrate communalities. Specifically, we review and integrate research that has investigated situational and personal antecedents related to both domains of research. The chapter begins with a discussion of the nature and prevalence of these workplace hazards and outcomes of exposures to hazards. We then will provide an integrative conceptual model linking environmental factors and individual differences to these important outcomes. Finally we provide an overview of the literature concerning both environmental conditions (climate and leadership) and individual differences (personality and demographics) that have been shown to relate to accidents and mistreatment.

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SAFETY HAZARDS AND SAFETY OUTCOMES Employees can be exposed to a wide range of potentially harmful conditions or hazards at work that can lead to safety outcomes that adversely affect physical and psychological health. Although not every hazard exposure necessarily leads to injury or illness, reducing hazards can be an effective way of enhancing safety (Koh & Aw, 2003). Fig. 1 lists four classes of exposures and three classes of health outcomes that can result. Accidents are unintended exposure of employees to potentially harmful physical conditions that can result in injury and illness. They include near misses as events that had the potential to cause harm but did not (Hayes, Perander, Smecko, & Trask, 1998), such as an automobile collision in which no one was hurt. Accidents that lead to unintended injury involve exposure to chemical, electrical, kinetic, mechanical, or thermal energy (Liller, 2010). Zohar (2000) distinguished micro-accidents as another form of injury of importance that consists of minor injuries that required medical attention but were not serious enough to result in lost workdays. Employees can be exposed to biological or chemical substances that have the potential to result in unintended illness. Such exposures can be accidental when active steps taken to avoid contact with highly infectious or toxic materials are compromised. Physical violence occurs when a person intentionally makes physical contact with another with the purpose of causing harm. This can range from relatively minor pushing and shoving to assault with a weapon. It can lead not only to physical injury, but to

Hazard

Health Outcome

Biological/Chemical Substance Illness Energy Injury Physical Violence Psychological Distress Psychological Abuse

Fig. 1.

Workplace Hazards and Associated Health Outcomes.

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psychological strain as well (Spector, Coulter, Stockwell, & Matz, 2007). Verbal abuse consists of nonphysical hurtful interactions among individuals that can result in psychological distress and strain. Often verbal abuse can lead to physical violence, for example, when a heated argument results in a physical altercation. The literature on mistreatment has used a variety of terms to refer to overlapping, but distinct forms of these behaviors. It has also distinguished mistreatment from the perspective of the actor who performs the behavior versus the person who is the target of the behavior. The actor literature has used the terms aggression (Neuman & Baron, 1998), counterproductive work behavior directed toward people (Spector & Fox, 2005), and interpersonal deviance (Bennett & Robinson, 2000) among others. Researchers on the target side distinguish abusive supervision (Tepper, 2000), incivility (Pearson, Andersson, & Porath, 2005), and workplace bullying (Rayner & Keashly, 2005), as well as other forms of negative interpersonal interactions. In the remainder of this chapter we focus on acute exposures that can potentially lead to intentional (mistreatment) and unintentional (accidents) injury and illness, both physical and psychological. These exposures can result in harm to employees from a single event, although there can be cumulative effects, such as when a pattern of workplace bullying leads to increasingly severe responses ending in a posttraumatic stress disorder (Rayner & Keashly, 2005). We focus on physical and interpersonal workplace hazards that fit an integrated conceptual model of safety.

INCIDENCE OF ACCIDENTS/INJURIES AND MISTREATMENT Unfortunately, injuries and illnesses are far too common an occurrence in the workplace. In the United States alone there were more than 3 million workplace injuries and illness in the private sector in 2013. This equates to an incidence rate of 3.3 cases per 100 full-time equivalent employees, with rates being even higher for the public sector (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014b). That same year private industry experienced more than 1.1 million cases of an employee being out of work one or more days for a workrelated illness or injury (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). In 2013 there were more than 4,400 fatalities due to workplace injury, which is a rate of 3.2 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers (Bureau of Labor Statistics,

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2014a). Rates varied considerably by industry sector, with the highest rates for agriculture, fishing, forestry, and hunting (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014a). Worldwide, it has been estimated that there are annually more than 270 million cases of workplace injuries/illnesses and more than 350,000 fatalities (Barling & Frone, 2004). Aside from the personal and social costs associated with workplace injuries, there is considerable financial cost as well. It has been estimated that workplace injuries cost employers more than 1 billion dollars per week for worker compensation costs (medical treatment plus compensated salary benefits) in the United States alone (Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety, 2014). Total costs that include lost productivity are estimated to be more than 250 billion dollars per year in the United States (Leigh, 2011). The rates of exposure to mistreatment are even higher than those for accidental injury due to physical hazards. For instance, results of the National Survey of Workplace Health and Safety suggest that over 41% of employees in the United States are victims of psychological abuse, whereas 6% of individuals experience some type of physical violence in the workplace annually (Schat et al., 2006). Further, in the year 2013, out of 4,405 fatal occupational injuries, 397 (9%) were the result of workplace violence (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013). Clearly both interpersonal and physical hazards are frequent occurrences in the modern workplace, and they have significant costs for employees and organizations alike. The control of these hazards begins with an understanding of the factors that contribute to employee exposure.

A BASIC FRAMEWORK To organize this chapter, we provide a basic framework linking potential environmental and personal antecedents to safety outcomes and proposed intervening variables. We subsume exposure to both physical and interpersonal hazards under a broad concept of safety that encompasses both physical health (injury and illness) and psychological health including emotional strain and positive well-being. This framework builds on the Neal and Griffin (2004) safety model that is concerned specifically with unintended injuries from accidents through the integration of research on psychological climate and leadership. Specifically, their behavioral model of safety outlines both distal (work environment and individual differences) and proximal antecedents of safety behavior that leads to safety outcomes.

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The proximal factors, which the authors describe as those that are “directly responsible for individual differences in safety behavior” (p. 16), are comprised of the knowledge and skills that one must have in order to engage in proper safety behavior, and of the motivation to perform such safety behaviors. The model distinguishes two classes of safety behavior that correspond to the distinction that is often made in the job performance domain between task behavior, which are required tasks that might be listed in a job description, and contextual performance which are behaviors that support the core function of the organization (Borman & Motowidlo, 1997). Safety compliance concerns an employee following established protocols for safe performance, including the performance of tasks in a safe manner and the wearing of required safety equipment. Safety participation is the active support of safety that goes beyond requirements, and might include giving safety advice and assistance to coworkers, making suggestions, and taking a proactive role in ensuring that the workplace remains as safe as possible. The distal factors, which affect safety behaviors indirectly through their effects on the proximal factors, include work environment (e.g., safety climate, leadership, and organizational factors) and individual antecedents of safety (e.g., attitudes and individual differences, including personality). According to the model, these distal antecedents influence one’s safety knowledge, or how well employees know how to perform safely, and safety motivation, or how much an individual is willing to enact and engage in safety behaviors. These in turn work to affect safety performance that ultimately leads to quantifiable safety outcomes of injuries, illnesses, and in the extreme, fatalities. In order to align with our mission of integration, we have adapted and expanded Neal and Griffin’s (2004) model to take into account not only the occupational accident/injury literature, but also the mistreatment literature. As can be seen in Fig. 2, we propose that for both safety from physical hazards and from mistreatment there are a series of corresponding, and in some cases identical, distal and proximal factors that relate to behavior that either helps protect or leaves one vulnerable to both accidents and mistreatment. As we will discuss at length below, safety climate has been shown to be an important factor in safety from accidents/injuries (Beus, Payne, Bergman, & Arthur, 2010), whereas several climates have been proposed to be important factors in safety from mistreatment, such as violence prevention climate (Kessler, Spector, Chang, & Parr, 2008). Leadership has also been shown to relate to both accidents/injuries and mistreatment exposure. Thus, we propose that both climate and leadership are common

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Work Environment Mistreatment Climates Safety Climate Leadership

Safety Knowledge Motivation

Safety Behavior

Safety Outcomes Accidents Micro-accidents Injuries

Individual Differences Demographics Personality

Mistreatment Knowledge Motivation

Mistreatment Behavior

Mistreatment Outcomes Physical Violence Psychological Abuse

Fig. 2.

An Integrative Framework of Accidents/Injuries and Mistreatment.

elements in overall safety. In addition, there has been a great deal of research in both domains linking personality and other individual differences to safety behavior and outcomes. This line of research helps explain why people differ in their tendencies to experience injuries, violence, and mistreatment at work. Although the Neal and Griffin (2004) model suggests a temporal flow from environment and personal factors to knowledge/motivation to behavior, and finally to outcomes, we suggest a more dynamic flow in which variables at each stage of the model might affect variables at earlier stages. Thus the two-headed arrows suggest a feedback loop whereby, for example, being injured on the job might affect future behavior. Although we only show these nonrecursive relationships for adjacent stages in the model, it is possible that they have more distal effects. For example, being injured might provide feedback that increases knowledge, and it might increase motivation to follow protocols in the future. The occurrence of an accident in a workgroup might affect the behavior of coworkers and supervisors so that safety is taken more seriously, thus improving the safety climate. The expanded model considers mistreatment from the perspective of the target, as it is a model that is concerned with factors that lead to exposures. The literature on mistreatment also considers it from the perspective of the actor, that is, what are the factors that might lead someone to engage in this behavior. The underlying processes between the actor and target are somewhat different, so we did not incorporate unique actor factors into the model. There is some overlap where the mistreatment behavior of the actor leads to retaliation that then turns the actor into the target.

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DISTAL ENVIRONMENT: CLIMATE AND LEADERSHIP Climate and leadership can be conceptualized as operating at both the individual and group levels. Discussions and operationalizations of climate in most cases explicitly note the level at which it is considered. Individual perceptions of climate, assessed at the person-level, are distinguished from shared perceptions, typically assessed by aggregating individual perceptions among members of a meaningful social unit into an average score that reflects the extent to which perceptions among individuals from the same unit are in concert. Studies of climate have focused on both levels to provide a more complete picture of whether findings concerning individual perceptions will hold when aggregated to the higher group level. Leadership can also be considered from both the individual or group level. A single leader or supervisor typically heads a work unit resulting in several individual employees sharing the same leader. Although there are individual relationships of leaders with each follower that can vary (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995), there is also a shared component to leadership that can be reflected in particular sets of behaviors or styles. For example, leaders can be a major source of climate for employees through their emphasis on and support for safety (Zohar & Luria, 2003). In this way climate and leader behaviors work hand in hand to encourage the safety behavior of followers, and thus are two related factors that contribute to safety outcomes of accidents/injuries and mistreatment. In Table 1, we summarized relationships of climate and leadership with both accidents/injuries and mistreatment from four meta-analyses (Christian, Bradley, Wallace, & Burke, 2009; Clarke, 2013; Nahrgang, Morgeson, & Hofmann, 2011; Yang, Caughlin, Gazica, Truxillo, & Spector, 2014). As we note below, in many cases relationships are quite similar between the two types of hazards.

Safety Climate Whether individual or shared, safety climate is employees’ perceptions of how much their organization values safety and to what extent an organization attempts to achieve a safe work environment (Neal, Griffin, & Hart, 2000; Zohar, 2000). Safety climate concerns the behaviors that supervisors reward and support (Zohar & Luria, 2010). It should be noted that safety

Meta-Analytic Estimates of Relationships of Climate and Leadership with Safety and Mistreatment Outcomes. Safety Climate

Outcomes

Domain-specific motivation Domain-specific performance Job satisfaction Physical demands Physical strains Emotional strains Burnout Accidents and injuries Mistreatment exposure Outcomes

Safety climate Safety compliance Safety participation

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Table 1.

Mistreatment Climate

Meta-analysis

N

K

ρ

Meta-analysis

N

K

ρ

Christian et al. (2009) Christian et al. (2009) Nahrgang et al. (2011) Nahrgang et al. (2011)

Nahrgang et al. (2011) Nahrgang et al. (2011)


849 15,327 22,367 31,924

10,049 19,295


3 31 23 44

18 45


0.46 0.49 0.70 −0.48

−0.37 −0.24


Yang et al. (2014) Yang et al. (2014) Yang et al. (2014)
Yang et al. (2014) Yang et al. (2014)

Yang et al. (2014)

1,463 1,377 9,536
4,106 4,777

13,195

5 5 23
15 20

28

0.51 0.50 0.52
−0.25 −0.33

−0.30

Transformational leadership

Effective leadership

Meta-analysis

N

K

ρ

Clarke (2013) Clarke (2013) Clarke (2013)

5,208 4,006 2,871

20 10 12

0.48 0.31 0.44

Meta-analysis Nahrgang et al. (2011) Nahrgang et al. (2011)


N

K

ρ

29,114 13,954


53 22


0.69 0.59


243

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climate perceptions are focused solely on how much employees believe the organization values safety practices and policies in the workplace, and may not necessarily reflect perceptions of the likelihood of accidents and injuries in the workplace. For example, an employee may believe that his or her workplace is potentially more hazardous than most because of the type of work performed (e.g., healthcare), but this individual may still perceive a strong climate for safety within their organization. In such a case, an employee likely perceives that his or her organization’s managers value and attempt to reduce the possibility of injuries and illness to the best of their ability, despite the inherent dangers in the job. Zohar (1980) created organizational safety climate based on early organizational climate research (James & Jones, 1974; Schneider, 1975). Safety climate perceptions influence the safety behaviors of employees through the policies, practices, and procedures of organizational management (Zohar, 1980). Since its creation safety climate has grown to be a predominate dimension of organizational climate, and has been linked to a myriad of important safety outcomes encompassing both the physical and psychological well-being of employees (Christian et al., 2009; Nahrgang et al., 2011; Neal et al., 2000). Although safety climate perceptions exist at the individual employee level, and thus employees in the same unit can have idiosyncratic experiences and perceptions, it is also presumed that there is a portion shared among work unit members, suggesting that there is an element of shared social reality about how the organization operates, and what sorts of behaviors are expected, as well as what behaviors are discouraged. This means that although safety climate is a psychosocial variable without tangible physical manifestation, it can still have an objective nature in the consensus of unit members on the nature of the climate within their work unit. In the safety climate literature there has been substantial debate about what the content of the dimensions of safety climate should encompass. Zohar (1980) identified eight separate dimensions of safety climate, but others have suggested that there may be as few as two interpretable dimensions (for a full review see Neal & Griffin, 2004). To further complicate the safety climate factor structure, research has suggested that some dimensions may manifest at different levels of analysis (Zohar, 2000). However, regardless of the exact factor structure, all scales measuring safety climate appear to generally focus on management commitment and employee involvement with safety in an organization. In addition, limited evidence has been found to suggest differential prediction of related outcomes across safety climate’s proposed lower-order factors

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(Neal & Griffin, 2004). This suggests that although theoretically the construct is composed of numerous dimensions, these dimensions operate together in much the same way to create individual and group-level perceptions of overall safety climate. The study of these dimensions in the literature thus far has provided limited benefit above the study of global climate in terms of predicting both safety behavior and outcomes. Regardless of its factor structure, organizational safety climate has been found to relate to a variety of organizational safety variables and outcomes. Although these relationships have been well studied, the direct effect between safety climate and accidents and injuries is smaller than one might expect. Two meta-analyses of the safety climate literature (summarized in Table 1) found approximately the same strength of relationship between climate and safety outcomes (p = −.22; Clarke, 2006) versus (p = −.24; Nahrgang et al., 2011). The Clarke meta-analysis failed to find a significant relationship (confidence interval included zero), which is likely due to the smaller number of studies included in the older Clarke analysis. In large part the modest relationship is likely due to the fact that accidents and injuries are not frequent in most workplaces, and thus in any given investigation, there is a significant restriction of range. Furthermore, as suggested by the Neal and Griffin (2004) model, climate is a quite distal antecedent of safety outcomes, and is likely to have stronger effects on the more proximal antecedents of outcomes than it would on the outcomes themselves. Rather than safety climate directly influencing the occurrence of accidents and injuries, the model proposes that safety climate operates primarily through increasing the motivation and knowledge of employees in addition to changing their behavior to decrease accidents and injuries (Griffin & Neal, 2000). These researchers found support for the mediating influence of safety-specific motivation and knowledge on the relationship between safety climate and safety behavior, and were able to replicate these results in a 5-year lagged longitudinal study (Neal & Griffin, 2006). Specifically, safety climate related more strongly to safety compliance (following required safety protocols) and safety participation (actively promoting safety in the workplace beyond task requirements) than it did to safety outcomes. The Clarke (2006) meta-analyses showed that safety climate is related to both forms of safety performance behavior: safety compliance (p = .43) and safety participation (p = .50). In an attempt to refine our understanding of the effects of safety climate, more recent meta-analytic investigations have found that safety climate may exert most of its influence on safety outcomes through indirect paths, such as performance behaviors (Clarke, 2013) and safety-related motivation and knowledge (Christian

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et al., 2009). This suggests that there may be more nuanced pathways as opposed to a simple direct path that explain safety climate’s relationship with the occurrence of accidents and injuries; however, it is possible that at least some of the effects of safety climate might not be directly related to behavior. For example, organizations with good safety climates might create safer physical workplaces that reduce potential exposure to hazards, thus making it more difficult for individuals to hurt themselves when they violate safety protocols.

Mistreatment Climates A number of climates concerned with keeping employees safe from workplace mistreatment have been extended from the safety climate literature. Although each climate is concerned with a specific class of behaviors, they have been characterized as a form of mistreatment climate by Yang et al. (2014). The most generic of these climates is violence prevention climate that is concerned with safety from both physical violence and psychological abuse (Kessler et al., 2008; Spector et al., 2007). More specialized mistreatment climates concern bullying (Hutchinson, Jackson, Wilkes, & Vickers, 2008) and incivility (Ottinot, 2008). Violence Prevention Climate Violence prevention climate was originally created as a direct extension of the safety climate construct, and its conceptualization was based upon many of the core safety climate findings and measures. Violence prevention climate is concerned with policies and practices that are designed to keep employees safe from mistreatment (Kessler et al., 2008; Spector et al., 2007). Although safety climate and violence prevention climate are both concerned with workplace injuries, the former is concerned primarily with unintentional or accidental injury, whereas the latter is concerned with intentional acts of violence that might result in physical injury as well as psychological abuse that can result in psychological injury. The most frequently used violence prevention climate scale, the Violence Prevention Climate Survey or VPCS, by Kessler et al. (2008) contains three relatively independent subscales: Policies and Procedures (written rules for safe behavior), Practices and Response (how management responds to and takes steps to prevent violence), and Pressure for Unsafe Practices (the extent to which productivity is given priority over safety). These three subscales mirror dimensions that have been found in the safety literature to be

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among the most important components of safety climate (Zohar, 1980; Zohar & Luria, 2005). In a series of studies, violence prevention climate has been shown to relate, as expected, to mistreatment in both cross-sectional (Chang, Eatough, Spector, & Kessler, 2012; Kessler et al., 2008; Spector et al., 2007) and longitudinal (Yang, Spector, Chang, Gallant-Roman, & Powell, 2012) studies. Furthermore, violence prevention climate is related to fear of future violence and both physical health and psychological well-being (Kessler et al., 2008; Mueller & Tschan, 2011), even after controlling for previous mistreatment exposure (Spector et al., 2007). Although the VPCS contains three subscales, there has been no consistent pattern across studies to suggest that one is more important than the others in its relationship to mistreatment. All three dimensions have been linked to mistreatment, but results have been inconsistent across studies. In their initial study Kessler et al. (2008) found that Practices and Pressure (but not Policies) related significantly to physical violence, but all three of the dimensions related to psychological abuse. Furthermore, Practices and Pressure related similarly to physical symptoms and emotional strain, whereas Policies showed a different pattern. Chang et al. (2012) found a similar pattern of relationships across all three subscales for violence, abuse, and emotional strain. On the other hand, in a longitudinal study in which violence prevention climate was measured at time 1, only Pressure was able to significantly predict time 2 physical violence (Yang et al., 2012). However, in another longitudinal study, only Practices were able to significantly predict physical violence over time, although all three subscales had significant correlations with physical violence cross-sectionally (Spector, Yang, & Zhou, in press). One gap in the violence prevention literature is that it has yet to extensively investigate the pathway through which violence prevention climate operates in the same detail as has been done with safety climate. However, the one investigation that has included potential intervening mechanisms suggests that this climate form might operate through the same mechanisms as proposed by the Neal and Griffin (2004) safety model. Specifically, Chang et al. (2012) included measures of violence prevention motivation, and violence prevention compliance and participation that were based on the measures used by Neal and Griffin (2006) to test their model of workplace accidents. Chang et al. (2012) found that violence prevention motivation was related to both violence prevention compliance and participation, and both forms of behavior were significantly related to both physical violence and psychological abuse. These findings are quite similar to those

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found in meta-analyses of the safety climate literature (e.g., Christian et al., 2009). Civility Climate Civility climate is a more specific construct than general violence prevention climate as it focuses only on incivility. Although we include incivility in our discussion of mistreatment, it is considered a mild form of negative social experience that is conceptually distinct. As Pearson et al. (2005) define it, incivility concerns discourteous and rude behavior that violates norms for mutual respect among employees. It is considered low-level abuse where the harmful intent of the actor is not clear. Ottinot (2008) developed a civility climate scale that was based largely on the safety climate and violence prevention climate literatures. His measure included three subscales, two of which (Policies and Response) corresponded to two of the VPCS subscales. The third subscale (Intolerance) concerned the organization management’s tolerance for employee engagement in uncivil behavior. All three subscales of this measure, assessed by target employees and a coworker, correlated significantly with employee reports of being targets of incivility. Furthermore, all but coworker reports of intolerance correlated significantly with employee reports of their own psychological abuse as actors. In a follow-up multilevel study in a public school system, Ottinot (2011) found similar results at the school level, that is, the shared climate among teachers within the same school was related to the level of incivility in the school. Bullying Climate The safety-related climate type that has received the least amount of attention in the literature pertains to the aspects of an organization that specifically reduces the occurrence of bullying behavior within workgroups (Hutchinson et al., 2008). Although conceptually overlapping to some extent with violence prevention climate, bullying climate is focused specifically on bullying, and on the facets of organizational climate that perpetuate bullying behaviors occurring among members of a workgroup. Hutchinson et al. (2008) developed a bullying climate scale that included subscales of informal organizational alliances, organizational tolerance and reward, and misuse of legitimate authority processes and procedures. All three subscales significantly related to the incidence of workplace bullying. Much like other forms of organizational climate, bullying climate was associated with psychological distress and negative health consequences for employees.

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Connections among Climate Types Conceptually, each form of climate (i.e., bullying, incivility, safety, and violence) are distinct, and so we might assume that there would be domain specificity in that each would predict within its own domain better than those from other domains. That is, safety climate would predict injuries due to accidents better than the other climates would, and violence prevention climate would predict mistreatment better than would safety climate. Although the research looking across domains is scant, there is some evidence that these climates are overlapping, and perhaps reflect a higher order climate of management general concern for health and safety that transcends the specific exposures that might be present in the workplace. One piece of evidence that at least the mistreatment climates are overlapping comes from the aforementioned meta-analysis of mistreatment climates. Yang et al. (2014) meta-analyzed studies that collectively used 10 different mistreatment climate measures that included workplace incivility climate, physical aggression climate, verbal aggression climate, and bullying climate to see their relationships with a variety of variables including physical violence, psychological abuse, health, and well-being (see Table 1). They first combined results of studies across all 10 climate types. They then repeated the analysis after deleting studies that used the most popular scale (VPCS) that was used in 42% of studies, finding that results were very much the same either way. The similarity of results across the two sets of analyses is evidence that these various mistreatment climates scales are in many ways interchangeable with the measure of violence prevention climate, and perhaps with one another. One noteworthy finding of Yang et al. (2014), as shown in Table 1, is that the meta-analytic estimates of the relationship between mistreatment climate and organizational and employee outcome variables (e.g., prevention motivation, prevention performance, job satisfaction, and physical strains) are of the same magnitude and direction as corresponding relationships found in existing safety climate meta-analyses (Christian et al., 2009; Clarke, 2006; Nahrgang et al., 2011). All outcome variables that were measured in both the mistreatment and safety climate meta-analyses have overlapping confidence intervals. This apparent similarity in the types and the strengths of outcomes further suggests that there may be substantial overlap between safety and violence prevention climate types. There is also evidence for cross-domain relationships between safety climate and some forms of mistreatment climate. For example, Walsh et al. (2012) showed that their measure of civility climate was significantly related

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to both employee and management safety behaviors. They found support for a model in which behavior was related to safety outcomes through decreased work-safety tension (McGonagle, Walsh, Kath, & Morrow, 2014). These results largely mimic established models found in the organizational safety climate literature (Griffin & Neal, 2000; Neal & Griffin, 2004, 2006). As noted earlier, Chang et al. (2012) adapted the safety motivation and performance measures to the violence domain, finding quite similar results. Perhaps the strongest evidence against domain specificity comes from a study that directly tested for it by including measures of incivility, safety, and violence prevention climates along with outcomes for each domain (Gazica & Spector, 2013). This study showed that with few exceptions, all three climates were significantly related to one another and to outcomes across all three domains. Furthermore, there was little evidence that correlations would be stronger when climate and outcome matched. Only experienced incivility was better predicted by its corresponding climate, although the other climates were also significantly related to incivility. The parallel and shared outcomes and mechanisms through which these climate variables operate, and the lack of domain specificity suggest that there may be a higher order general climate factor shared by these various forms of climate. Thus it might be more productive to conceptualize a generalized construct of safety climate as encompassing the wider domain of accident, injury, illness, and mistreatment prevention. In fact, it may be advantageous to investigate the structure of climate along the dimensions of policies, practices, pressure, and tolerance for unsafe behavior, as found in the multidimensional scales (Kessler et al., 2008; Ottinot, 2008) that cuts across what have been to date separate domains of injuries/accidents versus mistreatment. Although not specific to the safety domain, some preliminary evidence for a more general climate factor anteceding safety climate was found by Neal et al. (2000). They found support for a model in which perceptions of safety-specific climate mediated the relationship between general organizational climate (e.g., non-domain specific organizational attitudes and affective responses) and safety outcomes. Thus, perceptions of safety climate may have been influenced by a broader climate component. These findings suggest that the types of organizations that find it beneficial to create a positive general climate are also the types of organizations that are concerned with safety-specific factors.

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Safety and Violence Prevention Leadership Leadership is another distal component in the Neal and Griffin (2004) safety model, as leaders can have a significant impact on the motivation and behavior of subordinates. There are at least two aspects of leadership that are relevant here. First, leaders engage in behaviors that are directly relevant to safety. Such behaviors can both shape and transmit climate in general (Dragoni, 2005; Kozlowski & Doherty, 1989), and climate specific to safety (Wu, Lin, & Shiau, 2010; Zohar, 2000). Second, the quality and style of overall leadership can affect safety. This suggests that good leaders behave in ways that naturally promote safety through a focus on the wellbeing of subordinates. Therefore, leaders who create one form of safety climate may create others as well. A leader who promotes safety from injury due to accidents, for example, will likely promote safety from violence and psychological abuse. Safety-Specific Leadership Supervisors can participate in safety, both by communicating the need for safety and by following safe procedures that provide a safety role model. Such behaviors can serve as a foundation for building a safety climate for a workgroup in which safety compliance and participation are the norm. Zohar (2000) discusses how climate arises from the behaviors of top management and immediate supervisors. Organizational policies and procedures are designed at higher levels of organizations that are the source of written rules and expectations. However, it is the immediate supervisor who is largely responsible for communicating policies and procedures, and for translating them into local practices. Individual employee climate perceptions and their shared counterparts arise largely from interactions with supervisors, listening to what they say and observing what they do. Evidence can be found showing a connection between supervisor safetyrelated behavior and safety climate and outcomes. For example, Barling, Loughlin, and Kelloway (2002), using an adapted safety-specific leadership behavior scale found that leaders who actively engaged in communicating safety polices to employees and who promoted accident prevention policies within their workgroups created a stronger organizational climate for safety and had fewer accidents and injuries. In addition to transmitting climate, safety behavior by supervisors can have direct effects on employee motivation, behavior, and safety outcomes. The construct of safety integrity by supervisors means that supervisors

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actively promote safety in subordinates by enforcing safety rules and engaging in safe behaviors themselves (Leroy et al., 2012). Safety integrity by supervisors has been found to relate to subordinates giving high priority to avoiding accidents (Leroy et al., 2012), as well as to their safety compliance, and safety outcomes (Halbesleben et al., 2013). Wu et al. (2010) investigated the connection between specific safety leader behaviors at middle and top management levels and safety climate (they used the term safety culture). They designed scales to assess three dimensions of safety behavior for each level, and all were significantly related to safety climate. For top management the dimensions were Safety Caring (e.g., talking to employees about health and safety), Safety Coaching (e.g., emphasizing that safety is more important than productivity), and Safety Controlling (e.g., regularly reviewing health and safety performance). For middle management the dimensions were Safety Decision-Making (e.g., creating plans for health and safety), Safety Informing (e.g., publicizing safety policies and practices), and Safety Interaction (e.g., talking to employees about safety).

Leadership Quality and Style The safety literature has found that it is not only leadership behaviors specific to organizational safety that predict the occurrence of accidents and injuries within the workplace, but that effective leadership in general has the potential to contribute to a safe workplace. Previous research has suggested that when it comes to the leadership domain, specificity is unnecessary to reduce the occurrences of accidents and injuries (Zohar, 2002). High-quality leadership in general is associated with low frequency of accidents in the workplace. For example, a longitudinal intervention investigation found that safety-specific transformational leadership training did not have a significantly higher impact on employee perceptions of organizational safety climate than general transformational leadership training (Mullen & Kelloway, 2009). Additionally, a recent meta-analysis of nonsafety-specific transformational and transactional leadership styles (see Table 1) found support for a model in which both types of leadership were related to safety performance and safety outcomes through their influence on perceived safety climate of an organization (Clarke, 2013). These studies suggest that it is not only safety-specific leadership qualities that have the power to reduce accidents and injuries, but rather that generally effective and positive leadership is a potentially important element in creating a safer workplace.

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Zohar (2002) found evidence to suggest that the relationship between positive leadership forms (i.e., transformational and constructive) and workplace injury is mediated by group-level perceptions of the preventive action of their immediate supervisor (e.g., considering employees suggestions for improving safety), which is a component of the group-level safety climate measure developed by Zohar (2000). The majority of the benefits of positive leadership operate through preventative rather than reactive supervisor behaviors (e.g., prioritizing safety over production goals). Thus, safety behaviors performed after the occurrence of an accident by leaders were largely ineffective at reducing the rate of subsequent injury. Additionally, this investigation found that organizations do not have to sacrifice productivity in order to maintain a safe workplace. Furthermore, their results suggest that a component of organizational climate interacted with leadership to further strengthen employee safety perceptions. Specifically, the priority of safety procedures assigned to supervisors by higher management interacted with positive leadership styles to further increase employee group-level perceptions of preventive action behaviors of their supervisors. The measure of assigned safety priority employed by this investigation can be considered an indicator of higher-level organizational climate because the items presented to the supervisors pertained specifically to the type of safety procedures that were assigned to them by higher management. Whereas top management enacts organization-wide safety climate in the form of policies and procedures, first-level supervisors transmit that climate to their work units by indicating what sorts of behaviors are appropriate (Zohar & Luria, 2004). Furthermore, positive leadership styles in addition to high levels of safety climate appear to work together to contribute to shared perceptions of workplace safety among group members (Zohar & Luria, 2004). Lending further support to this argument Hofmann, Morgeson, and Gerras (2003) found that when both organizational safety climate and leadership quality were high, employees were most likely to perceive that safety participation was part of their formalized job responsibilities. Partially through the formalization of these safety roles, highquality leadership and positive organizational safety climate ultimately worked together to predict if employees routinely performed these safetyrelated behaviors. Although certainly other variables come into play, the safety literature has appeared to have identified both organizational climate and leadership types as the major contributors to group-level safety-related outcomes. Understanding the influence of leadership and organizational climate is complex because both organizational climate and leadership

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influence each other in addition to independently influencing safety behavior by employees directly. The majority of our discussion of leadership has focused on the relationships between effective leadership styles, safety climate, and the occurrences of accidents and injuries; however, we expect effective leadership to operate through the same mechanisms with mistreatment prevention. Although little research to our knowledge has been conducted concerning the role of leader behavior in the development of violence prevention and other mistreatment climates, there is reason to believe that they would operate similarly. Though we were unable to locate studies linking leadership to being the target of mistreatment, several studies have found a direct link between leadership style and reports of interpersonal aggression from the perspective of the actor. Specifically research has found a direct relationship between the charismatic leadership style of supervisors and the workplace mistreatment among workgroup members (Hepworth & Towler, 2004). Moreover, a meta-analysis combining multiple styles of leadership found positive relationships between poor leadership (e.g., hostility and over control) and both supervisor and coworker directed mistreatment among employees (Hershcovis et al., 2007). However, it should be noted that this research informs mistreatment among coworkers, but offers little insight about mistreatment from other sources, such as clients, customers, or patients. Future research should consider examining mistreatment from these other sources. The same types of leaders who encourage their employees to avoid accidents and injuries are also probably able to equip their subordinates with the ability to avoid and properly handle potential mistreatment. Although the study of domain-specific leader behavior has been fruitful, it is possible that like climate, there is also a higher order general safety leadership style that helps protect workers from both physical and interpersonal hazards.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Individual differences, mainly personality, have been studied in relation to both the safety and mistreatment literatures. As illustrated in Fig. 2, we propose that personality serves as a distal precursor to safety motivation, behavior, and outcomes. In this section we will review the most commonly studied individual differences within the domains of both workplace accidents/injuries and mistreatment. Specifically, the Five-Factor Model dimensions (Digman, 1990) and individual personality traits of self-esteem, locus

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of control (LOC), and demographic variables (gender and age) are considered in detail below. It should be noted that for mistreatment we summarize the literature from both the actor and the target perspective. Tables 2
4 summarize results of nine meta-analyses (Berry, Ones, & Sackett, 2007; Bowling & Beehr, 2006; Christian et al., 2009; Clarke & Table 2.

Meta-Analytic Estimates of Individual Difference
Safety Performance Relationships.

Personality Trait

Meta-Analysis

N

K

ρ

Conscientiousness Locus of control Risk taking Promotion focus Prevention focus

Christian et al. (2009) Christian et al. (2009) Christian et al. (2009) Lanaj et al. (2012) Lanaj et al. (2012)

1,317 2,858 1,173 1,280 1,280

5 9 4 6 6

0.18 0.35 −0.28 −0.15 0.51

Table 3.

Meta-Analytic Estimates of Individual Difference
Accident/ Injury Relationships.

Personality Trait

Meta-Analysis

N

K

ρ

Conscientiousness

Christian et al. (2009) Salgado (2002)a Clarke and Robertson (2005)b Clarke and Robertson (2008)b

852 2,094 1,125 1,290

4 6 9 10

−0.26 0.06 −0.30 −0.31

Emotional stability

Christian et al. (2009) Clarke and Robertson (2005) Clarke and Robertson (2008) Kaplan et al. (2009) Salgado (2002)a,b

5,129 1,958 1,934 759 2,121

12 13 13 3 5

−0.19 −0.28 −0.30 −0.20 0.08

Extraversion

Christian et al. (2009) Clarke and Robertson (2005) Clarke and Robertson (2008) Salgado (2002)a

2,083 1,524 2,137 2,341

5 12 16 7

−0.07 −0.09 0.02 0.04

Openness to experience

Clarke and Robertson (2005) Clarke and Robertson (2008) Salgado (2002)a

570 570 1,660

7 7 5

0.50 0.50 −0.09

Agreeableness

Salgado (2002)a Clarke and Robertson (2005)b Clarke and Robertson (2008)b

1,540 420 715

4 7 8

0.01 −0.61 −0.44

Locus of control

Christian et al. (2009)

2,446

4

−0.26

Risk taking

Christian et al. (2009)

820

3

0.20

a

Salgado, 2002 examined lack of accidents. Reported correlations were reversed.

b

256

Table 4.

STEPHANIE A. ANDEL ET AL.

Meta-Analytic Estimates of Individual Difference
Mistreatment Relationships.

Personality Trait Target positive affectivity Target negative affectivity Target gender Target age Actor trait anger Actor negative affectivity Actor gender Perpetrator age Perpetrator emotional stability Perpetrator extraversion Perpetrator openness Perpetrator agreeableness Perpetrator conscientiousness

Meta-Analysis

N

K

ρ

Bowling and Beehr (2006) Bowling and Beehr (2006) Bowling and Beehr (2006) Bowling and Beehr (2006) Hershcovis et al. (2007) Hershcovis et al. (2007) Hershcovis et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007) Berry et al. (2007)

2,293 7,441 2,921 4,822 2,648 1,532 3,653 6,250 6,249 2,842 2,360 2,360 3,336 3,458

8 24 11 16 10 5 14 14 14 10 8 8 10 11

−0.09 0.25 −0.05 −0.04 0.43 0.29 −0.21 0.15 −0.06 −0.24 0.02 −0.09 −0.46 −0.23

Robertson, 2005, 2008; Hershcovis et al., 2007; Kaplan, Bradley, Luchman, & Haynes, 2009; Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson, 2012; Salgado, 2002) that in part or whole linked individual differences to safety and mistreatment. In cases where more than one meta-analysis reported a relationship, we showed each separately. Table 2 contains relationships of personality with safety performance. There have been only a few studies of performance, and they included only a handful of personality variables. In addition to the ones we will discuss below, the table includes risk taking propensity, and the two regulatory focus dimensions of promotion focus and prevention focus (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). Table 3 summarizes metaanalyses relating personality to accidents and injuries at work. Finally, Table 4 summarizes results of meta-analyses linking personality and demographics of age and gender to physical violence and psychological abuse, which were combined. Results were separated by actor versus target.

Five-Factor Model of Personality Conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the tendency to be dependable, competent, hardworking, and achievement oriented (Costa & McCrae, 1992). In terms of accidents and injuries, research suggests that conscientiousness is an

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important trait because of individuals’ dependability in terms of following policies and protocols (i.e., employees consistently abide by safety regulations) and inherent motivation to perform safely (Christian et al., 2009). For instance, Cellar, Nelson, York, and Bauer (2001) surveyed undergraduates and found that individuals are in fact more likely to experience workplace accidents when they have lower levels of conscientiousness, while Arthur and Graziano (1996) also found this significant, negative relationship in a sample consisting of both undergraduate students and employees from a temporary employment service. Also, Wallace and Vodanovich (2003) examined the relationship between conscientiousness and accident involvement in two different samples. Across both of these samples, results demonstrated a significant, negative relationship between conscientiousness and workplace accidents, whether the accident assessment was based on self-reports, supervisor-reports, or organizational records. Further, the negative relationship between conscientiousness and accident involvement was supported by the meta-analysis conducted by Christian et al. (2009; ρ = −.26), whereas a significant, positive relationship was found between conscientiousness and safety performance (ρ = .18). It was also supported by Clarke and Robertson’s (2008) meta-analysis, in which the relationship between conscientiousness and accident involvement was significant and positive (ρ = −.31). Since individuals high on conscientiousness tend to be dependable and follow rules, one might expect them to be unlikely to be involved in mistreatment. However, conscientiousness has been measured sporadically within the workplace mistreatment literature, and results are mixed. For instance, Glaso, Matthiesen, Nielsen, and Einarsen (2007) found victims of workplace bullying to be less conscientious than their nonbullied counterparts. In contrast, a study conducted by Coyne, Seigne, and Randall (2000) revealed the opposite relationship, such that targets of bullying tended to be higher in conscientiousness. To complicate things further, some studies have failed to find a significant relationship between conscientiousness and being a target of workplace violence or abuse in either direction (e.g., Coyne, Chong, Seigne, & Randall, 2003). Thus, from the target perspective, the potential role of conscientiousness is unclear, perhaps because it is complex and depends on context. Regarding actors, it appears that conscientiousness is negatively related to engaging in mistreatment. For instance, research suggests that conscientious individuals are less likely to engage in general counterproductive workplace behaviors, which may be aimed at individuals or organizations (e.g., Dalal, 2005). Further, past research by Taylor and Kluemper (2012)

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found a negative relationship between conscientiousness and supervisor rated mistreatment. Finally, Berry et al. (2007) conducted a meta-analysis and found perpetrator conscientiousness to be negatively related to mistreatment, termed interpersonal deviance (ρ = −.23). Thus, the extant literature provides evidence to suggest that highly conscientious individuals may be less likely to engage in mistreatment, although whether they are less likely to be targets is unclear. Agreeableness Agreeableness is defined as the tendency of individuals to have interpersonal trust, friendliness, modesty, and the general desire to cooperate or comply with others (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Research relating agreeableness to negative safety outcomes has generally found evidence for a negative relationship between these variables. For example, in a study of undergraduates, Cellar et al. (2001) found that agreeableness was a significant negative predictor of workplace accidents. Further, Clarke and Robertson (2008) found significant meta-analytic support for this relationship between agreeableness and occupational safety, such that agreeableness was negatively related to workplace accident involvement (ρ = −.44). They suggested that this relationship might exist because agreeable people have a tendency to cooperate with others (Barrick & Mount, 1991), and to obey group norms. Thus, if safety is deemed important, these individuals are likely to cooperate and adhere to these safety rules and regulations. Conversely, if individuals are low in agreeableness, they may not be as motivated to cooperate with others, and in fact may be more likely to respond aggressively if confronted about their unsafe behaviors and lack of cooperation. This lack of cooperation, in turn, may increase their chances of occupational accidents, and could be a source of interpersonal conflicts that lead to mistreatment, as well. In addition, the safety literature has found a significant relationship between the tendency to be aggressive, which is the opposite pole of agreeableness (Costa, McCrae, & Dye, 1991), and accident involvement. Specifically, research examining the aggressiveness trait of pilots (Conger et al., 1957), bus drivers (Roy & Choudhary, 1985), professional drivers (Su¨mer, 2003), and railway workers (Sah, 1989) have all provided evidence to suggest that individuals who are high in the trait of aggressiveness are more likely to have workplace accidents than individuals who are low on aggressiveness. On the mistreatment side, agreeableness has been linked to engaging in mistreatment-related behaviors. As shown in Table 4, Berry et al. (2007)

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found a mean effect size of −.46 between agreeableness and workplace mistreatment, which was the strongest predictor among the five-factor model dimensions. Finally, not much research has been done to examine agreeableness as an antecedent to being a target of mistreatment. However, of the research that has been done, low agreeableness tends to be associated with being a target. For example, Milam, Spitzmueller, and Penney (2009) and Glaso et al. (2007) found that less agreeable individuals are more likely to experience workplace bullying and incivility. This is again likely due to a lack of motivation to cooperate or comply with others (Barrick & Mount, 1991). However, more research that includes these variables should be conducted in order to empirically clarify the role that agreeableness plays in instigating or mitigating mistreatment in the workplace. Extraversion Extraversion is defined as a general disposition to prefer social activities (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Results are mixed regarding extraversion as an antecedent to workplace accidents/injuries. For example, research has found extraversion to be negatively related to workplace accidents in both firefighters and bus drivers (Liao, Arvey, Butler, & Nutting, 2001; Roy & Choudhary, 1985). Further, positive affectivity, which is related to extraversion (Clark & Watson, 1999), has been found to have a negative relationship with workplace accidents, as well (Iverson & Erwin, 1997). An explanation for this negative relationship may lie in past research that has linked positive affectivity to increased self-efficacy (Judge, 1993) and more careful appraisal of situations (Staw & Barsade, 1993). Specifically, these results suggest that individuals high in extraversion may be more careful and have higher safety performance that should ultimately lead to fewer accidents and injuries. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that global extraversion and other specific facets of extraversion have the opposite relationship with accidents and injuries. For example, Su¨mer (2003) found that sensation seeking, highly related to the extraversion facet of excitement seeking (Aluja, Garcı´ a, & Garcı´ a, 2003), was significantly related to the number of traffic accidents in a sample of professional drivers. Further, Powell, Hale, Martin, and Simon (1971) found that in a sample of mill workers, extraversion was a significant predictor of workplace accidents. Researchers have hypothesized that the negative relationship between extraversion and safety outcomes is a result of an extravert’s lower level of vigilance (Eysenck, 1962), which results in decreased safety performance. Further, the facet of

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excitement seeking may play a particular role in accidents, as individuals who are high in this facet tend to take increased risks (Jonah, 1997). All this said, there is still other research that found no significant relationship between extraversion and safety (e.g., Arthur & Graziano, 1996; Cellar et al., 2001). In fact, in two meta-analyses relating the Big Five personality factors to workplace accidents, results found the relationships between overall extraversion and safety (performance and outcomes) to be nonsignificant, with mean correlations ranging from ρ = −.07 (Christian et al., 2009) to ρ = .02 (Clarke & Robertson, 2008). Results are also mixed regarding extraversion in the context of workplace mistreatment. For instance, Glaso et al. (2007) found that individuals who were lower in extraversion were more likely to be bullying victims than their high extraversion counterparts. Similarly, research by Coyne et al. (2000) suggests that extraversion is inversely related to workplace mistreatment exposure. Specifically, individuals high in extraversion are generally characterized as being highly socially adjusted and positive (Costa & McCrae, 1992), and thus should be less likely to upset others in a way that might put them at risk of being a victim of violence or abuse. However, extraverted individuals are also often found to be dominant, impulsive, and overly assertive (Costa & McCrae, 1992), which may lead others to interpret their behaviors as interpersonally aggressive and therefore provocative. From the actor side, there is little evidence that extraversion is related to violent or abusive behavior. The Berry et al. (2007) meta-analysis found a nonsignificant mean correlation of .02. Openness to Experience Openness to experience is defined as the tendency to be imaginative, curious, cultured, and unconventional (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Existing work attempting to link openness to experience to safety outcomes (i.e., accidents and injuries) like much of the research concerning personality, has yielded mixed results. For example, Arthur and Graziano (1996) did not find evidence of a relationship between openness to experience and traffic accidents, suggesting that for occupations involving driving, openness may not be a significant predictor of safety outcomes. Alternatively, in a study by Parker (1953), archival records of commercial truck drivers were examined to investigate potential antecedents of truck driving accidents. Results from this analysis suggested that individuals with literary and artistic interests (which may be considered similar to the artistic interests facet of openness) were significantly more prone to preventable accidents than those who were low in artistic and literary interests.

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Further, Clarke and Robertson (2008) examined the relationship between openness and accidents via meta-analysis, and results demonstrated a significant, positive relationship between these variables (ρ = .50). They suggested that individuals high in imagination, curiosity, and unconventionality may be less likely to focus on workplace tasks and safety regulations, and therefore may be more likely to have accidents in the workplace. It should be noted, however, that the number of studies included in this analysis was quite small, and the meta-analysis by Salgado (2002) failed to find a significant relationship, so at this point it is unclear what the relationship of openness to safety might be. Studies have tended to find that openness to experience does not relate to violence or abuse in the workplace, with a meta-analysis failing to find a significant relationship on the actor side (Berry et al., 2007; ρ = −.09). It is possible, however, that this trait has not received enough attention at the facet level, as there might be opposite relationships that cancel one another out when combined into a single openness composite score. For instance, perhaps due to open individuals’ high tolerance for novelty and unconventionality, they are also tolerant of coworkers and supervisors who exhibit a wide range of behaviors, and therefore would be unlikely to get into disputes. We could find no studies relating openness to mistreatment from the target side.

Emotional Stability Emotional stability (also referred to as negative affectivity by Watson & Clark, 1984) is defined as the tendency to be reactive to stressful environments, to frequently experience anxiety and other negative emotions, and to worry and be emotionally unstable (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Generally, research suggests that low levels of emotional stability are associated with comparatively high likelihood of occupational accidents and injuries. For instance, in a study by Sutherland and Cooper (1991), offshore drilling personnel who were low in emotional stability reported having significantly more accidents and injuries than individuals high in emotional stability. Similar results have been found for other occupations such as firefighters (Liao et al., 2001), industrial plant workers (Davids & Mahoney, 1957), and union workers (Iverson & Erwin, 1997). Finally, in meta-analytic analyses conducted by both Clarke and Robertson (2008) and Christian et al (2009), results provided confirmation of this significant, positive relationship between neuroticism (reverse scored emotional stability) and negative safety outcomes (ρ = .30 and ρ = .19, respectively).

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The positive relationship between emotional stability and occupational safety may have several explanations. Low emotional stability has been empirically linked to low motivation to take control over one’s environment (Judge, 1993) and to a lack of intrinsic motivation (Furnham, Petrides, Jackson, & Cotter, 2002). Both of these factors are likely to hamper motivation to perform safely in the workplace. Additionally, individuals who are low in emotional stability tend to be hypervigilant about their own thoughts and are likely to respond to stressful situations with anxiety, both of which might divert attention away from their behavior and potential hazards in the work environment. Emotional stability is related to workplace mistreatment, both in relation to actors and targets. For instance, targets of bullying and other forms of mistreatment in the workplace have been found to be lower in emotional stability than nontargets in various samples around the world (e.g., Coyne et al., 2000; Glaso et al., 2007; Matthiesen & Einarsen, 2001; Vartia, 1996). This personality trait has also been linked to abusive supervision, which is psychological abuse specifically from supervisors (Aquino, 2000; Zellars, Tepper, & Duffy, 2002). These results were summarized in a meta-analysis by Bowling and Beehr (2006) who found a mean correlation of .25 between neuroticism (reverse scored emotional stability) and mistreatment. Further, on the actor side, meta-analyses summarized in Table 3 showed a positive correlation of neuroticism with mistreatment. Various explanations for the relationship between emotional stability and workplace mistreatment exist. From the actor side, individuals who are low on emotional stability are more reactive to stressful situations, and thus experience more negative emotion. Given that negative emotion is associated with and is often considered a trigger for aggressive behaviors (Spector & Fox, 2005), it would be expected that there would be a negative relationship between emotional stability and engaging in mistreatment. For targets the behavior of low emotionally stable individuals may directly and indirectly provoke mistreatment. To the extent that individuals low in emotional stability engage in aggressive behaviors toward others, they may instigate similar behaviors in kind, or what in the context of incivility, Andersson and Pearson (1999) referred to as the incivility spiral. Individuals low in emotional stability might also inadvertently provoke others. First, they may tend to be suspicious of others (Matthiesen & Einarsen, 2004), which can make it difficult for them to develop positive working relationships with colleagues. Further, individuals who express frequent negative emotions and a general negativity at work might tend to

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anger others to the point that they engage in abusive and even violent behavior. Self-Esteem Self-esteem is the extent to which an individual feels that he or she is a competent, need-satisfying individual (Korman, 1976). There is not a great deal of research to date that has examined self-esteem in relation to workplace safety. However, of the research that exists, self-esteem appear to be negatively related to accidents and injuries, that is, the lower one’s selfesteem (or generalized self-efficacy), the more likely an employee is to experience workplace accidents and injuries (Cellar, Yorke, Nelson, & Carroll, 2004; Smith & Heckert, 1998). One reason why this relationship exists may be due to individuals low on these traits feeling that they are not capable of performing certain tasks, thus decreasing their sense of control over the situation. Specifically, if they feel they are not capable, then they do not believe that they have the ability to change things, and therefore they will not act in a proactive manner to avoid or prevent accidents and injuries on the job (Burke, Clarke, & Cooper, 2011, p. 105). Regarding workplace mistreatment, it appears that self-esteem may play a critical role, both for the actor and the target. For instance, Matthiesen and Einarsen (2007) found in a sample of over 2,000 employees that targets of bullying reported significantly lower levels of self-esteem than those who were not involved in bullying at work. Similar results have also been found in research by Harvey and Keashly (2003), and a meta-analysis conducted by Bowling and Beehr (2006) further supports the significant relationship between these variables (ρ = −.21). Thus, it appears that being low in selfesteem attracts instances of violence or abuse, perhaps because these individuals appear vulnerable and are seen as “easy targets.” However, as Aquino and Thau (2009) note, it is also possible that self-esteem may be an outcome of victimization, such that the experience of being a target itself causes people to experience lower self-esteem. In terms of actors, research suggests that both the level and stability of one’s self-esteem is related to how likely an individual is to engage in mistreatment. Regarding level, some research has found that individuals are more likely to be aggressive when self-esteem is low (e.g., Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2005), while others suggest that aggressive behaviors are more likely when individuals have overly high selfesteem (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). However, perhaps even more compelling is the research that examines self-esteem stability, such as

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research by Kernis, Grannemann, and Barclay (1989) that found that individuals were more likely to react with anger and hostility when they reported their self-esteem as high but unstable. Thus, it may not be whether self-esteem is consistently high or low, but rather, it is whether or not it is unstable that is a factor in mistreatment.

Locus of Control Locus of control is defined as the generalized expectancy about control over rewards in life (Rotter, 1966). An internal LOC is characterized by having feelings of personal control, while an external LOC is characterized by feelings that external forces, such as luck, fate, or powerful others have control. Research suggests that the more external one’s LOC, the more likely he or she is to engage in unsafe practices and have more accidents in the workplace (Janicak, 1996; Jones & Wuebker, 1993). This is likely because an individual with an external LOC has a tendency to believe that accidents and injuries at work cannot be controlled. Therefore such individuals will hesitate to take positive actions to avoid accidents. Meta-analytic evidence by Christian et al. (2009) supports this relationship, such that individuals with an internal LOC were more likely to abide by safety rules and regulations (ρ = .35) and be less likely to have accidents or injuries (ρ = −.26) in comparison to their counterparts with an external LOC. Wuebker (1986) developed the construct and a measure of safety-specific LOC, which is the degree to which an individual feels that the consequences of safety behavior is under his or her control. Aside from early work by Jones and Wuebker (1985, 1993) that found an external safety LOC is related to employee accidents, little research has examined this safetyspecific measure of LOC. This construct seems particularly relevant to the study of accidents and injuries. Regarding actors, LOC has been found to relate significantly to mistreatment. For example, in a study of employees at a mental health facility, Storms and Spector (1987) found that employees having an external LOC were more likely to respond to organization frustration by engaging in aggressive acts than those with an internal LOC. Similar results were found by Perlow and Latham (1993), who found that individuals with an external LOC were more likely to engage in abusive behaviors at work. Additionally, regarding safety-specific LOC, Jones (1985) found evidence to suggest that having an external safety-specific LOC puts individuals at a higher risk to engage in various negative behaviors, such as workplace mistreatment.

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DEMOGRAPHICS Gender There are very large differences in the accident and injury experiences of men and women (Hoskins, 2005). The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported than men comprised over 60% of nonfatal injury cases (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013), and 92% of fatal injury cases (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014a). At least some of the reason for these gender differences in injuries can be accounted for by gender distribution across industry and occupation. Men are far more likely to be found in high-risk occupations where threats to health and safety are commonplace. The relationship between gender and the potential for being a target of workplace mistreatment is not as clear, as studies have been inconsistent. Some studies found women to report more victimization in the workplace than men (e.g., Aquino & Bradfield, 2000; Cortina, Magley, Williams, & Langhout, 2001), while others the opposite (e.g., Jennifer, Cowie, & Ananiadou, 2003), and still others found no differences (Vartia, 1996; Zellars et al., 2002). Meta-analytic evidence suggests that females are less likely to be victimized than men (Bowling & Beehr, 2006), though this relationship was quite weak (ρ = −.05), suggesting little differences in the incidence rates across gender. From the actor perspective, although some studies have found no gender differences (e.g., Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Inness, Barling, & Turner, 2005), others have found that men engage in aggressive behaviors more than their female counterparts (e.g., Dupre´ & Barling, 2006; Haines, Marchand, & Harvey, 2006; Parkins, Fishbein, & Ritchey, 2006). As shown in Table 4, meta-analyses find somewhat higher rates for men. However, it should be noted that most of these studies measured mistreatment via selfreports, and there is the possibility that there are gender-related reporting biases. As noted by Spector and Zhou (2014), aggressive behaviors are less socially acceptable for women than men, so it is possible that women underreport their mistreatment behavior, and given the small effect size, even a small bias might produce the gender differences that have been observed.

Age Research has generally found young workers to be more likely to experience accidents and injuries in the workplace (e.g., Chau et al., 2007). As an

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explanation, it has been suggested that a lack of job experience and knowledge leads to an increased risk for accidents and injuries on the job (Burke et al., 2011, p. 126; Chau et al., 2007). Gyekye and Salminen (2009) found in a study of Ghanian industrial workers that younger workers (those less than 39 years of age) reported significantly worse perceptions of safety, less compliance with safety procedures, and had more accidents in comparison to older workers (40 years of age and above). As workers get older, the frequency of accidents decreases (e.g., Chau et al., 2010). However, this is not the case when examining injury severity. The older a person, the more likely he or she will be at risk of experiencing a severe injury that can require a long recovery time or even result in permanent disability (Laflamme & Menckel, 1995). The difference in severity of injury is often attributed to the aging process, making older individuals more prone to tissue damage, and needing a longer time to heal. In addition, older workers in some jobs might experience a decline in physical strength and dexterity that increases their chances of severe injury (Burke et al., 2011, p. 125; Chau et al., 2010; Laflamme & Menckel, 1995). Age does not seem to be as much of a factor in predicting whether or not one will be the target of workplace mistreatment. For instance, Zellars et al. (2002) reported no significant relationship between age and perceptions of abusive supervision. Similarly, meta-analytic evidence suggests that age is not significantly related to mistreatment (Bowling & Beehr, 2006). Some evidence suggests that older individuals are slightly less likely to engage in workplace mistreatment than their younger counterparts (Haines et al., 2006; Inness et al., 2005; McFarlin, Fals-Stewart, Major, & Justice, 2001). However, other studies have found no significant relationship between age and the mistreatment (Douglas & Martinko, 2001; Dupre´ & Barling, 2006; Greenberg & Barling, 1999). Further, Greenberg and Barling (1999) found that this lack of a significant relationship was consistent regardless of whether the target was a supervisor, coworker, or subordinate.

CONCLUSIONS Our goal with this chapter was to present an integration and overview of the various threats to worker health and safety that are typically found in

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disparate literatures. We provide an integrative review of the literatures on potential antecedents to workplace accidents that lead to unintended injury and illness, and on mistreatment in the workplace. Our choice to focus on environmental factors of organizational climate and leadership, and on individual differences of personality, age, and gender was based on the availability of research literature in these areas. There are many commonalities in the potential antecedents of health and safety shown in Fig. 1. These commonalities suggest that it can be fruitful to take a broad view of safety as encompassing a disparate set of potential exposures that lead to an overlapping set of health outcomes. Fig. 2 is intended as a step in that direction, expanding the Neal and Griffin (2004) safety model to incorporate an expanded set of motives and behaviors to remain safe from a variety of workplace hazards. Many of the same antecedents might operate across various hazards so that a single program of safety might accomplish multiple goals. As we discussed, there is evidence that both mistreatment climate (e.g., incivility and violence prevention) and safety climate operate through many of the same mechanisms and have similar outcomes for the physical and psychological health of employees. Although the development of domainspecific climates has the potential to add precision to the prediction of outcomes, the limited evidence to date questions that assumption. In other words there might be a higher order “safety climate” that encompasses safety not only from physical hazards and accidental exposures, but to interpersonal exposures to mistreatment as well. Organizations that are concerned about employee safety might not make fine distinctions in the nature of the factors that threaten employee health and well-being. In hospitals, for example, where employees are exposed to many physical and interpersonal hazards, good climates for safety are likely broad and cover all sorts of hazards. Thus as management focuses on safety from biological and chemical hazards, it also focuses on safety from mistreatment, as well. Even though safety protocols might differ depending on the nature of the hazard, whether or not organizations have strictly enforced protocols might apply across the board. There are individual differences in the extent to which people are injured due to accidents, and are targets of mistreatment. Some variables predict both forms of exposures and outcomes. Other variables differ, for example, gender is an important factor in accidents and injuries, but seems to be at best a minor factor in being the target of mistreatment. Emotional stability seems to be particularly important in both domains, as individuals low on

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this trait are at particular risk for both accidents/injuries and mistreatment. Although individual differences have been shown to relate to safety behavior and outcomes, it is not entirely clear what the mechanisms might be. Our expanded version of the Neal and Griffin (2004) model suggests that the effect is indirect through motivation and knowledge, but research needs to determine if there are more direct mechanisms. For example, Aquino and Thau (2009) noted that the greater likelihood of individuals low in selfesteem to experience mistreatment might be due to their being unable to assertively defend against aggressive behavior by others. There are many parallels in the literature on workplace accidents and mistreatment. This can also be seen in the research on environmental factors showing that climate and leadership are important for both. It can be seen in the research on individual differences where in many cases both accidents and mistreatment are predicted by the same personality variables. We integrated both of these streams of research by expanding one of the dominant models of safety, developed to explain accidents (Neal & Griffin, 2004). We not only added corresponding mistreatment variables to the model, but as shown in the figure, we also suggest that there are connections between each corresponding safety and mistreatment variable, for example, individuals who are motivated to take action to remain safe from accidents are likely motivated to take action to remain safe from mistreatment. Furthermore, we suggest that the various forms of climate overlap, and that likely organizations with good climates for one hazard will have good climates for others. All this suggests that it would be fruitful to further explore connections between physical and interpersonal exposures with the goal of finding ways to enhance employee safety from all risks. An integrated set of interventions that might include developing a broad climate of safety and effective supervisory practices might go a long way to keep employees safe from all risks to health and well-being.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Preparation of this chapter was supported by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Sunshine Education and Research Center (Training Grant No. T72OH008438).

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HOW DO WE KNOW WHEN WE ARE TREATED FAIRLY? JUSTICE RULES AND FAIRNESS JUDGMENTS Russell Cropanzano, Marion Fortin and Jessica F. Kirk ABSTRACT Justice rules are standards that serve as criteria for formulating fairness judgments. Though justice rules play a role in the organizational justice literature, they have seldom been the subject of analysis in their own right. To address this limitation, we first consider three meta-theoretical dualities that are highlighted by justice rules
the distinction between justice versus fairness, indirect versus direct measurement, and normative versus descriptive paradigms. Second, we review existing justice rules and organize them into four types of justice: distributive (e.g., equity, equality), procedural (e.g., voice, consistent treatment), interpersonal (e.g., politeness, respectfulness), and informational (e.g., candor, timeliness). We also emphasize emergent rules that have not received sufficient research attention. Third, we consider various computation models purporting to explain how justice rules are assessed and aggregated to form fairness judgments. Fourth and last, we conclude by reviewing research

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that enriches our understanding of justice rules by showing how they are cognitively processed. We observe that there are a number of influences on fairness judgments, and situations exist in which individuals do not systematically consider justice rules. Keywords: Fairness; fairness judgments; justice rules; organizational justice

Research suggests that perceptions of workplace fairness bring beneficial results to both employees and employers. When workers judge that they have been treated fairly, they tend to show more positive work attitudes, higher job performance, and more citizenship behaviors (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001; Cropanzano, Byrne, Bobocel, & Rupp, 2001; Rupp, Shao, Jones, & Liao, 2014). Alternatively, low levels of fairness are associated with counterproductive work behaviors (Devonish & Greenidge, 2010; Henle, 2005; Holtz & Harold, 2013) and turnover intentions (Nadiri & Tanova, 2010; Parker & Kohlmeyer, 2006). The effects of justice judgments, though important for organizational behavior, beg a more subtle question. This question underscores the need for additional theory development and will form the basis of this chapter
How does a person “know” that an event is fair or unfair? Something important needs to happen before an occurrence is judged to be (un)fair. Fairness, in an important manner of speaking, is not an objective quality of the work environment. An event or feature of the workplace must first be appraised by someone before it can become “fair” (Mikula, 2005). This can be done by comparing the occurrence itself
which could involve such things as interpersonal treatment, an allocation, or a decision process
to a set of evaluative criteria (Rupp & Paddock, 2010). These standards act as a sort of cognitive measuring device, akin to a ruler, that allows individuals to ascertain the amount of fairness they have received. Following from Leventhal (1980), we refer to these criteria as “justice rules,” though they have gone by a number of different names. Regardless of the nomenclature, people use justice rules to decide whether they have been treated appropriately. Moreover, justice rules are often viewed as normative because they tend to be shared by others (Rupp et al., 2014), at least within a given culture (James, in press; Li & Cropanzano, 2009; Shao,

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Rupp, Skarlicki, & Jones, 2013), and to some extent across human beings as a whole (Folger & Skarlicki, 2008). In this chapter we explore justice rules, with an eye to reviewing the contemporary evidence. As we hope to show, greater attention to justice rules will inform researchers and practitioners as to why and how people make their fairness judgments. A close look at justice rules will also raise various meta-theoretical questions. These matters speak to the theoretical assumptions underlying organizational justice research. By first working through these meta-theoretical issues, and considering current evidence in light of them, we hope to promote a richer and deeper understanding of workplace fairness.

JUSTICE RULES: AN OVERVIEW WITH THREE META-THEORETICAL DUALITIES Justice rules are defined formally by Leventhal (1980, p. 30) as “an individual’s belief that a distribution of outcomes, or procedure for distributing outcomes, is fair and appropriate when it satisfies certain criteria.” Leventhal was writing in the days before interactional justice was recognized as a distinct type (Bies & Moag, 1986; Bobocel & Holmvall, 2001), and so he did not explicitly mention interpersonal treatment (Bies, 2001) or shared information (Bies, 1987). More recently, Lau and Wong (2009, p. 281) presented a more modern definition, arguing that rules are “selfbased standards, or expectations, derived from individuals’ socialized or internalized values, referring to the moral obligations held by individuals in a specific context.” It is through the application of these rules that employees are able to evaluate fairness (Rupp & Paddock, 2010). We borrow the term “rule” from Leventhal (1980, p. 30), Sheppard and Lewicki (1987, p. 161), Hollensbe, Khazanchi, and Masterson (2008, p. 1099), and Colquitt and Rodell (2011, p. 1187). Within the literature, these comparative standards have gone by a number of names. For example, the terms “normative criteria” (Cuguero´-Escofet & Fortin, 2014, p. 436) and moral “norm” (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998, p. 59) capture the phenomenon we are discussing here. Likewise, as this research has been concerned with the psychology of fairness, rules have been given such designations as “justice criteria” (Colquitt, 2001, p. 387; Williams, Karriker, & Williams, 2013, p. 3) or behavioral “standard[s]” (Cropanzano, Rupp, Mohler, & Schminke, 2001, p. 4). They have also been termed “elements”

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(Brockner, Ackerman, & Fairchild, 2001, p. 181; Citera & Stuhlmacher, 2001, p. 309; Cropanzano et al., 2001, p. 191; Kernan & Hanges, 2002, p. 916) and, in the case of procedural justice, “policies” (Cropanzano & Byrne, 2001, p. 31). By whatever appellation, justice rules play a common role in various theories. Specifically, they act as a sort of “benchmark” so that people can render fairness assessments. For now, we will outline the process in a general way, filling in the details later in the chapter. When individuals experience salient events, and especially those that are unfavorable and unanticipated, they try to make sense of them (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998). In order to do so, they evaluate actual events with respect to justice rules. When events meet or exceed the demands of these rules, then individuals feel that they have been treated fairly. When events fall short of these normative standards, then individuals are likely to feel a sense of unfairness. Fig. 1 attempts to capture these ideas in a general way. We caution that Fig. 1, as well as our loose presentation so far, are simplifications. In practice, the details of these judgments are complex and are still being researched (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Lind, 2001). It is noteworthy that fairness decisions can involve deliberate and conscious processing (German, Fortin, & Read, 2014), but they very often do not (Goldman & Thatcher, 2002). These evaluations can be made automatically (Bobocel, McCline, & Folger, 1997), while using heuristic processing (Van den Bos, Lind, & Wilke, 2001). However, these observations, important though they are, do not invalidate the original point. Even if we are not consciously aware of the comparison, an event can be understood to be more or less fair after it is evaluated with respect to one or more cognitive rules (Rupp & Paddock, 2010). We will spend time later discussing various information processing issues that are involved in making the inferential leap from justice rules-tofairness judgments. Indeed, this material will be the bulk of our chapter. However, these matters will be better considered after we have first addressed three meta-theoretical dualities
justice versus fairness, indirect versus direct measurement, and normative versus descriptive approaches. Event occurs (especially when unexpected and/or negative)

Justice rule is applied

Fig. 1.

Justice Rules Fairness Judgments.

Individual makes a fairness judgment

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As we shall see, each of these matters is relevant for a thorough understanding of justice rules.

“Justice” versus “Fairness” Historically, organizational justice researchers have tended to use the words “justice” and “fairness” as synonyms (for discussions of this, see Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Cropanzano & Stein, 2009; Fortin & Fellenz, 2008). While it has been widely accepted to use “justice” and “fairness” interchangeably, the study of justice rules renders this problematic (cf. Mikula, 2005). This difficulty transpires because this historically loose terminology provides two substitutable names for two different phenomena. In this way, the justice/fairness duality fails to distinguish between justice rules and fairness judgments, adding an additional layer of ambiguity (Goldman & Cropanzano, 2015). Implications of This Duality for the Study of Justice Rules As we have already seen, theories of justice make a distinction between the normative standards, the justice rules, and the evaluative judgment, or the fairness assessment. On the one hand, there is a comparison between an occurrence and some set or subset of evaluative criteria. On the other hand, there is a resulting conclusion (Williams et al., 2013). These issues are related, of course, because the latter is presumed to result from the former. Nevertheless, they are also conceptually distinct, and it is important to highlight their differences so that we can better understand how fairness judgments are formed. Interestingly, the organizational sciences are not the only, or even the first, discipline to encounter this definitional problem. According to Goldman (in press) legal scholarship requires a parallel distinction between adherence to the law and the subjective judgment of whether said adherence was appropriate. The former is an issue of “justice,” the latter of “fairness” (Dworkin, 1986). For example, in the United States, compliance with the equal protection clause would be considered just; the evaluative judgment of a particular decision would be an issue of fairness (Goldman & Cropanzano, 2015; Sadurski, 1985; for a philosophical discussion, see Bird, 1967). It is noteworthy how closely this legal distinction between justice and fairness parallels the work of behavioral scientists (e.g., Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Leventhal, 1980; Williams et al., 2013). The challenge is to distinguish between evaluative fairness judgments and the features of the

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situation that might produce them. As we will see below, it may be worth borrowing the legal terminology. Implications of This Duality for the Study of Justice Rules The concerns we have raised over the justice/fairness duality are not new. A number of scholars have visited this issue, including Colquitt and Rodell (in press), Cuguero´-Escofet and Rosanas (2013), Goldman (in press), and Mikula (2005). The most commonly recommended solution is to adopt a nomenclature similar to that employed in juridical research. On the one hand, the term “justice” pertains to the rules, or the individual’s assessment of those rules (Williams et al., 2013), that are often antecedent to a fairness evaluation. On the other hand, “fairness” refers to the evaluative judgment. These judgments are partially caused by justice rules, but as we shall see they have other causes as well (e.g., Nicklin, Greenbaum, McNall, Folger, & Williams, 2011). We have here adopted this terminology. Among other things, it underscores the distinction between appraisals of justice rules and subjective assessments of fairness. Unfortunately, the weight of history demands some exceptions. As the justice/fairness distinction is somewhat new to the organizational sciences, prior researchers have usually employed the older terminology, using “justice” and “fairness” as equivalent substitutes. For this reason, we will need to use the original terms when reviewing certain phenomena, especially for research programs that date back a number of years. For example, when we later explore the different measurement approaches, we will refer to them by their original names
“indirect measures” and “direct measures” (Lind & Tyler, 1988). Later, we will review evidence pertaining to overall “justice” (Ambrose, Xo, & Griffith, in press). In our present nomenclature, most of these studies would be described as investigations of overall “fairness.” We will note these cases as we encounter them.

“Indirect” Measures versus “Direct” Measures Some years ago Lind and Tyler (1988) reviewed existing measures of justice. They found that self-report scales could be divided into two types, depending on the type of query posed to respondents. The two types were “indirect” and “direct.” This distinction is important. As we shall see, it roughly corresponds to the parallel distinction between justice rules and fairness judgments.

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The indirect measures operationalize organizational justice by inquiring about the presence or absence of various events, outcomes, and/or transactions that can be presumed to cause fairness judgments. Colquitt and Rodell (in press) state that such items query for “descriptive perceptions of justice rule adherence” (p. 2). These instruments request that individuals evaluate various normative standards (e.g., “Consistent standards and procedures were used in allocating jobs among employees during the reorganization,” Kernan & Hanges, 2002, p. 921, and “Have those procedures been free of bias?,” Colquitt, 2001, p. 389). These sorts of items require a justice criteria assessment (Williams et al., 2013, p. 3). Mikula (2005, p. 201) maintains that measures of this “type refer to the degree, intensity, or amount of certain variables that, according to relevant justice theory and empirical evidence, contribute to the perception of justice and fairness.” The direct measures specifically request a subjective evaluation of fairness or perceived justice (e.g., “My instructor treated me fairly last semester,” Williams et al., 2013, p. 17). As Mikula (2005, p. 201) sums up the matter, they “directly ask for the assessment of perceived justice or fairness of a given state of affairs.” Likewise, Colquitt and Rodell (in press) state that these items request a “more evaluative perceptions of fairness” (p. 2). Consistent with this, Williams and her colleagues (p. 3) refer to this as a justice assessment (Williams et al., 2013, p. 3). In our present terminology
which was taken from Cuguero´-Escofet and Rosanas (2013) and Colquitt and Rodell (in press)
we would use the term fairness assessment. Implications of This Duality for the Study of Justice Rules Historically (and consistent with the definitional confusion that we reviewed above), both direct and indirect measures have sometimes been treated as generic indicators of “justice” or “fairness,” where the words “justice” and “fairness” were understood as synonyms (Mikula, 2005). However, the study of justice rules renders this approach problematic. When the concept of a justice rule is distinguished from the concept of a fairness judgment, then it appears that indirect and direct measures are assessing different things (Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Goldman, in press). In support of this contention, Williams et al. (2013, Studies 1
2) found that indirect assessments of justice failed to fully account for the variance captured by direct measures. Likewise, Colquitt et al. (2001) present metaanalytic findings suggesting that indirect and direct measures have distinguishable nomological networks (for additional evidence, see Colquitt & Rodell, in press).

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The indirect measures are assessing the justice rules that are (presumably) used as criteria for rendering a fairness assessment (Goldman & Cropanzano, 2015). That is, they request that the respondent apply an evaluative standard to an event. To illustrate this justice criteria assessment, here are two examples from Mikula (2005, p. 201): “How much of an opportunity were you given to describe your views before a decision was made?” and “How politely were you treated by the manager?” Notice that the first item pertains to voice, which is a rule for procedural justice (Hoogervorst, De Cremer, & van Kijke, 2013). The second item pertains to politeness, which is a rule for interactional justice (Bies & Moag, 1986). In this way, the indirect measures are emphasizing the application of justice rules (cf. Colquitt & Rodell, in press). Conversely, the direct measures are assessing fairness judgments (Colquitt & Rodell, in press). To illustrate this general fairness assessment, let us consider an example from Mikula (2005, p. 201): “How fair do you regard the procedures used to make the decision?” In this case, the respondents are not so much describing what happened vis-a`-vis a rule, but are rather indicating their assessment of its fairness (Colquitt, 2001). Mikula (2005, p. 201) provides a second example: “How politely were you treated by the manager?” This is an example of an indirect measure of interpersonal (or interactional) justice.

Why This Duality Is Important? The indirect/direct duality suggests that researchers have been measuring both fairness assessments and also the criteria that are used to make these judgments (e.g., Colquitt, 2001; Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Goldman & Cropanzano, 2015), but generally studies have not included both measures together (Karriker & Williams, 2003; Williams et al., 2013). As a result, these two conceptual matters have not always been carefully distinguished and one has to closely examine the individual items used in particular studies in order to see if they are more relevant to justice rules or to fairness assessment (Mikula, 2005). Consider, as an example, the overall justice literature. Among these studies, it has been common to employ a direct measure of overall justice but indirect measures for each justice type (e.g., Ambrose & Schminke, 2009; Jones & Martens, 2009). However, at least one study, Kim and Leung (2007), assessed both overall justice and the justice types with direct measures. This creates challenges for researchers seeking to generalize from one study to another.

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Beyond these psychometric considerations there is also a conceptual matter. Existing theory suggests that justice judgments require (at least) two appraisals (Williams et al., 2013)
the justice criteria assessment and the general fairness assessment. Theory further provides a particular causal order. The indirect measures, which measure conformity to justice rules, should be causally prior to the direct measures, which measure the resulting fairness judgment (Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Mikula, 2005). This causal order is presented in Fig. 1, which illustrates the application of justice rules as causing evaluative judgments. Given this background, we can see why the use of an indirect measure without a direct measure, or a direct measure without an indirect measure, poses a potential limitation. If both types of measures are not included, then the model presented in Fig. 1 cannot be tested. This is because one cannot examine a mediator if either the presumed antecedent (justice rules, in this case) or the presumed mediator (fairness judgments) is unmeasured (Zhao, Lynch, & Chen, 2010). Essentially, we cannot tell if Fig. 1, or related models, fits the data unless we have information pertaining to both assessments. There is a closely related analytic issue that we also need to consider. If the theoretical model specifies at least two steps (indirect-to-direct or justice rules-to-fairness judgments), and the researcher excludes either, then the operational model is potentially misspecified. Some relevant variable or variables may not have been included (Loehlin, 1987). When using passively collected data (i.e., lacking an experimental manipulation), parameter estimates for causal inferences could be misleading if the predictors are intercorrelated with each other as well as with the criterion variable (James, Mulaik, & Brett, 1982; Klem, 1995). To clarify this point, let us work through a specific and plausible example. Suppose that for some criterion variables, justice rules have both indirect effects (i.e., partial mediation through fairness judgments) and direct (unmediated) effects. This possibility is not inconsistent with the metaanalytic findings of Colquitt et al. (2001). Colquitt and his colleagues argued that indirect measures have stronger relationships to certain criterion variables than do direct measures. Suppose further that the predictors, justice rules, and fairness judgments, are intercorrelated. Research supports this premise (Williams et al., 2013). If an empirical investigation only took a direct measure, but failed to accompany it with an indirect measure, then the effects of fairness evaluations could be overestimated. Due to the aforementioned association between direct and indirect instruments, the unmediated effects of the justice rule assessment could be partially (mis-)attributed to the fairness evaluation.

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In general, justice researchers should think carefully about the theories they are proposing (both explicitly and also implicitly) and include all of the relevant variables in their model. Failing this, our empirical tests may be incomplete. Unfortunately, relatively little research has explored comparable indirect and direct measures within the same study. Given the importance of this work, we will review the available evidence later in the chapter.

“Normative” Approaches versus “Descriptive” Approaches There is a final duality that we need to consider, and in some respects it may be the most fundamental. The study of justice rules highlights the distinction between the normative and descriptive approaches, or between normative justice theories and empirical research on justice (Cuguero´-Escofet & Fortin, 2014). The former approach, which is often associated with philosophy (Bird, 1967) and legal studies (Goldman, in press; Sadurski, 1985), uses logic and human experience to determine what actually is just and what justice should be. This approach seeks to produce a more or less objective set of standards that can be consulted by anyone in order to know if justice has been achieved or how justice should be done. The latter approach, which is usually associated with the social and behavioral sciences, uses scientific theory and empirical investigation to determine what people generally believe to be just and how they react to their perceptions of justice. Organizational justice, which is usually allied with the social sciences, tends to adopt this latter perspective and seeks to understand the basis and consequences of individuals’ justice judgments (Cropanzano & Stein, 2009). Organizational justice has been defined as “an area of psychological inquiry that focuses on perceptions of fairness in the workplace. It is the psychology of justice applied to organizational settings” (Byrne & Cropanzano, 2001, p. 4). In this paradigm, justice rules are antecedents of such fairness judgments. Therefore, it should be an empirical (and not a philosophical) question for organizational justice researchers to consider what is a valid justice rule. The normative and descriptive fields of justice research have remained largely separate. Both fields rely on different assumptions and methods (Cuguero´-Escofet & Fortin, 2014). Indeed, it seems clear that our empirical-psychological inquiry cannot definitively infer an “ought”
what “true” justice should be (Greenberg & Bies, 1992). Even if we find that a specific justice rule has been upheld, or that the majority of people

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find a specific justice rule important, this cannot tell us whether it is philosophically the “best” or even a “good” rule. Nevertheless, the findings of empirical research can be usefully considered in light of normative standards. Justice researchers can evaluate the situations they study according to at least three types of normative standards: (1) the normative ideals of those we research, (2) normative standards of the field of organizational justice, and (3) external philosophical standards. Only the first comparison remains fully in the descriptive/empirical domain, while the other two create intersections with normative justice conceptions. We will discuss each of these in turn. The Justice Ideals of Those We Research as a Normative Standard If people base their perceptions on a comparison with specific ought-to-be standards (e.g., Folger, 2001), then learning about justice perceptions requires researching people’s normative justice ideals. That is, through understanding what justice rules people use, and how these justice rules are organized in their mind, we can get deeper insights into the processes and motives that underlie people’s justice judgments. Describing what people’s justice rules are is one important step toward understanding their normative justice systems. This falls squarely into the social science field of organizational justice. Despite the centrality of understanding people’s normative concepts of justice, research on the justice rules that people use appears to have stagnated since the early waves of justice research (cf. Hollensbe et al., 2008); and people’s normative beliefs have often been treated like a “black box.” One of the objectives of this chapter is to advocate more research on this issue, in particular by more closely investigating people’s justice rule beliefs and use. Below, we will discuss, for example, the importance of person-centric and qualitative research in order to explore which justice rules people use to evaluate justice, how these rules and rule systems may change from one situation to another, and how they develop over time. The Normative Standards of the Field of Organizational Justice Psychologists and behavioral scientists tend to follow the ideal of the detached and independent researcher. Nevertheless, we argue that implicitly the field of organizational justice has developed something like its own normative justice framework, whereby a set of “traditional” justice rules has come to be understood as more than a mere description of what rules our research participants tend to use. For example, justice scholars have used “justice rules” and related terms for practices or behaviors that are

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generally viewed as ethically defensible. There are other independent variables that could influence our fairness evaluations, but they might not be ethically defensible (e.g., might not be justice rules, by this definition). We can illustrate this point with a specific example. Incidental mood can impact one’s sense of fairness (Cropanzano, Stein, & Nadisic, 2011; Sinclair & Mark, 1991, 1992). However, a transient mood state that is unrelated to the situation in question would usually not be seen as a valid basis for fairness judgments. For this reason, there is no incidental mood rule (though we will later discuss the work of Hollensbe et al., 2008, who refer to mood as an emergent rule). Leventhal (1980) makes this point explicitly when he distinguishes between “justice” and “quasi-justice” (for a similar distinction, see Seabright & Moberg, 1998). This puts justice researchers into the role of the arbiter who needs to decide which antecedent of justice qualifies as a normative rule and which does not. By suggesting that justice rules are fundamentally about underlying normative justice, the field implies that building in justice rules can promote workplaces that are actually fairer, and not simply appear to be fair (Greenberg, 1990). Thus, empirical justice research raises the expectation that “real” (normative) improvements of justice can follow from their work, not only perceptual improvements. This bears two risks. First, justice researchers “smuggle” their own judgments of what qualifies as a justice rule and what does not into their theories, without engaging in an open philosophical debate on these issues. Second, through mechanisms of tradition, justice researchers over time may elevate a specific set of rules to be the normative “gold standard,” even where this may not be empirically or philosophically warranted. It seems that organizational justice researchers have become so used to the set of “traditional” justice rules that these are often implicitly equated with justice. For example, when justice researchers speak about distributive justice they tend to speak about equity. Equity is a popular rule of distributive justice (cf. Davey, Bobocel, Son Hing, & Zanna, 1999), but there are alternative allocation norms that may also be viewed as fair (To¨rnblom & Kazemi, in press). There are also contexts (e.g., French civil service), where equality and seniority remain more important rules for distributive justice than equity. In empirical studies this confounding of the definitions of rules and fairness may happen in experimental designs and through the use of standardized indirect measures. For example, in experiments, it has become common place to equate the presence (absence) of voice with procedural (in)justice (cf. Bashshur & Oc, in press). This may leave the impression that normatively, procedural justice perceptions can best be raised by providing

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voice. Of course, experiments manipulating individual justice rules cannot provide such a normative insight. Indeed, were we to vary only the comfort of the participants’ seating arrangements, we might still find a difference in fairness perception between two groups. Nobody would want to conclude from this that organizations should best improve their procedural justice by investing in comfortable seating. A risk of muddling normative and empirical rules also exists when we are not sure what normative justice rules people use in a specific situation, yet we use indirect measures of justice. For example, it is conceivable that the most important rules in a specific situation are not included in the traditional item set (Colquitt & Rodell, in press). To return to the distinction between injustice and justice discussed above, one simple possibility is that a strong injustice has been committed, yet the items measure only indirect justice and fail to pick up on the most important transgression (Colquitt, Long, Rodell, & Halvorsen-Ganepola, 2015). In this case, we may still find that the justice items are related to behavioral and attitudinal consequences, yet the study would not be able to provide clear ideas as to how best to promote normative justice
either in the normative frame of the participants or from the viewpoint of an independent philosophical standard of justice. This is why reference to normative contributions may be useful, as discussed next.

External Philosophical Standards Finally, justice researchers, as well as those who apply justice research, may also look to the field of ethics and justice philosophy to compare descriptive findings with the external normative standards and rules suggested by these fields. Ethical justice reasoning is needed to reflect on what is the best way a situation can be managed
be it through the management of perceptions or of real underlying issues. This is because the organizational sciences, like other sciences, have objectives beyond description for its own sake. Though there are often disappointments (Pearce & Huang, 2012), the ultimate goal is to beneficially influence professional management practice (Hughes, Bence, Grisoni, O’Regan, & Wornham, 2011). Defined broadly, the objective is to produce organizations that actually treat their employees (and others) with justice (Cuguero´-Escofet & Rosanas, 2013). By contrast, the goal is not to treat employees in a way that makes them believe they are experiencing justice when in fact they are not. In other words, the goal is to be fair and not only to look fair (cf. Greenberg, 1990). Ethical theory can enable a critical look into reality and suggest possible changes, while

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descriptive empirical research can help us understand situations and perceptions and provide insights into what may be doable. To conclude, adopting a descriptive perspective has proven quite useful. Empirically oriented scholars have learned a great deal about the antecedents and consequences of justice perceptions. Even so, research on justice rules suggests that there is a danger of making too sharp a distinction between what is just (the normative approach) and what people believe to be just (the descriptive approach). Being fair requires that business and labor leaders take into account normative justice as well as descriptive justice. The justice rules approach suggests that scholars will need to borrow from both traditions (Fortin & Fellenz, 2008).

SPECIFIC RULES FOR DISTRIBUTIVE, PROCEDURAL, AND INTERACTIONAL JUSTICE In this section, we discuss the principal justice rules that have been identified by scholars. We organize this review into the three families widely used in the justice literature (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Cropanzano et al., 2001): distributive justice (rules pertaining to allocated outcomes), procedural justice (rules pertaining to decision processes), and interactional justice (rules pertaining to interpersonal treatment). We will also consider a four dimension model, which has been recommended by Colquitt et al. (2001). This model subdivides interactional justice into two parts
informational justice (rules pertaining to the proviso of social accounts and explanations) and interpersonal justice (rules pertaining to the treatment that people receive from others). We will conclude with a final section that explores new or emergent justice rules, which have not previously been widely considered (e.g., Hollensbe et al., 2008; Sheppard & Lewicki, 1987).

Rules for Distributive Justice Generally speaking, previous researchers have identified three primary rules of distributive justice: equity, equality, and need (Deutsch, 1985). By far the greatest amount of research attention has been devoted to these alternatives, and we will first turn our attention to reviewing this evidence. However, we will later see that there are additional rules for dividing up

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resources (Deutsch, 1975; Leventhal, 1980). Though these have received less attention, they may yet prove important. Equity Equity is grounded in the principle of merit or the notion that individuals should be rewarded based upon their relative contributions. Various theoretical models of equity have been proposed (e.g., Homans, 1960; To¨rnblom & Kazemi, in press). However, among organizational scientists, probably the most widely discussed theory is Adams’ (1963) equity theory. According to Adams (1965), individuals calculate and compare two outcome/input ratios
one for themselves and one for a referent other. If these ratios do not match, then this suggests that there is an inequity. There are two types of inequities
underreward (the target person’s outcome/input ratio is smaller than the referent’s outcome/input ratio) and overreward equity (the target person’s outcome/input ratio is larger than the referent’s outcome/input ratio). In either case, individuals are motivated to address this matter by restoring equity (Adams & Freedman, 1976). Many studies of equity theory have found evidence that a relationship exists between inputs and outputs (i.e., Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978), but fewer have presented empirical evidence of the proportionality aspect of the theory. Schokkaert and Overlaet (1989), for example, found that proportionality (i.e., double effort results in double reward) emerges when income division decisions are made in the presence of different levels of effort. Another study by Leventhal and Michaels (1971) integrated rules of accountability with equity theory and demonstrated that individuals judge fairness by examining ratios of inputs to outputs, but only for inputs where the target person has control. Equity theory has a number of interesting features that allow various mechanisms by which a wronged individual can restore fairness. For instance, one might lower effort or increase outcomes to achieve balance. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of equity theory is that it treats underreward as roughly symmetrical with overreward equity. The counterintuitive prediction does seem to have been supported (e.g., Adams, 1963; Greenberg, 1988; Pritchard, Dunnette, & Jorgenson, 1972), though people appear to be more consistent in their concern for underreward than in their concern for overreward (cf. Mowday & Colwell, 2003; Pritchard, 1969; Van den Bos, Peters, Bobocel, & Ybema, 2006). Equity theory also has its limitations, particularly related to its focus on merit-based allocations. As one might expect, this emphasis neglects

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alternative rules of distributive justice, such as equality and need. To account for a broader range of values utilized in distributive fairness judgments, a variety of additional rules have been suggested (Deutsch, 1975; Homans, 1961), among these are equality and need (e.g., Bordley, 1985; Deutsch, 1985; Mannix, Neale, & Northcraft, 1995; To¨rnblom & Kazemi, in press). Equity theory prioritizes the one rule over others by simply representing the alternatives as special cases of merit. Although this may work in simplified circumstances, it is debatable whether or not this is what occurs in real life applications.

Equality The equality principle, sometimes called “parity” (e.g., by Lerner, 1974, p. 539) is perhaps the oldest and most primitive concept of justice (Konow, 2003; Messick, 1993) and in its most simple form posits that all individuals should receive the same rewards regardless of their contribution (Cook & Hegtvedt, 1983; Deutsch, 1975). Empirical studies utilizing surveys sometimes show limited use of equality principles, but these neglect to fully demonstrate the ubiquity of egalitarianism (Schokkaert & Capeau, 1991). For instance, the equality rule is likely to be used when the interacting parties have a close interpersonal relationship (Austin, 1980; Peterson, 1975) or when the allocator anticipates future interaction with the counterpart (Mannix, 1994; Shapiro, 1975). Equality is also employed when the goal of the allocation is to build group cohesion and harmony (e.g., Bagarozzi, 1982; Colquitt & Jackson, 2006; Schwinger, 1980). Perhaps for this reason, Mikula and Schwinger (1978) found support for the use of equality in the distribution of earnings among soldiers, even when it is disadvantageous for the person making the decision. Additionally, individuals in collectivist cultures are more likely to use equality (as opposed to equity), at least when dividing goods among fellow ingroup members (Fischer & Smith, 2003; James, in press). Equality distributions may result for an additional, and perhaps more fundamental reason. Evidence suggests that equality may be a “default” evaluation rule that can be deployed as a heuristic (Allison, McQueen, & Schaerfl, 1992; Allison & Messick, 1990; Messick & Schell, 1992). In two studies Roch, Lane, Samuelson, Allison, and Dent (2000) had undergraduate participants allocate resources from a common pool. Roch and her colleagues found that when cognitive processing demands were high, cognitive capacity was lower. Therefore, individuals appeared to be using an “equality heuristic” (p. 185), assigning outcomes equally among team members.

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Conversely, when processing demands were lower and cognitive capacity was higher, individuals took into account contributions, assigning outcomes more equitably. Need The principle of need proposes that outputs be divided based on the specific needs of individuals (Deutsch, 1975). A few studies have supported the use of the need principle (e.g., Lamm & Schwinger, 1980; Konow, 2001; Webb Day, Holladay, Johnson, & Barron, 2013). Lamm and Schwinger (1980) find that proposed allocation of earnings between two students reflect different level of need for book purchases. A field study by Webb Day et al. (2013) provide evidence that employee need is related to reward allocations, even when organizational policy dictates a pay-for-performance model. Applications, however, are not absolute, but instead suggest a trade-off between need and the other distributive principles. For instance, certain types of benefits, such as training and childcare, might be best allocated through a need-based approach. In the next section, we will discuss how these trade-offs are cognitively considered. Issues in Applying Distributive Justice Rules For the most part, equity, equality, and need can each serve as normatively ethical (i.e., as justice rules). None of them are immoral per se. As such, people often do not use one rule or the other, but, rather, seek to balance these different principles. Understanding how distributive justice rules are balanced is a challenging task, but it is often necessary for understanding real world behavior. For instance, Persad, Wertheimer, and Emanuel (2009) examine the formulation of an allocation system for scarce medical resources. Their findings suggest that no single principle can cover all morally relevant issues when there are lives at stake. As found by Persad et al. (2009), for important real world decisions decision-makers are likely to take multiple justice rules into account. Given this challenge, a number of theorists have considered how individuals cognitively weight and combine information pertaining to distributive justice judgments (Deutsch, 1985). This research tradition, though important, is beyond the scope of our present analysis. For a better understanding, we recommend the excellent review by To¨rnblom and Kazemi (in press). Nevertheless, it is useful to consider one influential example. Leventhal (1980) proposed a justice judgment model which explicitly took into account equality and need, as well as equity. Leventhal (1980, p. 31)

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captured this idea in a quasi-mathematical format when he presented the following: Deserved outcome = wc Dby contributions þ wn Dby needs þ we Dby equality þ wo Dby other rules

ð1Þ

In Leventhal’s (p. 32) “justice judgment model” each D stands for “deservingness.” Notice that “deservingness” can come from multiple sources
contributions (equity), need, or equality. Leventhal also allows that “other rules,” in addition to these three, can determine deservingness. For example, there may be a “status rule” whereby “it is fair when persons of high social rank receive higher outcomes” (p. 33). We will set these other rules aside for now, returning to them in a later section. The key thing to note is that deservingness is derived from the application of justice rules to a particular case. The justice judgment model further recognizes that everyone does not apply each rule to the same degree. Each rule receives a particular weight (w) which designates how strongly it influences the preferred allocation. For instance, a social democratic thinker, such as Rawls (1971), would likely give weights to need (wn) and equality (we), but a lower weight to contributions (wc). A free market thinker, such as Friedman (1962), might give lower weights to need (wn) and equality (we), but a higher weight to contributions (wc). Notice that two individuals could agree completely on the particular facts and also upon the rules of justice, but because they evaluate the situation using differently weighted rules they come to different fairness judgments. It is conceivable that there are settings when w = 0 and a given rule is not considered at all. For example, people may sometimes be oblivious to the needs of outgroup members. While the w = 0 case is interesting, it is not necessarily the most common circumstance, at least not when an allocation decision is salient. An interesting feature of the justice judgment model is that the results of the wD products can be summed. This implies that they are additive. Leventhal (1980) suggests that individuals often take into account multiple rules when they make allocation decisions. However, this may be misleading. A unique characteristic of distributive rules is that aggregation is not simply additive because, in fact, the three rules often contradict one another. For instance, as one became more egalitarian, then there would be fewer rewards for high performers. Consequently, allocation decisions try to meet multiple criteria by making trade-offs. For example, Frohlich,

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Oppenheimer, and Eavy (1987a, 1987b) found that laboratory participants provided everyone with a basic amount of goods (roughly, equality, or need), but above that basic amount rewards were allocated based on the size of one’s potential contribution (equity). Similar results were obtained by Lissowski, Tyszka, and Okrasa (1991). It also bears mention that the justice judgment model is cognitively demanding. That is, it requires that individuals keep a lot of information in mind while doing reasonably complex operations (i.e., multiply multiple terms and sum the products) in order to reach a final decision. In practice, people use cognitive shortcuts, especially when they face other demands upon their cognitive capacity (German et al., 2014; Roch et al., 2000). As we saw earlier, simply dividing resources evenly, the equality heuristic, is a common rule-of-thumb (Allison & Messick, 1990; Allison et al., 1992; Messick & Schell, 1992). Some Conclusions before Moving on As we have indicated, much of the research on distributive justice rules tends to focus on three rules
equity, equality, and need. Furthermore, this research often considers when one is used to the exclusion of others. While this represents a solid start, it is also seriously limited for three reasons. First, there are more than three distributive justice rules. It would be worthwhile to consider others, such as status and property rights. Second, distributive justice rules are often used in combination with one another. However, these combinations usually involve certain compromises. For instance, if a needful person gets more resources than others, then the equality rule is apt to be violated. Third, people often apply rules, perhaps especially equality, in an unthinking manner (Allison & Messick, 1990). The use of heuristic shortcuts suggests that justice rules are not always applied deliberately. We will return to this point later in this chapter when we discuss fairness heuristic theory.

Rules for Procedural Justice Within the behavioral sciences, a well-known early list of procedural justice rules was provided by Leventhal (1976, 1980) and his colleagues (Leventhal, Karuza, & Fry, 1980). Building on prior research, Leventhal (1980) listed the following: the consistency rule, the bias-suppression rule, the accuracy rule, the correctability rule, the representativeness rule (of which voice is a part), and the ethicality rule. Empirical research on these

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rules varies and some, such as representativeness, have been disproportionally studied. Nevertheless, there is evidence that each is important. Consistency The consistency rule, as its name implies, refers to the level of variation in the use and application of procedures (Patient, 2011). Evidence of this rule was found in a laboratory study by Colquitt (2004) that manipulated levels of control provided to members of a team. When team leaders provided inconsistent levels of control, as compared to consistently high or low levels, members’ cooperation and performance significantly decreased. In an earlier laboratory study, participant judgments of procedural justice were significant lower when they were told they would have voice and did not receive voice as compared to scenarios where they were not told ahead of time that they would have voice (Van den Bos, Vermunt, & Wilke, 1996). Though people generally prefer that procedures be consistent (Leventhal, 1980), adherence to this rule may have greater effects on fair perception in some situations but weaker effects in others. In this regard, Colquitt and Jackson (2006) found that consistency was especially important in small teams but less so among larger groups. Despite this evidence, there are occasions when decision-makers violate the consistency rule. For example, following the 9-11 terrorists attacks convicted criminals received harsher sentences in federal judiciary (Stein, Steinley, & Cropanzano, 2011). However, these effects were only manifested for crimes with a high moral severity (e.g., sexual abuse, kidnapping) and not for crimes with a lower moral severity (tax evasion, food stamp fraud). Stein and Cropanzano (2011) interpreted these findings in light of terror management theory (TMT). According to TMT, mortality salience (such as death awareness) makes us more punitive of people toward individuals who violate social norms. This can cause inconsistent punishments for the same offense (for additional evidence, see Rosenblatt, Greenberg, Solomon, Pyszczynski, & Lyon, 1989). Bias-Suppression The second of Leventhal’s rules (1980), the bias-suppression rule, considers the extent to which procedures are neutral and not impacted by biases. A study investigating perceptions of dyadic disputes found evidence of the application of this rule. Reports of procedural fairness were consistently higher when the scenario was perceived to be neutral, or “open” and “based in fact” (Lind, Tyler, & Huo, 1997). Likewise, Colquitt and Jackson

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(2006) determined that bias-suppression is especially important within diverse work teams. A more recent study demonstrated that not only is bias-suppression important, but it can impact the effect of other procedural justice rules (De Cremer, 2004). In this study, 140 students were asked to complete four word tasks preceded by a questionnaire about qualities believed to be related to the tasks. In the biased condition, participants were told that the questionnaire would weigh heavily on their final score (a score which could result in additional money). In the unbiased condition, the questionnaire had little effect on the final score. Accuracy was manipulated by informing the participants that scores would be calculated based on all four tasks (accurate) or only one (inaccurate). In the biased condition, when participants did indeed view the authority as acting on biases, the accuracy of the score had no significant influence on procedural fairness (De Cremer, 2004). In the unbiased condition, however, procedural accuracy had a significant positive effect on fairness perceptions. Accuracy The accuracy rule represents the extent to which an individual believes evaluations of authority figures to be correct and utilize all available information (Leventhal, 1980). People often evaluate accuracy by comparing procedures to their expectations of accuracy, which develop from previous experiences. Vermunt, Wit, Van den Bos, and Lind (1996) demonstrated this effect by manipulating evaluation procedures of a test administered to high school students. Results indicated that inaccurate procedures followed by accurate procedures resulted in lower fairness judgments, higher levels of negative affect, and an increased likelihood to protest results (Vermunt et al., 1996). Accuracy can be rendered irrelevant, as shown above in the discussion of bias-suppression. In the De Cremer (2004) study mentioned above, when leaders were perceived to be unbiased, people become interested in the accuracy of the procedure. When the leader was believed to be biased, accuracy had less value. Correctability The correctability rule refers to the extent that errors in evaluations can be modified or amended (Leventhal, 1980). In general, procedural fairness is higher when employees have an opportunity to settle disputes through grievance systems (Gordon & Miller, 1984) and other forms of third-party conflict resolution (Goldman, Cropanzano, Stein, & Benson, 2010). Barclay and Harland (1995) demonstrated use of the correctability rule in a study

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utilizing scenarios sent out to public health nurses in the field. Respondents provided ratings of perceived fairness based on descriptions of a peer rating system. Perceptions of fairness and overall satisfaction were higher when the system allowed for corrections to be made to appraisal errors. Representativeness The representativeness rule reflects the extent to which the interests and concerns of individuals are represented in procedures (Leventhal, 1980). This rule, which is sometimes treated as a manifestation of voice, is probably the most widely examined aspect of the six procedural justice rules. Several studies have found that voice has a significantly positive effect on ratings of procedural justice fairness (Brockner et al., 1998; McFarlin & Sweeney, 1996; Van den Bos et al., 1996; Van den Bos, Wilke, & Lind, 1998). These effects are even found to persist for post-decision voice and independent of perceptions of control (Lind, Kanfer, & Earley, 1990). Perception of control, however, was found to moderate the impact of voice on fairness judgments, with beliefs of an impact resulting in a greater positive relationship between voice and procedural fairness judgments (Brockner et al., 1998). Culture is also important to voice. Brockner et al. (2001) found, for example, that reactions to a lack of voice were greater in low power distance cultures. Ethicality The ethicality rule refers to the extent that procedures reflect the moral values of an individual (Leventhal, 1980). Although an important issue in justice, research explicitly testing the ethicality rule is limited. However, the evidence available is supportive (Schminke, Ambrose, & Noel, 1997). The link between judgments of fairness and judgments of ethicality was, for example, found in a study by Singer and Singer (1997) that measured reactions to various scenarios. In cases where the agent (the person doing the act) was within the subject’s scope of justice (meaning someone they care about evaluating), the morality of the decision made by the agent significantly impacts perceived fairness. Issues in Applying Procedural Justice Rules: Too Much of a Good Thing? When reading the literature on procedural justice it is easy to get the impression that more is better. As procedural justice tends to bring benefits to organizations (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001; Colquitt et al., 2001), then one might superficially suppose that building in more procedural rules would necessarily bring more benefits. There is reason to think

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that this is not always the case. Two phenomena, in particular, are important in this regard, though the evidence is not yet definitive. Research on the voice effect suggests that, after a certain level is achieved, additional input has marginal returns. The initial provision of voice tends to increase levels of reported fairness. However, consistent with tenants of prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), subsequent additions tend to bring smaller returns (Hunton, Hall, & Price, 1998). While this curve appears to have the same rough shape across cultures, initial steepness may be different. That is, in some cultures the desire for voice is sated more quickly than in others (Price et al., 2001). Interestingly, when voice is removed people respond more negatively than when it is not added. This “loss curve” seems to be steeper than the “gain curve,” and this also occurs cross-culturally (Paddock et al., 2015). What exactly causes these cultural differences is unknown. It appears that power distance has an impact on the overall tendency for people to respond less favorably to lower levels of voice (Brockner et al., 2001). That is, the response in lower power distance cultures is greater than in higher power distance cultures. However, power distance does not seem to predict, or at least not conclusively or completely, the differences seen in the voice curves (Paddock et al., 2015; Price et al., 2001). Of course, research on satiation does not imply that the rules are ever bad things. Rather, they may add fewer benefits after a certain point is reached (Price et al., 2001). Research on legalism, however, suggests that when formal rules are too extensive and detailed, they can be deleterious to procedural fairness by damaging trust between employee and organization (Sitkin & Bies, 1993a; Sitkin & Roth, 1993). Additionally, Cropanzano and Byrne (2001) argue that formal rules tend to perpetrate more rules. Thus, once legalism takes hold it is difficult to mitigate its negative effects. Issues in Applying Procedural Justice Rules: Interactions among Rules When investigating the importance of procedural justice, it is important to consider which rules are being utilized. Studies of procedural justice effects sometimes consider only one or two of the rules (e.g., voice and consistency, see Van den Bos et al., 1996). Understanding which rules are being applied is important, because there is evidence that the rules interact with one another. For example, a study by Van den Bos and colleagues (1996) demonstrated the existence of several significant interactions between consistency and voice, indicating that consistency qualified the relationship between voice and fairness judgments. As mentioned earlier, De Cremer (2004) showed evidence of an interaction between bias-suppression and

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accuracy. Specifically, if an authority figure was believed to be biased, accuracy had no impact on perceptions of procedural fairness. Taken together, these findings suggest that more research is needed on how the different procedural justice rules work together.

Rules for Interactional Justice Overview of Interactional Justice Rules Interactional justice was identified following qualitative research by Bies and Moag (1986) and Sheppard and Lewicki (1987). Based on interviews with individuals who had experienced employment settings (e.g., job applicants), Bies and Moag (1986) determined that people were concerned with the quality of the interpersonal treatment that they received from others. Their concerns seemed to stem from such things as normative expectations about respect during the communication process. What became the principles of interactional justice were originally considered a social aspect of procedural justice (e.g., Cropanzano & Greenberg, 1997; Tyler & Bies, 1990). Later research, however, found that procedural and interactional justice had somewhat distinct nomological networks (e.g., Bobocel & Holmvall, 2001), with unique relationships among both antecedents and consequences (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001). Most researchers now recognize interactional justice as an independent type of fairness (Bies, 2001). Early work, as well as some more recent studies, tended to conceptualize interactional justice as a single construct with two aspects. There was an interpersonal aspect, which had to do with the social sensitivity with which one was treated by others (Bies & Moag, 1986; Mikula, 1986; Miller, 2001). In addition to the interpersonal aspect was an informational aspect that had to do with whether an individual was kept informed (Bies, 1987, 1989). Studies have shown, for example, that fairness perceptions were greater when employees received explanations and social accounts for decisions and actions (Bobocel, Agar, Meyer, & Irving, 1998; Bobocel & Farrell, 1996; Sitkin & Bies, 1993b). Issues in Applying Interactional Justice Rules: Interpersonal and Informational Justice Greenberg (1993a) argued for a further separation of the two aspects of interactional justice into two distinct dimensions. He termed them interpersonal justice and informational justice, respectively. This contention was

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buttressed by evidence that these two subtypes of interactional justice have distinct relationships with criterion variables (Colquitt et al., 2001) and perhaps distinct relationship with antecedents as well (Masterson, Byrne, & Mao, 2005). Empirical evidence was also obtained by Kernan and Hanges (2002) in a field study of pharmaceutical employees going through a reorganization. Results showed different antecedents for interpersonal and informational justice. Interpersonal justice was related to all four of the antecedents studied
input, support for victims, implementation perceptions, and communication quality
while informational justice was related only to implementation perception and communication quality. Greenberg also presented evidence of the importance of these two types of justice by showing that providing information and doing so in a sensitive manner was successful in reducing theft (Greenberg, 1993b) and increasing employee satisfaction with a ban on smoking (Greenberg, 1994). Building on these findings, Colquitt (2001) argued that interpersonal justice involved social sensitivity
politeness, dignified treatment, respectfulness, and absence of inappropriate remarks. Informational justice, he argued, involved communication
candor, thorough explanations, timeliness, and communication that was tailored to the needs of the recipient. He incorporated these rules into his influential measure of justice, which we discuss in a section below. Issues in Applying Interactional Justice Rules: An Alternative Model The same year that Colquitt (2001) offered his influential two-factor model of interactional justice, Bies (2001) proposed a somewhat different framework. Bies’ model had four dimensions: (a) harsh evaluative judgments, (b) dishonesty, (c) privacy violations, and (d) disrespectful conduct. Using survey data from 401 undergraduate students and cross-validating with data from 272 working professionals, Roch and Shanock (2006) found support for a scale based on Bies’ model (2001). Their resulting measure correlated very closely with Colquitt’s (2001) measure for interpersonal justice, thereby suggesting convergent validity. In addition, the measure did not correlate closely with Colquitt’s (2001) measure for informational justice, thereby suggesting discriminate validity. Roch and Shanock’s (2006) findings are important. They indicate that Bies (2001) may have identified some new rules of interactional justice. These new rules present a picture that is much broader than the original concept of interactional as a social component of procedural justice (Bies & Moag, 1986). In this earlier work, Bies and Moag only posited four components
justification, truthfulness, respect, and propriety.

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A broad look at the research literature buttresses Bies’ (2001) key points. As we have already seen, disrespectful treatment has been considered by various justice researchers (e.g., Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993a; Miller, 2001). Though less well-known, the other three dimensions
harsh evaluative judgments, dishonesty, privacy violations
also deserve close attention. As one might expect, there is a literature on destructive feedback, which is consistent with Bies’ contentions regarding the ill-effects of harsh evaluations (Baron, 1988, 1993). Likewise, evidence suggests that employees and others react poorly when people are dishonest with them (Bies, 2013; Shapiro, 1991; Shapiro & Bies, 1994). This is especially so when the untruth is committed directly rather than when information is passively omitted (Anton, 1990). There is also supportive evidence that privacy is important for justice in organizations (Bies, 1993; Stone & Stone, 1990; Stone & Stone-Romero, 1998). Factors influencing perceptions of privacy are extensive and include authorization of information disclosure, advance notice of information gathering, selection procedures for information gathering, relevance of information used in decision-making, intrusiveness of information gathering procedures, target of information disclosure, and outcome of information disclosure (Bies, 1993).

Missing Rules It remains an open question how many justice rules exist. The rules we have discussed thus far have received the most attention. However, they almost certainly do not represent the full set of standards that people use to decide whether they have been treated fairly. There may be additional rules which have not yet been investigated within organizational settings. The evidence is limited, but suggestive. To illustrate, we will consider a few specific examples with an emphasis on how these possibilities could impact our thinking about workplace fairness. Leventhal’s (1980) Rules for Distributive Justice While Leventhal (1980) is best known for his work on procedural rules, he also had much to say about distributive justice norms. While acknowledging that equity, equality, and need were important, Leventhal further maintained that there were at least three additional distributive justice rules: legitimate self-interest, status, and property rights. There is evidence for each, though more work is needed.

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Justice researchers have often considered self-interest as a cause of fairness. It is well-known that people tend to see personally beneficial outcomes distributively fairer (e.g., Diekmann, Samuels, Ross, & Bazerman, 1997). The effects of self-interested outcomes may go beyond distributive justice. In their important meta-analysis, Skitka, Winquist, and Hutchinson (2003) reported that experimental manipulations of outcome favorability also impacted procedural fairness judgments (r = .32). While the effects of self-interest are generally known, it is rarer to see this variable treated as a “justice rule.” To understand this seeming neglect, it is important to return to the distinction between a “rule” and a “quasi-rule.” A rule is normatively appropriate, a quasi-rule is not. It is harder to see self-interest as an ethical rule, if it prioritizes the self over others. However, Leventhal (1980) takes a different view of things. He is arguing that we should not prejudge self-interest as immoral. At times, it may be appropriate for a person to take extra to meet his or her own needs. In these cases, legitimate selfinterest should be treated as a justice rule. Using status as an allocation rule poses a similar consideration. When social rank is employed, people of higher status are expected to receive more and also to be provided with more choices (Fiske, 1991). People in industrialized Western nations may sometimes find it morally dubious to provide preferential treatment for high-status people, but it is common in many parts of the world (Haidt, 2012, see especially Chapter 5). For this reason, it is likely that status-based allocations are often viewed as quasi-rules, or perhaps even a source of bias, rather than as justice rules properly understood. As with self-interest, Leventhal (1980) implies a distinction between legitimate and illegitimate social hierarchies. Within a legitimate hierarchy, it could be appropriate to make a status allocation. For example, in collective bargaining agreements, labor unions advocate that seniority be used as a factor in personnel decisions (Yates, 2009, especially Chapter 4). Seniority can be seen as a type of social standing that merits additional rewards. A third possible rule is property rights, which raises a different set of issues. Though property rights vary across places and times, it is widely held as fair to assign goods to people on the basis of ownership (Bethell, 1998). For example, an individual who acquires a business is typically seen as deserving of that firm’s profits. Likewise, research on the endowment effect suggests that people view possessions as having extra value because they own them (e.g., Huck, Kirchsteiger, & Oechssler, 2005; Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1991). Consequently, it appears that the concept of “ownership” is psychologically meaningful and could well be used as an allocation norm. Given how important property rights are to capitalism
as well as to

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commerce more generally (e.g., Hayek, 1944; North, 2010)
it is perhaps surprising that more attention has not been paid to this justice rule. Property rights have been applied to organizational justice, albeit perhaps obliquely, in discussions of employment-at-will. The principle of employment-at-will provides managers with broad rights to fire without providing “just cause” (Shepherd, 2011). In modern times, this doctrine has been somewhat eroded, both by law and legal precedent (Youngblood & Bierman, 1985). Working against the at-will employment policies is that countervailing idea that job incumbents acquire “property rights” to their positions (Gordon & Lee, 1990). This tacit “ownership” makes arbitrary discharge unfair and, according to some, unjust. Explorations of employment-at-will suggest that property rights have important implications for organizational justice. It is important to consider the implications that these three new distributive justice rules have for the larger research enterprise. The first two rules we discussed, legitimate self-interest and status, force us to take a close look at our assumptions about normative justice. We should not be too quick to assume that these are quasi-rules. Self-interest and status are likely viewed as ethically appropriate in certain situations and among certain people. The third rule, property rights, challenges us in a different way. The notion of personal property suggests that people are given broad freedom to act in a certain way with respect to things that they own (e.g., they may sell them). Possession may be formally guaranteed by the law (North, 2010), but the legal basis of property appears to be reflected in its psychological meaning, as with the endowment effect (Kahneman et al., 1991). To some extent, the value of “things” changes based upon whether or not they are viewed as possessions. In this way, ownership may influence how individuals respond to justice rules. Advance Notice In addition to the aforementioned distributive justice rules, there may also be missing rules for other types of justice. To illustrate this idea, consider research on advance notice. Leventhal (1980) placed advance notice under his consistency rule, conceptualizing it as consistency over time, though it could also be treated as informational justice (i.e., as timeliness of information). Regardless, advance notice has not been widely studied, though it appears to matter in certain practical situations. For example, Stone and Kotch (1989) and Stone, O’Brien, and Bommer (1989) examined procedural justice in the context of workplace drug screening. They found that the procedural rule of advance notice boosted perceptions of fairness.

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Similar findings were obtained in a downsizing study by Brockner et al. (1994). Brockner and his colleagues found that advance notice increased the sense of fairness, both among employees who lost their jobs, as well as among those who survived a layoff. Two laboratory experiments by Cropanzano and Randall (1995) also attest to the importance of advance notice (for a related discussion, see Bies, 2013). Observations such as these suggest that our current lists of justice rules, while generally sound, are not complete.

Identifying Missing Justice Rules with Person-Centric Research Research taking a person-centric approach (Weiss & Rupp, 2011) may offer a paradigm for identifying additional justice rules. Person-centric research focuses on a worker’s phenomenological experience of fairness (Guo, Rupp, Weiss, & Trougakos, 2011). The person-centric paradigm emphasizes such individual-centered techniques as qualitative and experience sampling methodologies. These approaches, in particular qualitative techniques, have been useful for identifying justice rules in the past (Roth, 2006). Perhaps most famously, Bies and Moag (1986) interviewed applicants about their job search experiences. The responses of these participants help to lay the groundwork for the modern concepts of interactional and interpersonal justice. Later work by Mikula, Petri, and Tanzer (1990) also found evidence that interpersonal treatment was an important cause of fairness judgments. Sheppard and Lewicki (1987) At about the same time as Bies and Moag (1986) were publishing their influential chapter, Sheppard and Lewicki (1987) explored fairness and unfairness within a number of managerial functions (e.g., strategic planning, employee development, delegation, and so on). To do so, Sheppard and Lewicki interviewed 44 participants with supervisory experience
21 of these were weekend MBA students and 23 more were bank managers. Altogether, Sheppard and Lewicki’s respondents provided evidence for 16 justice rules. At least six of these rules had been identified previously (see especially, their Table 11, pp. 168
169). One of these, “equity,” pertained to distributive justice. The other five were identical to those from Leventhal’s (1980) list: “consistency,” “bias-suppression,” “representativeness,” “correctability,” and “ethicality.” The concept of informational justice, which was originated by Bies (1987), was not yet widely available

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when the Sheppard and Lewicki study was done. At least two of Sheppard and Lewicki’s new or emergent rules would now be considered aspects of informational justice
“information” and “communication.” In this way, the existing lists of justice rules can easily accommodate half of the rules identified by Sheppard and Lewicki (1987), but eight more remain. Some of these are close to our current understanding of justice but others appear to be further away. Five of these might be seen as broad guidelines for approaching managerial decision-making: “reasonableness” (“Use common sense when making a decision or enforcing a policy,” p. 168), “golden rule” (“Do things that benefit others not hurt them,” p. 168), “resource” (“utilize available … resources accurately and as necessary to make a good decision,” p. 168), and “structural integrity” (“follow authority structure or social structure,” p. 169). The final three could be treated as aspects of distributive justice, so long as we are willing to treat the construct broadly. Generally speaking, researchers have thought of distributive justice as the allocation of material resources: “role description” (“expectations for others should fall with … role,” p. 169), “accountability” (“laying credit and blame where it is due,” p. 169), and “meaningful assignment” (“assign challenging and meaningful work,” p. 169). For organizational scientists it may appear atypical to conceptualize task assignments as an aspect of distributive justice. Nevertheless, there is a scholarly precedent for doing so. In a series of studies, Mikula (1998) has examined the division of household work within the context of close relationships (see also, Kluwer & Mikula, 2002). Based on this earlier research, it appears that people care about task distributions at work, much as they do within their homes. Some of these new rules are not radical departures from what is already known. One might, for example, categorize “golden rule” and “reasonableness” as aspects of ethicality. Or, given its definition, perhaps “resource” could be treated as a form of accuracy. For all these points of overlap, there is much to Sheppard and Lewicki’s (1987) findings that has not been widely recognized by our field. The importance of such things as agreedupon work roles, meaningful tasks, and legitimate authority, could use additional attention from scholars. Hollensbe et al. (2008) Hollensbe et al. (2008) were interested in entity justice, which concerns the fairness with which social actors, such as organizations and supervisors, behave over time (Cropanzano et al., 2001). To investigate this topic, they interviewed 33 graduating senior and masters students about their

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experiences as new job holders. The authors found evidence that the traditional justice rules were widely used. However, slightly over half (53%) of all respondents reported using only emergent or new rules, while another 24% mixed the two sets of rules together. The emergent rules varied a bit depending on whether the research participant was considering an organization or, alternatively, a supervisor. • Organization was viewed as fair based upon (a) the support they provided, (b) their flexibility, (c) their demographic diversity, (d) their turnover rates, (e) the fairness of supervisors, (f) the mood of the respondents, and (g) the opinions of coworkers (i.e., social information). • Supervisor was viewed as fair based upon (a) the support they provided, (b) their flexibility, (c) their personality, (d) the fairness of the employing organization, and (e) and social information. This is an eclectic list of rules. Notice that some of them might be better characterized as quasi-rules. For instance, it might be normatively dubious to base a fairness judgment on one’s current mood (affective state) or on rumor (certain types of social information). A second set may be thought of as the results of justice (diversity and low turnover) rather than as justice per se. (However, attending to diversity and turnover would likely be a reasonable and practical way to evaluate an employer.) A third set appears to be fit more squarely into our definition of justice rules, though again with a different emphasis from earlier work. Two emergent rules appear straightforward
supportiveness and flexibility, while two others use ratings on one entity to judge the fairness of another (i.e., substituting supervisory fairness for organizational fairness and vice versa). Fortin, Cropanzano, Cuguero´-Escofet, and Nadisic (2014) Building on these earlier studies, Fortin and her colleagues interviewed 62 executive education students from three nations
France, Spain, and the United Kingdom. These individuals were asked to recall and describe a fairness-related incident. Similar to Hollensbe et al. (2008), Fortin and her colleagues replicated a number of justice rules for distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. Furthermore, they also identified 11 emergent justice rules. Among these were “recognition” (similar to Sheppard & Lewicki’s, 1987, accountability), “empathy,” “loyalty,” “equality/consistency” (the involved equality of interpersonal treatment and the absence of favoritism), “taking into account special needs” (similar to Hollensbe et al.’s, flexibility), “responsibility,” “professionalism,” “respecting word/promise keeping.” In addition to these eight, there were three

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rules that pertained to the absence of misconduct by authority figures: “non-harassment,” “non-exploitation,” and “not mixing personal and professional.”

Conclusion In this section, we provided an overview of the justice rules identified by researchers to date. Our review focused on the three main areas most commonly used in the justice literature
distributive, procedural, interactional
and presented discussions of existing empirical evidence and principal issues in the application of those rules. We included a review of the four dimension model recommended by Colquitt et al. (2001), which subdivides interactional justice into informational and interpersonal justice. Finally, we discussed some additional rules that may be missing from the principal three-, or even four-, factor model. This review is important in two ways. First, there is extensive empirical evidence for the widespread use of justice rules and their effects on fairness judgments. Second, our review suggests that our current models may be incomplete. As justice research develops, scholars should be aware of the full range of criteria used in fairness judgments.

FROM JUSTICE RULES-TO-FAIRNESS JUDGMENT: COMPOSITIONAL MODELS From our considerations so far, we can find general agreement on two points. First, justice rules can be organized into a set of at least three
and quite possibly four
dimensions. These include distributive justice, procedural justice, interpersonal justice, and informational justice (cf. Colquitt, 2001; Kernan & Hanges, 2002; Tyler, Degoey, & Smith, 1996). Second, the assessment of justice rules is generally seen as causally prior to fairness. The best evidence for this possibility comes from experimental research, which uses random assignment and active manipulation of situational conditions, and then assesses participant responses (e.g. Cropanzano & Randall, 1993; Earley & Lind, 1987; Folger, 1977). For example, in their experiment Lind et al. (1990) divided randomly assigned subjects into various conditions: some were allowed voice that could influence a decision, some had voice with no influence, and some received no voice at all. With

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random assignment and active manipulation, stronger causal inferences can be made regarding the influence of justice rules. Also helpful are training studies. When supervisors are trained in justice rules, and this training boosts subsequent fairness judgments by employees, then this can be taken as evidence of internal validity (Skarlicki & Latham, 2005, for related evidence, see Taylor, Tracy, Renard, Harrison, & Carroll, 1995). This sort of evidence is useful, but it remains incomplete on a critical point. If there are two assessments
one of justice rules adherence and another that evaluates fairness
then how is the second assessment structured? The three- or four-factor models work well for the justice rules (for evidence, see Colquitt, 2001; Kernan & Hanges, 2002; Williams et al., 2013). However, it is not yet clear whether the fairness evaluation is organized in the same way. This is an issue that has not been given sufficient attention, and at least two potential models are broadly consistent with the literature. These are presented in Figs. 2
3. In Fig. 2 the various justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational) tend to hold for both the justice rules and also for the fairness judgments (e.g., Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Cropanzano et al., 2001). Also in Fig. 2 the justice rules cause corresponding fairness assessments, and these assessments subsequently impact various workplace criteria. This model is consistent with the tendency to operationalize the same set of justice dimensions with both direct and indirect measures (Williams et al., 2013). There is another possibility that is broadly consistent (or at least not inconsistent) with research on overall justice. This is shown in Fig. 3. Though not explicitly stated, it could be

Distributive Justice Rules

Distributive Fairness Judgment

Procedural Justice Rules

Procedural Fairness Judgment

Interpersonal Justice Rules

Interpersonal Fairness Judgment

Informational Justice Rules

Informational Fairness Judgment

Fig. 2.

Attitudinal and Behavioral Responses

Justice Rules and Specific Fairness Judgments.

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Distributive Justice Rules

Procedural Justice Rules Overall Fairness Judgment Interpersonal Justice Rules

Attitudinal and Behavioral Responses

Informational Justice Rules

Fig. 3.

Justice Rules and Overall Fairness Judgments.

that the dimensions of justice rules directly impact an overall judgment of fairness. This overall judgment is comprised of only a single dimension. Research on overall justice tends to operationalize the variables in this fashion, though this does not make it a definitive theory. Nevertheless, it is worth considering both possibilities.

Model 1: Justice Rules Causing Corresponding Types of Fairness Judgments In Fig. 2, and consistent with our earlier comments, assessments of justice rules are posited to cause corresponding types of fairness judgments. Another relevant issue is the number of dimensions. Consistent with a possibility raised by Colquitt and Rodell (in press), Fig. 2 presents four sets of justice rules and four corresponding sets of fairness evaluations (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational). Colquitt and Rodell (their Table 1) refer to such measures as “faceted justice” and “faceted fairness,” respectively. Similar four-factor models have been proposed by Rupp and Paddock (2010), Karriker and Williams (2003), and Williams et al. (2013). This approach, or at least a similar version, was also suggested by Cropanzano et al. (2001), though they used only three dimensions
distributive, procedural, and interpersonal/interactional
rather than four. Kernan and Hanges’ (2002) model could be interpreted in a similar threedimension fashion.

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We caution that Fig. 2 is drawn in a highly stylized fashion. This serves to clarify our presentation, though it misleads on a few theoretical points. The paths from justice rules-to-fairness judgments are not as straightforward as illustrated here. Of course, the correlation will be less than unity, for there are other influences that researchers need to take into account (e.g., Nicklin et al., 2011). Justice and Injustice Another possibility that complicates tests of Fig. 2, has to do with the distinction between justice, on the one hand, and injustice, on the other (Colquitt & Rodell, in press). Historically, justice and injustice were generally treated as opposite points of a single continuum. Injustice, by this logic, would be the absence of justice. The reverse would also be true. Over the years, various authors have suggested a different model, which would treat justice and injustice as different constructs (e.g., Bies, 2001; Cropanzano et al., 2011; Organ, 1990). In their aforementioned study, Sheppard and Lewicki (1987) conducted an early investigation of this possibility. Though it was not their main focus, Sheppard and Lewicki had their respondents present either just or unjust examples for each of their 16 justice rules. In some cases the presence of justice could be viewed as the absence of injustice. For example, regarding their representativeness rule, a just example was “seeking employee opinion,” whereas an unjust example was “acting without checking with involved parties” (both appear in their Table 11, p. 168). Notice that, in this case, as the positive goes down the negative necessarily increases. For other rules, however, it appeared that justice and injustice were distinctive. For example, in the “golden rule” norm, the just example was “encouraging community involvement,” while the unjust example was “not developing employees” (p. 168). In this case, justice and injustice appear to be distinct ideas and not opposite poles. Likewise, the just example for the meaningful assignment rule was “assigning stretching tasks,” while the unjust example was “dumping dirty chores (especially boss’s own)” (p. 169). In the case of the meaningful assignment rule, it appears that both justice and injustice are active processes where something is done. Thus, the absence of one does not automatically produce the other. There is also an interesting possibility that follows from this analysis. It could be that certain rules more consistently produce unfairness judgments (ranging from low to high), whereas others are more consistently related to fairness judgments (also ranging from low to high). Consider, for example, the Fortin et al. (2014) study reviewed above. Fortin et al. identified three

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rules that involved the absence of negative behavior
“non-harassment,” “non-exploitation,” and “not mixing personal and professional.” A supervisor who eschews harassment or fails to exploit may not be especially high on fairness. However, he or she is apt to be low on unfairness. By comparison, there may be other rules, such as “supportiveness” and “flexibility” (Hollensbe et al., 2008) that, when violated, lower fairness ratings but have less effect on unfairness. Setting aside this speculation for the moment, Sheppard and Lewicki’s (1987) findings call into question the idea that justice and injustice are, in the words of Kiersch, Byrne, Smith, and Weidert. (2011, p. 3) “polar opposites.” This conclusion was further buttressed by evidence that conforming to justice rules activates different brain regions than does transgressing them (Dulebohn, Conlon, Sarinopoulos, Davison, & McNamara, 2009). Likewise, Kiersch et al. (2011) had respondents describe events that were just or unjust. Kiersch et al. found that unjust experiences tend to produce a larger number of negative emotions that were relatively intense. Just experiences tended to produce a smaller number of positive emotions that tended to be of lesser intensity. Kiersch and colleagues interpreted these findings as suggesting that justice and injustice are at least somewhat distinct. These ideas were further supported in three studies by Coujuharenco and Patient (2013). These authors found that when retrieving events from memory, the descriptions of fair events placed greater emphasize on distributive justice (Study 1), while interactional justice was more salient for unfair events (Studies 1 and 2). In perhaps the most thorough analysis of this issue to date, Colquitt et al. (2015) conducted two studies
one qualitative/inductive and the other quantitative/deductive. Colquitt et al. found that justice and injustice predicted different criterion variables. For instance, justice was the better predictor of job performance and organizational citizenship behavior, while injustice was the better predictor of counterproductive work behaviors. These authors concluded that justice and injustice are distinct concepts, though both are important. In view of these findings it is unclear how Fig. 2 might be revised. It could be that both rule violations (injustice) and rule adherence (justice) cause fairness. However, it could also be that unfairness and fairness are distinct as well, perhaps with the former caused by injustice and the latter by justice. It will take future research to disentangle these matters. Marginal Returns: The Voice Function Closely related to the idea that justice and injustice can be treated as distinct, is the notion that at least one justice rule
voice
has marginal

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benefits. Following from Folger’s (1977) classic study, a number of researchers have reported that voice enhances fairness perceptions (Bashshur & Oc, in press), even in the face of negative outcomes (e.g., Earley & Lind, 1987; Lind et al., 1990). While the benefits of voice for enhancing fairness continue to be supported, research has added important caveats. Drawing on prospect theory (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979), Hunton et al. (1998) and Price et al. (2001) have distinguished between how much voice is provided (amount of gain) and how much voice is taken away (amount of loss). Based on earlier research, these authors suggest that gaining voice generally boosts fairness, while losing voice generally lowers fairness. The surprising thing, however, is that the voice/fairness relationship is characterized by two curves. On the one hand, the gain curve has a gentler slope. Early gains in voice increase fairness and other outcomes, but later gains provide fewer benefits. That is, further increases are slower. On the other hand, the loss curve is steeper. When voice falls below expectations there is a sharp decline in fairness and satisfaction. This decline tends to persist as voice is reduced by additional decrements (Liberman, Idson, & Higgins, 2005). An initial test of this voice function was supportive (Hunton et al., 1998). Further evidence was obtained in two different crosscultural examinations (Price et al., 2001). Interestingly, the voice function tends to have the same basic shape among a number of different national cultures, including the Netherlands, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Price et al., 2001). In each case, gains in voice beyond expectations tend to show a slower increase in fairness that reaches an asymptote more quickly, while loses in voice beyond expectations show a quicker decrease in fairness that reaches an asymptote more closely. However, though the form of the two curves is similar, all cultures do not begin with the same expectations. Thus, asymptotes are achieved with different levels of voice (Paddock et al., 2015). Conclusions It is important to recognize that, even though justice rules are often related to fairness evaluations, the causal path may sometimes appear circuitous. Rules may interact, show marginal returns, and so forth. These effects do not rule out Model 1, of course, but they do make it difficult to test. Tests of Model 1 Unfortunately, there are not many tests of our first model, though it is consistent with existing theory. Conceptually speaking, Fig. 2 implies that the

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corresponding fairness judgments have the status of mediators between justice rules and various organizationally relevant criterion variables (e.g., work attitudes, citizenship behaviors, and so forth). This follows from earlier contentions that justice rules tend to serve as antecedents to fairness judgments (e.g., Hollensbe et al., 2008; Leventhal, 1980). Thus, if indirect and direct measures correspond to justice rules and fairness assessments, respectively, then one would generally anticipate two things: (a) direct measures show a stronger relationship to relevant criterion variables and (b) the effects of indirect measures are at least partially accounted for by direct measures. Let us first consider the relative sizes of the correlations. As part of their thoroughgoing meta-analysis, Colquitt et al. (2001) compared the corrected correlations between direct measures and various workplace criteria to those between indirect measures and the same criterion variables. Contrary to expectations, the indirect measures exhibited somewhat larger relationships (see also, Colquitt & Shaw, 2005). This would be inconsistent with Fig. 2, of course, unless the justice rules also showed unmediated effects on the criteria. We will consider the possibility of unmediated paths below, but for now it is worth observing that this conclusion has been debated. Williams et al. (2013) argued that the Colquitt et al. (2001) meta-analysis was unable to consider distributive and informational justice. These authors further maintained that Colquitt et al. (2001) compared a direct measure of procedural fairness to an indirect measure that combined procedural, interactional, and informational rules. Of course, the four-factor model presented in Fig. 2 suggests a sort of one-to-one mediation. That is, a direct measure procedural fairness should primarily mediate an indirect measure of procedural justice. It should be a less efficacious mediator of other justice facets. When these methodological issues were taken into account, Williams et al. (2013) maintained that the direct measures tended to be superior predictors of workplace outcomes. These observations suggest some support for the first model, but further inquiry is needed before we can reach a conceptual resolution. In two subsequent empirical studies, Williams et al. (2013) found that a general fairness assessment (i.e., a direct measure) did not consistently out predict the results of a justice criteria assessment (i.e., the indirect measure). Other evidence was more supportive. In an empirical test with 154 undergraduate students, Karriker and Williams (2003) found partial support for the idea that direct measures mediate the impact of indirect assessment. These researchers examined distributive, informational, and procedural justice. They found that a direct measure of fairness partially mediated an indirect

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measure for distributive justice. Likewise, a direct measure of informational justice fully mediated an indirect measure of informational justice. While these findings are consistent with the idea that justice rules precede fairness assessment, it should be noted that a direct measure of procedural justice failed to mediate the impact of an indirect measure of procedural justice. Findings suggesting that indirect measures of justice are better predictors than direct fairness assessment are potentially problematic. As we have already seen, the generally accepted causal path is that the indirect measures (i.e., the justice criteria assessment) should be causally prior to the direct measures (i.e., the general justice assessment). Or, to state the issue more directly, individuals apply rules to evaluate an event, and the application of these rules determines whether or not they believe they are fairly treated (e.g., Leventhal, 1980). It is more difficult to argue for mediation when the proximal variable (direct fairness) has the smaller association with criterion variables, though such things certainly occur (Zhao et al., 2010). There are alternative explanations that could preserve the fourfactor model. It is worth reviewing some of these. Alternative 1: Construct Validity of the Measures It is possible that the scales are assessing somewhat different constructs than are generally attributed to them. In some of the research reviewed thus far, a few of the direct fairness measures appear to be broad. These may go beyond any specific fairness dimension. For example, when assessing direct interpersonal fairness, Karriker and Williams (2003, p. 17) used two items: “My instructor has treated me fairly this semester” and “My instructor has treated me unfairly this semester” (reverse coded, of course). As the authors suggest, these items clearly reflect a direct measure. However, they are also extremely general. It is not clear that their content is limited to any one type of fairness, such as interpersonal treatment. For example, a student who received an unfairly low grade, perhaps due to an invalid exam (low distributive justice) could get a low score on these two items even if she were otherwise treated with dignity (high interpersonal justice). Consequently, this scale could be tapping a construct that is broader than specific interpersonal justice. Shortly, we will take up the issue of overall fairness. For the moment, we observe only that such measures are noted for “deemphasizing dimensional distinctions” in Colquitt and Rodell’s (in press, p. 44) words. For example, Ambrose and Schminke (2009, p. 493) and Holtz and Harold (2009, p. 1190) used global items of this kind to measure overall fairness (e.g., “For the most part, my organization treats its employees fairly,”

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“For the most part, my supervisor treats his/her employees fairly”). Consequently, it is conceivable that the most appropriate mediators were not fully captured by the items. Alternative 2: Partial Mediation Implicit in our presentation so far is that the only direct effect of justice rules is to promote a sense of fairness. This would, of course, imply that the impact of justice rules would be fully mediated by one or more fairness assessments. While useful for explanatory purposes, this implicit assumption is almost definitely incorrect. Justice rules have the potential to bring other benefits to organizations, even beyond promoting fairness. For example, while providing opportunities for voice seems to increase fairness perceptions (e.g., Lind et al., 1990), there is good evidence that it has other felicitous effects. Participatory voice has the potential to improve decision quality by adding more information and diverse perspectives (Sagie & Koslowsky, 2000). Likewise, adherence to the accuracy rule can boost the fairness of personnel decisions (Taylor et al., 1995). However, accuracy also brings additional benefits. Firms that make inaccurate personnel decisions are likely to face a number of challenges when people are misaligned to jobs (Thornton & Rupp, 2006). In these two examples, we find that organizations that build justice rules into their policies are likely to reap benefits quite apart from, or at least in addition to, the resulting increase in fairness. Methodologically, we are proposing a case of complementary mediation. Complementary mediation occurs when both the mediated and the unmediated effects are significant. Additionally, both of these effects point in the same direction (Zhao et al., 2010). Complementary mediation allows that the antecedent variable (justice rules, in this case) could have stronger relationships with the criteria than does the mediator (fairness assessments). As such, this could explain some of the empirical confusion we have already discussed. This is because the indirect measure, which taps justice rules, exerts two effects on the hypothetical criterion variable
one mediated by the fairness assessment and one unmediated. The fairness assessment may only carry the mediated effect. If at least some justice rules have multiple effects, it might be that
depending on the outcome variable
predictor
criterion relationships are sometimes stronger for indirect measures, as found by Colquitt et al. (2001). Of course, evidence for complementary mediation should exist in primary studies that specifically test for mediation. In this research, both the mediated and the unmediated effects of justice rules should be significant.

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While there are few such studies, there is some tantalizing evidence. Interestingly, Karriker and Williams (2003) found some indication that this was so for distributive justice, though not procedural or informational. This is a promising start and future research should follow-up on this possibility.

Model 2: Justice Rules Causing Overall Fairness Assessments A second possibility is considered in Fig. 3. This second potential model suggests that justice rules, organized into the recognized set of dimensions, cause overall fairness judgments. Thus, there are four sets of rules but a reduced set
only one in Fig 3
of evaluations. In this approach, individuals weigh different justice rules in order to derive an overall assessment. The rules may break down into dimensions, but fairness is organized more simply. To our knowledge, no one has formally proposed such a model, but it is implied in the operational approaches to overall justice (see Ambrose et al., in press for a review). For this reason, the hypothetical model presented in Fig. 3 is worth considering, at least as a point of comparison. Overall Justice: An Overview A number of recent studies have distinguished between “facets” of justice and “overall justice” (Ambrose et al., in press). In these papers, a facet refers to the specific justice dimensions. These are the dimensions already discussed
distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice. Generally, these facets are assessed using an indirect measure of justice. Specifically, many of the studies used Colquitt’s (2001) instrument (i.e., Ambrose & Schminke, 2009; Holtz & Harold, 2009; Jones & Martens, 2009). In the terminology employed here, these facets are roughly the same as our justice rules. (This is not always the case, however. Kim and Leung (2007) used a direct measure. We will set this study aside for now.) Generally speaking, researchers conceptualize overall justice as a global assessment of a social entity, such as an organization (cf. Cropanzano et al., 2001; Hollensbe et al., 2008). For example, Holtz and Harold (2009) define overall justice as “global evaluations of the fairness of an entity based on personal experiences as well as on the experiences of others” (p. 1185). Thus, overall justice is not an appraisal of a specific rule violation or event. Rather, it is an evaluation of a person, policy, or organization as a whole. More to the present point, though, is that overall justice tends to

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be captured by direct measures of fairness. For example, here are the widely used items from Ambrose and Schminke’s (2009, p. 493) measure (see also Jones & Martens, 2009): • • • • • •

Overall, I’m treated fairly by my organization. In general, I can count on this organization to be fair. In general, the treatment I receive around here is fair. Usually, the way things work in this organization are not fair. For this most part, this organization treats its employees fairly. Most of the people who work here would say they are often treated unfairly.

In the present nomenclature, which is derived from Colquitt and Rodell (in press), this would be termed a measure of overall fairness. When everything is taken together, these studies appear to be using an indirect assessment of the justice facets, which are then mediated by an overall evaluation of fairness. We have illustrated this model in Fig. 3. From Justice Rules to Overall Fairness Various studies have investigated the relative impact of the justice facets (e.g., distributive, procedural, interactional) on overall fairness, but the results are not perfectly consistent. This is to be expected. Overall fairness is a new research area, the studies have been conducted in different contexts, and the fairness appraisals involve distinct entities (e.g., organization, top management, immediate supervisor). Despite this diversity (or perhaps because of it), when the findings are taken as a whole they suggest that the justice facets tend to engender overall fairness evaluations (Ambrose et al., in press). In their seminal article, Ambrose and Schminke (2009) tested whether overall justice (or “fairness,” as we have argued), mediates the effects of the four justice dimensions on work attitudes and behaviors. Although Ambrose and Schminke used the Colquitt (2001) measure, they collapsed interpersonal and informational justice into a single interactional facet. They did so because these two dimensions were highly correlated. The authors also employed a variety of criterion variables. In their Study 1, the criterion variables were job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. In their Study 2, the criterion variables were performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and organizational deviance. In general, Ambrose and Schminke (2009) found that the justice dimensions were associated with the outcome variables, but that these effects

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were mediated by overall fairness. Both full and partial mediation fit equally well in their structural models. Based on the parsimony rule, the authors argue for full mediation, but concluded that more research is needed. Also, it is noteworthy that the four facets did not predict equally well. In Study 2, for instance, distributive justice was unrelated to overall fairness. Jones and Martens (2009) conducted two parallel studies. They examined the effects of the four justice facets on affective commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, trust, and perceived organizational support (POS). They further tested whether these effects were mediated by overall justice. In their Study 1, these authors found support for partial mediation, though full mediation was observed in a few cases. Procedural justice was not related to overall fairness, though it did predict the criterion variables (i.e., it had an unmediated effect). These findings were generally replicated in their Study 2. Overall, Jones and Martens (2009) found that distributive justice and interpersonal justice had the most consistent effects on overall fairness. This is distinct from Ambrose and Schminke’s (2009) findings, as they found weaker effects for distributive justice and stronger effects for procedural justice. In a third article, Holtz and Harold (2009) examined the impact of the four justice facets on two different overall judgments
one for the organization and another for the immediate supervisor. As in earlier work, the justice dimensions were assessed using Colquitt’s (‘2001) scale, whereas overall fairness was assessed using the Ambrose and Schminke (2009) measure. Holtz and Harold (2009) found that distributive justice and procedural justice were more strongly related to overall organizational fairness, while interpersonal and informational justice were more strongly related to overall supervisory fairness (for similar results, see Masterson, Lewis, Goldman, & Taylor, 2000), though interpersonal justice also predicted overall organizational fairness. Interestingly, Holtz and Harold also assessed organizational and supervisor trust. While perceptions of overall justice tended to fluctuate over time, individuals with higher trust showed more stable assessment. While these findings show general support for the model presented in Fig. 3, they are not entirely consistent as to which facet of justice will receive the most weight when formulating overall judgments of fairness (e.g., compare Ambrose & Schminke’s, 2009, findings to those of Jones & Martens, 2009). As with the four-factor model (Fig. 2), these mixed results do not entirely rule out the one-factor framework (Fig. 3).

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Differential Weighting of Justice Rules Part of the differences we have discussed among the studies may have occurred because the weighting of justice rules varies depending on the circumstances. In one study, Citera and Stuhlmacher (2001) had 106 undergraduates read various scenarios describing a hypothetical merger between schools
Montana State and McCallister College. The merger varied along two dimensions
friendly versus hostile and high integration versus low integration (e.g., both schools could retain their independent identities). Citera and Stuhlmacher found that the outcome and process elements (what we are here calling, the justice rules) were averaged together to form assessments of overall fairness. However, these weights varied depending on the characteristics of the merger. When the merger allowed each school to keep much of its independence (low integration) and was friendly, the procedural and distributive rules exhibited similar impacts on overall fairness judgments. However, in the more challenging situation of hostile mergers with high levels of integration, the outcome elements mattered more than the process elements. Weighting May also Vary among Individuals German et al. (2014) had 49 working individuals rate 56 vignettes on the amount of fairness in a performance appraisal. Using a policy capturing methodology, the authors found that individual participants showed generally consistent weighting approaches across the different scenarios (though they had only limited insight into their policies). However, group-level distinct clusters were observed. For instance, some respondents placed heavier emphasis on having an opportunity to express their views (voice) and having an accurate procedure. Others were more influenced by timeliness and liking their employer. Such evidence suggests that people do indeed use justice rule to make overall fairness assessments, but they do not always weight these rules to the same degree (for related evidence, see Till & Karren, 2011).

Model 3: Kim and Leung (2007) and a Third Possibility A persistent concern with the one-factor model is that, to our knowledge, no one has formally proposed it. It can be inferred from the manner in which the predictor variables have been operationalized in some of the overall fairness research. Moreover, given the support we observed for this research, Fig. 3 is certainly worthy of consideration. However, these data

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tell us only that justice rules may cause overall fairness. They do not rule out the possibility that justice dimensions could intercede between the rules and the overall fairness assessment. In this light, a somewhat different and theoretically intriguing perspective was taken by Kim and Leung (2007). These authors (see their appendix on p. 94) assessed overall fairness with the following three items: “In general, I am fairly treated in this organization,” “All in all, this organization treats me fairly,” and “Overall, I believe I receive fair treatments from this organization.” These items appear to comprise a direct measure, which is consistent with other overall fairness research (e.g., Ambrose & Schminke, 2009). Interesting, Kim and Leung (2007, p. 94) examined three justice facets. But unlike prior work, these were operationalized using direct items: Distributive fairness (“The rewards I received here are quite fair,” “I believe that I am being rewarded fairly here at work,” and “I receive fair rewards in this organization”), procedural fairness (“This organization makes decisions in fair ways,” “The procedures used to handle organizational issues are fair,” and “The rules and procedures to make decisions are fair”), and interactional fairness (“My supervisor treats me fairly,” “In interpersonal encounters, my supervisor gives me a fair treatment,” and “The way my supervisor treats me is fair”). The use of two sets of direct measures, which in our terminology would correspond to fairness assessments, is inconsistent with Fig. 3. Kim and Leung (2007) used these measures in a cross-cultural study that compared China, Japan, Korea, and the United States. They found that these four cultures weighted the three fairness facets somewhat differently. For example, distributive fairness was a stronger predictor of overall fairness in China and Korea than it was in Japan or the United States. Kim and Leung did not test for mediated effects, as did Ambrose and Schminke (2009). Regardless, we need to highlight two key features of Kim and Leung’s (2007) conceptual framework. First, by operationalizing their predictor variables with direct measures, those which assess fairness evaluations, the authors implicitly suggest that there are fairness appraisals that correspond to the justice rules. That is, distributive fairness aligns with distributive justice, procedural fairness aligns with procedural justice, and so forth. This is consistent with Colquitt et al. (2001) and Karriker and Williams (2003), and also with our Fig. 2. Second, by including overall fairness, also operationalized as a direct measure, the authors are suggesting that specific fairness dimensions cause an overall fairness assessment. This is the crux of their hypotheses and has something in common with our Fig. 3. In other

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words, Kim and Leung (2007) have proposed a hybrid model
overall fairness exists (Fig. 3) but it is predicted by specific fairness dimensions (Fig. 2). For the present purposes, this raises a question
Where are the justice rules? Based on previous work, the justice rules must be antecedent (at least somewhat antecedent) to the specific fairness assessment. Following from the work of Colquitt (2001) and Karriker and Williams (2003), we have diagrammed a rough model in Fig. 4. Notice that Fig. 4 integrates the work we have discussed thus far, but it does so at the price of parsimony. It suggests that justice rules cause specific assessment of fairness (Karriker & Williams, 2003) and these specific assessments are later integrated into an overall rating (Ambrose & Schminke, 2009).

Closing Thoughts Figs. 2
4 have presented three possible models, all of which can take us from justice rules-to-fairness judgments. However, they do so from different routes. Model 1 aligns justice to fairness on a dimension-by-dimension basis. Model 2 aligns justice dimension to overall fairness. Model 3 does both. Each of the models is defensible and promising, though with caveats (e.g., fairness vs. unfairness, differential weighting, and so forth). At this point in our chapter we would like to pull aside the veil of mystery and inform the reader which model is best supported by the evidence.

Distributive Justice Rules

Distributive Fairness Judgment

Procedural Justice Rules

Procedural Fairness Judgment

Interpersonal Justice Rules

Interpersonal Fairness Judgment

Informational Justice Rules

Informational Fairness Judgment

Fig. 4.

Overall Fairness Judgment

Attitudinal and Behavioral Responses

Integrating Specific and Overall Fairness Judgments.

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Unfortunately, this is beyond our present knowledge, for we were able to find no research that tests these three models against each other. Given that Models 1 and 2 are nested within Model 3, such tests should be reasonably straightforward.

FROM JUSTICE RULES-TO-FAIRNESS JUDGMENT? ALTERNATIVE MODELS AND COMPLICATIONS In this chapter, we have so far described the rules that have previously been identified. We have also brought forward a number of alternative models to show how these rules can translate into fairness judgments. For all that, the theoretical picture we have outlined may be muddied by several complications, some of which will be considered in the present section. Generally speaking, most of the research we have reviewed thus far assesses one or only a few justice rules at a time, and measures their outcomes. For example, if we return to Adams’ (1965) equity theory, as well as Leventhal’s (1980) justice judgment model (see Eq. (1)), we find that both represent similar models of decision-making. In each of these frameworks, individuals deploy specific justice rules, such as equity, in rendering a fairness judgment. This rule-to-judgment paradigm has been best supported in experimental research. In the typical laboratory study, a specific situational element is varied (e.g., voice is provided or denied, an equitable or inequitable allocation is delivered, etc.) and then fairness is assessed. For any given experiment, these indicators of justice and fairness tend to focus on one or on a very few justice rules. Some field studies have also taken this approach, assessing fairness following a particular event
one for which respondents can be more specific regarding the presence or absence of justice rules. In these types of studies, it appears that justice rules cause justice judgments (cf. Tyler, 1997). To illustrate, consider research on performance appraisal systems (Taylor et al., 1995) and layoffs (Bennett, Martin, Bies, & Brockner, 1995; Bies, Martin, & Brockner, 1993). As we have seen, when specific procedural, distributive, and interactional justice rules are applied, individuals tend to report more fairness. Stated in this general manner, this seems to be a widely accepted conclusion. However, this is only part of the story. First, even though people rely on a specific set of justice rules at one moment in time, this set can later change. Likewise, individuals may alter their relative priority, or weighting, given to different rules (e.g., Citera & Stuhlmacher, 2001). Second, when

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people apply justice rules, they may apply them in a motivated and biased way, often without being aware of their own prejudices. Third, people may not always rely on explicit justice rules and may not consciously weigh a full range. They may instead rely on heuristic shortcuts that guide their automatic processing of information in a fairness relevant situation. Finally, some people may evaluate fairness in terms of whether any harm has been done (the consequences of actions) without much reference to fairness rules. We consider these possibilities below.

Rule (In)stability and Change Traditional justice theories tend to take normative frameworks as a given. They do not take into account possible alterations in these mental models. This is unfortunate, as evidence suggests that normative frameworks can change over time at the individual, group, organizational, and cultural level. This is because “the very norms of justice that define what is fair and appropriate are socially constructed and managed” (Monin, Noorderhaven, Vaara, & Kroon, 2013, p. 257; for related ideas, see Kabanoff, 1991). Unfortunately, few contributions in the organizational justice literature have considered the possibility and the mechanisms of the social construction of justice rules over time. Typically, justice research assumes that fairness perceptions are a straightforward response to whether or not organizations have fulfilled the mandates provided by justice rules. This is a limiting assumption, for if justice rules are social constructs, then some individuals can actively manipulate them for private gain. Fortin and Fellenz (2008) argue that more powerful parties can decide whether they want to comply with a given set of normative justice rules (“responding”). They can also prevent justice reactions from being exhibited by the powerless (“preventing”). Over time they might even shape the perceptions of the powerless, such as to impose their own justice ideology (“shaping”). Let us consider each. Responding refers to the mechanisms that have typically been theorized in the organizational justice literature, whereby perceptions of fairness can be improved if managers take actions to comply with commonly agreed justice rules
for example, by making allocations in an equitable way, by making unbiased decisions, etc. In this paradigm, when employees perceive fairness and voice no grievances, it is assumed that the organization is in compliance with normative justice rules.

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Preventing corresponds to Lukes’ (2005) second dimension of power exercise and recognizes that sometimes employees may not react negatively and may not raise any grievances, even though their normative justice expectations are not fulfilled. This may happen if employees have no opportunity to influence the agenda or if they are simply unsure how to voice their concerns. In other cases, employees are prevented from reacting to normative rule transgressions because they fear negative consequences for their career (see also Cropanzano & Rupp, 2002). Interestingly, the preventing mechanism suggests that managers and employees may make different fairness judgments. Shaping refers to influencing employees’ understanding of what is fair (i.e., their normative conceptions of justice). It could, for example, occur via the promotion of specific allocation norms that serve the interests of management, or through influencing the choice of referents that employees use to judge fairness. The mechanism of shaping proposes that it is actually possible to influence which justice rules the less powerful employ and how they interpret specific rules. This can result in more favorable fairness judgments even when the initial justice rules that people embraced when they joined the organization are not necessarily fulfilled and the “real interests” of subordinates are not necessarily met. A recent qualitative study by Monin et al. (2013) finds evidence for these assertions. Monin and colleagues conducted qualitative research over five years in the context of a merger between two European logistics companies, focusing in particular on distributive justice rules (which they term distributive norms). They find evidence that management actively used sensemaking strategies to propagate specific justice rules. Specifically, the organization’s leaders employed “sensebreaking” (undermining previous justice conceptions), “sense specification” (added specific meanings to various rules), and “sensehiding” (obscuring meanings that could be problematic for management). Importantly, the rules propagated by management during different phases of the post-merger integration can be traced back to different contextual pressures faced by the organization at each point in time, whereby earlier stages were dominated by strong sociopolitical concerns and later stages by increasing pressures for value creation. In this particular case, the justice rule that management propagated right after the merger was equality, referred to as the “fairness principle.” This justice rule seemed to refer to distributions and to processes. For example, equal representation on top management committees and equal opportunities for members of both heritage firms was stressed. This approach promised both sides that their interests would be protected and was largely

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adopted by employees. In a second stage, management problematized the previous equality norm and called for rewarding skills and contributions instead
a new focus on the equity rule. Again, most of the employees seemed to accept this new approach. In a third phase, management finally changed their focus again, arguing that due to value creation pressures, efficiency had to be stressed above everything else. With integration, the relative allocations between the partners was said to be less important, as both were now the same organization. Thus, there was decreasing attention to distributive justice. Monin et al.’s (2013) study nicely demonstrates the manner in which justice rules can be socially constructed to benefit some groups while harming others. So far, organizational justice researchers have not adopted such social processes in their models and theorizing, though the field of sociology has been more fruitful in this regard. For example, Lengfeld and Liebig (2002) use the term “justice ideologies” to describe the dominant normative assumptions about justice in specific organizations. These justice ideologies not only prescribe the acceptable rules, they also prescribe who is entrusted to bring about a just distribution, and what should be the decision-making processes. The authors argue that, for example, in contexts with little hierarchy, few standardized work procedures, and low group cohesion, a justice ideology will emerge that stresses reliance on market-based transactions and competition. They find tentative evidence in a qualitative study of four organizations. In each of these four firms, the justice ideologies identified corresponded to theoretically meaningful context factors. Rule changes may also occur at a national level. Van der Toorn, Berkies, and Jost (2010) illustrate that different political systems may bring about different justice beliefs in relation to work. Specifically, they argue that people tend to judge typical situations as fairer than atypical situations. Therefore, they expect that Hungarians might be torn between what was a typical fairness norm in socialist times (equality) and what is argued to be fair in a capitalist system (equity). They asked participants to make work decisions that entailed a trade-off between equity and equality and found that, although Hungarians generally preferred the equity-based distribution, system justification was linked with positive reactions to equality. This was not the case among Americans. As this data is cross-sectional, Van der Toorn and colleagues could not test whether Hungarian attitudes to justice norms really changed in this way during the transition of the country’s political and economic system. Long-term studies including justice norm measures are needed to investigate this type of question.

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To conclude, there is a wide research agenda to be explored concerning how justice rules are socially constructed and change over time. This type of research will not only require long-term longitudinal studies but also the development of new theories, or at least extensions to our current theories, that are able to account for such changes.

Motivated Reasoning and Fairness Judgments Up to now, we have presented a rather systematic-rational approach to how fairness judgments are formed. We know, however, that people are active information processors who may bring their own motivations and interests into fairness judgments. In the present section, we illustrate two ways in which affect and motives may influence the fairness judgment process in relation to justice rules: (1) influences on which rules are chosen and (2) influences on how the chosen rules are interpreted. Motivated Reasoning and the Choice of Rules Individuals seem reluctant to abandon justice altogether. However, many situations allow for alternative rules that could plausibly be used in a particular situation. When defensible choices are available, it is common to select the rule that will maximize personal gain. For example, Messick and Sentis (1979) had individuals work on a task for either 7 or 10 hours. The seven-hour workers earned US$25. Subjects were then asked how much the 10-hour worker should be paid. Among subjects who had worked seven hours, the average recommendation for their 10-hour counterpart was a relatively modest US$30.29. Conversely, among subjects who had worked 10 hours, the average recommendation was a heftier US$35.24. Speaking very loosely, the seven-hour participants moved in the direction of equality, while the 10-hour participants moved in the direction of equity. This selfserving effect may be limited by the relationship among the parties. Similar to Messick and Sentis (1979), Austin (1977) found people choose selfserving justice allocation rules, but mostly when allocating rewards between themselves and strangers. When participants did not know the other party well, they distributed benefits according to equality when they performed badly, but according to equity when they performed well. This pattern did not persist when the allocations were made among college roommates, who presumably also have the overarching goal and motive to maintain a positive relationship.

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As we discussed earlier, Monin et al. (2013) found some jockeying between distribution rules as two organizations of different size sought advantage following a merger. In the initial post-merger period, equality (including equal representation of both partner firms) was largely adopted as a norm. However, employees of the larger firm sometimes took issue with this rule, as it favored the smaller organization more than an equitable distribution. Conversely, in the second post-merger phase, the researchers found that the justice rule of equity was largely adopted. At this later time, the fairness perceptions of the smaller partner were mixed, as the smaller firm lost out in comparison to the previous equality-based approach. Motivated Reasoning and the Application of Justice Rules When confronting a particular situation, individuals’ interpretations of justice rules are influenced by their goals. This can result in an “egocentric bias,” whereby what is favorable is seen as fair, while what is unfavorable is seen as unfair (Cropanzano & Moliner, 2013). To illustrate, metaanalyses by both Cohen-Charash and Spector (2001) and Skitka et al. (2003) found that outcome negativity was consistently related to assessment of both distributive and procedural justice. Experimental studies of resource allocations tell a similar story. People’s motives may skew their interpretation and application of specific justice rules. As we shall see, two motives have received special research attention
the desire for economic advantage and the desire to be part of a just social system. We consider each in this section. There is good experimental evidence that people’s economic interests affect their assessment of fairness. This effect exists beyond the impact of justice rules. For example, Loewenstein, Issacharoff, Camerer, and Babcock (1993) had dyads of research participants settle a fictional lawsuit. In the lawsuit, the defendant’s automobile had struck the plaintiff while he or she was riding a motorcycle. In general, individuals viewed the fairest settlement as the one most beneficial to them. Participants also showed (a) better recall of supportive facts and (b) weighted arguments in a personally advantageous fashion. Interestingly, this bias appears to be, at least in part, unconscious. Camerer and Loewenstein (1993, Study 2) and Babcock, Loewenstein, Issacharoff, and Camerer (1995) replaced the aforementioned findings with an additional independent variable. Some of the participants were asked to read the cases before being told whether they would be the defendant or the plaintiff, while other participants were asked to read the cases after they were told whether they would be the defendant or

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the plaintiff. The differential recall of self-serving facts was reduced when individuals heard about the case in advance. Additionally, the egocentric bias in the favored settlement was also mitigated. Apparently, taking on a role causes people to engage in a motivated search for supportive information, which presumably will influence how they apply specific justice rules. Research on collective bargaining also supports the prevalence of selfinterest when formulating fairness assessments. Thompson and Loewenstein (1992, Study 1) had MBA students bargain as either a labor representative or a management representative. If an agreement was not achieved, then a costly (simulated) strike would take place. At that point, the costs would rise as the strike continued. A key source of difference was the perceived fairness of worker wages. Though the two parties were presented with the same set of facts, the labor representative typically thought that a higher wage was fairer, while the management representative typically thought that a lower wage was fairer. In a follow-up experiment, Thompson and Loewenstein (1992, Study 2) found that, again, the personally advantageous settlement was rated as more fair. They also found that each party differentially recalled the facts that supported their position (for a replication in a field study, see Babcock, Wang, & Loewenstein, 1996). Thus, here the difference in assessment stems not necessarily from the use of different rules but from recalling different relevant inputs when calculating equity. Apart from economic gain, individuals are also motivated to see the world as fair. While this possibility has received relatively little attention in justice research, two theories deal explicitly with how and why people may be motivated to justify injustices. First, Lerner’s (1980, 2003) belief in a just world theory holds that people need to believe that the world is a place where one generally gets what one deserves (Hafer, Be`gue, Choma, & Dempsey, 2005; Lerner & Miller, 1978). This research suggests that, counterintuitively, a high belief in a just world can lead individuals to become less fair in their treatment of others (Bobocel & Hafer, 2007; Hafer & Be`gue, 2005). For example, just world beliefs sometimes cause one to derogate innocent victims, especially when the suffering cannot be relieved (Furnham, 2003). That is, people make themselves feel better by reframing the situation in such a way that they can believe that justice rules have been upheld (Lerner & Somers, 1992). It sometimes follows from this that innocent people are believed to actually have deserved their mistreatment (Lerner, Miller, & Holmes, 1976). Related propositions are also made by system justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994), which holds that people are motivated to perceive

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the systems (and more specifically, the organizations) that they work in to be just and legitimate. This motive goes beyond ego justification and group justification, and explains why social systems are often supported by those who are most disadvantaged by them (Blasi & Jost, 2006). To uphold the belief that their social systems are fair, people may defend and justify injustices (e.g., Jost & Hunyady, 2002; Kay & Zanna, 2009). Possible mechanisms to rationalize injustices and to resolve dissonance between justice rules and reality, include the formation of stereotypes and ideologies and are typically outside of conscious awareness and control (Blasi & Jost, 2006). In rare cases, ego or group justification motives override the system justification motive. Proudfoot and Lind (in press) argue that people will typically move from rationalizing a system to critiquing it, only when a rule transgression is so extreme that it cannot be rationalized. Research generally supports system justification theory and also stresses the self-interested motive behind such justifications: system justification tends to be stronger when people have fewer alternatives, such as when they feel very dependent on the system (Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008) or when their sense of personal control is low (Kay et al., 2008).

Fairness Heuristics There is a further reason why the relationship between justice rules and fairness judgments may not be as straightforward as previously outlined
People do not invariably systematically consider all potentially relevant justice norms. According to fairness heuristic theory (Lind, 2001; Van den Bos et al., 2001), cognitive capacity limitations make it difficult to thoroughly formulate fairness judgments. Indeed, there is some empirical evidence suggesting that cognitive processing capacity puts a limit on how systematically people can combine information when evidence on multiple justice rules is available (German et al., 2014). For this reason, people often use heuristics as cognitive shortcuts for deciding whether or not they have been treated fairly. According to fairness heuristic theory, fairness assessments are formulated in two phases (Van den Bos et al., 2001)
a judgment phase and a use phase. During the judgment phase an individual makes a relatively quick judgment. These judgments are derived from the information they have on hand at the moment the judgment is needed, even if it is not of the highest quality. For example, there is a substitutability effect, whereby people may use certain cues as proxies for justice rules. In this regard, people may even

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consult their own affect to replace missing or ambiguous information on justice rule compliance (Van den Bos, 2003, 2007). To the extent that these processes occur, and the evidence for fairness heuristic theory is strong, then fairness judgments are likely to be influenced by more antecedents than simply justice rules. Moreover, fairness assessment will often exhibit a primacy effect, whereby the information that is initially available will be weighted more heavily than the information that comes later (Lind, 1995; Van den Bos, Vermunt, & Wilke, 1997). After formulating their initial judgment, people move to the use phase. In this phase, they tend to rely on the relatively stable initial fairness judgment. They will generally only revise it (i.e., reenter judgment phase) if they are prompted to do so by, for example, environmental changes or extreme norm transgressions (Proudfoot & Lind, in press).

Uncertainty Management Fairness heuristics theory was extended by the uncertainty management model (Van den Bos, 2002), which suggests that people look for fairnessrelated information in order to reduce, and deal with, uncertainty they experience. Fairness reassures people and provides a sense of security, thus appeasing the discomfort that uncertainty represents. One consequence is that people are more likely to look for justice rule compliance and react more strongly to justice rule transgressions in times of heightened uncertainty, such as layoffs and terminations (Lind, Greenberg, Scott, & Welchans, 2000). In other words, the uncertainty management model implies that the relationship between justice rules and overall fairness, or between justice rules and outcomes, is moderated by uncertainty. Interestingly, the uncertainty source does not have to be related to the source of fairness or unfairness for this to happen. More recent contributions by Van den Bos and colleagues (e.g., Van den Bos, in press; Van den Bos et al., 2008) suggest that the mere presence of signals of alarm (such as a flashing light) similarly heightens people’s attention to justice and fairness as they feel the need to make sense of their environment.

Formalist versus Utilitarian Reasoning Fairness assessments have been said to result from the evaluation of behavior vis-a`-vis some set of rules. When the rules prescribe something that is

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not achieved by the actions, then individuals are likely to feel unfairly treated. Such an approach to ethical decision-making has been called “deontology” (Brady, 1985, p. 568), of which the most common variety in business ethics is “formalist” (Brady & Wheeler, 1996, p. 927). Formalist approaches to ethical decision-making have a long scholarly history (Valasquez, 1992, for a review that is applicable to work settings) and have been influential in business ethics (Moberg & Myer, 1990). Nevertheless, there are alternative ways that a fair-minded person might make ethical judgments (Cavanagh, Moberg, & Valasquez, 1981; Nozick, 1981). The best-known alternative to formalist ethical thinking has been termed “consequentialism” (Blackburn, 2001, p. 87), of which the most common variety in business ethics is “utilitarianism” (Cropanzano & Grandey, 1998, p. 140). Utilitarian theories of morality can also be categorized as “teleological” because they focus on the outcomes or results of particular actions after impartially taking into account the interests of all (Greene, 2013). As Thompson (2003, p. 67) summarizes matters: “In its simplest form, utilitarianism states that, in any situation where there is a moral choice, the right thing to do is that which is likely to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people” (bold-face in original). Beyond the work of philosophers, there is empirical evidence that some people may make less use of procedural rules
but more use of outcomes
when they are rendering moral judgments (Forsyth, 1980). For example, among a group of marketing managers, Fritzsche and Becker (1984) report finding some tendencies toward utilitarian reasoning. Of course, Fritzsche and Becker’s findings are not universal. Within a sample of mostly nonmanagerial financial services workers, Brady and Wheeler (1996) reported a preference for formalist thinking. Regardless, it appears that some people place a strong weight on impartial consequences, others on behavioral rules, and perhaps others consider both (for an interesting example of how this might be done, see Cavanagh et al., 1981). As one would expect, preferences for formalism and utilitarianism can be treated as relatively stable personality traits. When this is done, it appears that these individuals respond to different classes of events. To examine this possibility, Reynolds (2006) investigated the impact of individual ethical predispositions on managers’ moral awareness. Moral awareness is defined as “a person’s determination that a situation contains moral content and legitimately can be considered from a moral point of view” (p. 233). Consistent with Brady (1985) and Brady and Wheeler (1996), Reynolds found that those with a utilitarian outlook showed greater moral awareness when the moral issue constituted harm, while those with a

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formalist outlook responded to a harm as well as a norm violation, suggesting that they may be more ethically sensitive than utilitarians. Although morality is a broader term than justice, the latter is one aspect of the former (Valasquez, 1992). The implication of this research, then, is that the way that a person makes fairness judgments may depend on that individual’s ethical ideology. Presumably, utilitarians would care more about distributive justice, while formalists would care more about procedural justice. Schminke et al. (1997) tested this possibility directly, surveying 209 employees of 11 different organizations. Utilitarianism and formalism were measured with the approach recommended by Brady and Wheeler (1996). Respondents then evaluated one of four possible scenarios, each of which manipulated procedural justice (voice and consistency, in this study) and distributive justice (equity). Schminke et al. found that, as expected, utilitarians based their fairness judgments more strongly on distributive justice, whereas formalists based their fairness judgments more strongly on procedural justice. It remains to be tested whether utilitarians are more sensitive to distributive justice rules than to interactional rules.

CONCLUSIONS Justice rules are evaluative standards, usually normative, shared by others, that serve as criteria for making fairness assessments. While many justice rules have been identified, and research into emergent rules is ongoing (e.g., Hollensbe et al., 2008), considerably more research is needed. With these matters in mind, we suggest that future investigations will be facilitated if research attends to at least three meta-theoretical issues. First, the term “justice” best refers to the antecedent conditions, in particular the rules, which give rise to fairness assessment. Fairness, in this view, is an evaluative judgment (e.g., Colquitt & Rodell, in press; Goldman, in press). Second, it is important not to neglect the difference between direct measures of justice, which query the respondent about justice rules, and indirect measures, which query the respondent about fairness assessments (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2001). The two do not seem to be assessing identical constructs (Mikula, 2005). Third, it is worthwhile to consider the distinction between normative approaches, which emphasize philosophical fairness, and descriptive approaches, which emphasize social scientific theories of people’s judgments (Cuguero´-Escofet & Fortin, 2014). Leventhal (1980) implicitly made this distinction when he distinguished between “justice

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rules” and “quasi-rules.” The former refers to antecedents that are ethically plausible; the latter to antecedents that do not meet normative considerations. Leventhal’s distinction is important for the design of workplace policies and procedures. The ultimate goal should be to implement justice rules, prompting fairness that is grounded in moral legitimacy. Organizations should be skeptical of quasi-rules, which promote only the appearance of justice (Cuguero´-Escofet & Rosanas, 2013). Moving these meta-theoretical dualities, we discussed the existing rules that have been identified in the research literature. We found that Colquitt’s (2001) instrument provides a useful list for distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice rules. However, we also observed that there were remaining controversies. For example, Bies (2001) proffered an alternative model of interactional justice (i.e., harsh evaluations, dishonesty, privacy violations, and disrespectfulness). Likewise, we found that some rules have been identified in qualitative research but in some cases have not been incorporated into existing models (e.g., Hollensbe et al., 2008; Sheppard & Lewicki, 1987). In a subsequent section we revisited the causal relationship between justice rules and fairness assessment in detail. We found that, when multiple rules are evaluated simultaneously, it is not entirely clear how the rules and fairness judgments are aggregated. We presented three possibilities: justice rules may cause corresponding fairness judgment (e.g., distributive justice may promote distributive fairness), justice rules may cause overall fairness judgments, and a hybrid model that contains elements of the other two. We hope that future research will take up the challenge of comparing these three, and perhaps other, conceptual possibilities. In the final portion of this chapter, we reviewed research that complicates our picture of justice rules. We saw that justice rules need not be stable over time. They can be subject to fluctuation and change. Unfortunately, this characteristic raises the possibility that powerful parties may manipulate them for personal advantage (Fortin & Fellenz, 2008). Likewise, when individuals make fairness assessments, they have also been found to process justice rules in a biased fashion, often attending to information that best promotes their self-interest (e.g., Loewenstein et al., 1993). On other occasions, people may not carefully attend to justice rules at all, instead making their fairness assessments based upon heuristics that can be applied automatically (Lind, 2001; Van den Bos et al., 2001), or attending to harm versus benefits instead of rules. These studies are important, as they provide scholars with a sense of how fairness evaluations are made in real world settings.

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For many years, scholars have put the concept of justice rules to good use. It has appeared in classic presentations of distributive (e.g., Adams, 1963, 1965), procedural (e.g., Leventhal, 1980), and interactional (e.g., Bies, 1987; Bies & Moag, 1986) justice. With so much valuable history behind us, it is worthwhile to step back and consider justice rules in their own right, apart from the context of specific theoretical positions. We have done so here. As we hope this chapter has demonstrated, justice rules are an important part of the process of making fairness assessments. The better we understand justice rules, then the greater insight we should have into how people come to see a situation as fair or unfair. As we extend these ideas, we are likely to find an additional opportunity. Empirically validated justice rules provide recommendations for building fairness into workplaces. If we heed this guidance, we may be taking an important step toward stronger organizations.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS Stephanie A. Andel is a doctoral student of Industrial Organizational Psychology at the University of South Florida with a concentration in Occupational Health Psychology. She received a B.A. from Bradley University in Psychology and Spanish. She conducts research related to the improvement of employee health and well-being, with a specific emphasis on workplace safety. Derek R. Avery is a Professor of Human Resource Management and the Seymour Wolfbein Senior Research Fellow in the Fox School of Business at Temple University. Dr. Avery received his doctorate in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology from Rice University in 2001. His primary research interests are in workforce diversity (including, but not limited to racioethnicity, sex, age, experience, religion, and culture) and employee input mechanisms. He is perhaps best known for his work on diversity climates, which has established them as: (a) instrumental in reducing demographic differences in employee engagement, absenteeism, turnover, and individual performance and (b) key drivers of unit-level customer satisfaction and sales growth. He is an active member of the Academy of Management and a fellow of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Presently, he is an associate editor of the Journal of Business and Psychology and has served on editorial boards of numerous top-tier journals in recent years. His publications total more than 50 articles and chapters and this research, which has earned commendation from the Academy of Management, has appeared in various outlets such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Organization Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. Zhanna Bagdasarov is an Assistant Professor of Management at California State University, Fresno. She received her Ph.D. in Industrial/ Organizational Psychology from the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests focus on ethical decision making in organizational contexts, trust repair between leaders and subordinates, and the influence of emotions in the workplace. She has published her work in outlets such as Journal of 351

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Business Ethics, Journal of Management History, Ethics & Behavior, Science and Engineering Ethics, and the Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics. Russell Cropanzano is a Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business of the University of Colorado. He has published over 120 scholarly articles and chapters. In addition, Dr. Cropanzano has authored two books and edited five others. His scholarly work has been recognized professionally, winning the 1998 Book Award from the International Association of Conflict Management, the 2000 Outstanding Paper Award from the Consulting Psychology Journal, the 2007 Best Paper Award from Academy of Management Perspectives, and the 2010 Best Paper Award from the Journal of Management. He is a past editor of the Journal of Management and a fellow in the Academy of Management, the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology, the Southern Management Association, and the Association for Psychological Science. Marion Fortin (Ph.D., Trinity College Dublin) is Associate Professor in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the Center for Research in Management at the University of Toulouse 1 Capitole. Dr. Fortin’s main research interest lies in the role of fairness perceptions in the workplace, and how they are linked with morality and social context. Derek M. Hutchinson is a doctoral student of Industrial Organizational Psychology at the University of South Florida with a concentration in Occupational Health Psychology. His current research includes occupational safety, organizational climate, and employee mistreatment with a specific interest in the healthcare industry. James F. Johnson, Ph.D., is a Personnel Research Psychologist for the United States Air Force’s Strategic Research and Assessment branch at Joint Base San Antonio
Randolph in Texas. While working on his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at The University of Oklahoma, Dr. Johnson served roles as both a team member and grant lead for multiple NIH and NSF ethics grants, as well as a training instructor for OU’s Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) program. His research interests include leadership, academic and applied ethical decision making, moral disengagement theory, and moral emotions. Dr. Johnson currently works on research, development, and improvement of selection and assessment systems for both enlisted Airmen and officer candidates in the United States Air Force.

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Jessica F. Kirk is a doctoral student in management and entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Her research interests include employee and entrepreneur identity, work group effectiveness, and perceptions of female leaders. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri and a Master of Business Administration degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D., Jessica worked as an engineer at The Boeing Company. Anthony C. Klotz is an Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business at Oregon State University. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management from the University of Oklahoma. Anthony’s research interests include organizational citizenship behavior, team conflict, and employee resignations. His research has appeared in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Applied Psychology, and the Journal of Management. Alexandra E. MacDougall is an Assistant Professor of Management at Central Michigan University. Her research focuses on business ethics, ethical decision making, organizational citizenship behavior, and the dark side of organizational behavior. She has published her work in various outlets including the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics, Journal of Management History, Ethics & Behavior, and Science and Engineering Ethics. Patrick F. McKay is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. Dr. McKay received his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology in 1999 from the University of Akron. He is a member of the Academy of Management and the Personnel/Human Resources Research Group (PHRRG), and has been recognized as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His primary research interests are the interactive effects of race-ethnicity and organizations’ diversity climates on recruitment outcomes, employee job performance, work attitudes, and retention, as well as organizational-level performance. He has published articles in respected journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organization Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Making Processes, and Personnel Psychology. Dr. McKay has published over 35 articles and book chapters and has received numerous awards for his research. In addition, he is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Human Resource Management and serves on the

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editorial boards of the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Personnel Psychology. Michael D. Mumford is a George Lynn Cross Distinguished Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Oklahoma, where he directs the Center for Applied Social Research. Dr. Mumford is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association (Divisions 3, 5, 10, 14), the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), and the American Psychological Society. He has written over 300 articles on creativity, leadership, ethics, and planning. Dr. Mumford has served as senior editor of The Leadership Quarterly and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Creativity Research Journal, the Journal of Creative Behavior, the International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, Ethics & Behavior, and the Journal of Business Ethics. He has served as principal investigator on grants totaling more than $30 million from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor, and the Department of State. Lauren S. Simon is an Assistant Professor of Management at Portland State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Management with a concentration in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from the University of Florida. Her research interests include interpersonal relationships at work, employee selection and organizational socialization, and work-related mood and emotion. Her work has been published in journals such as the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, and the Journal of Vocational Behavior. Paul E. Spector is a distinguished professor of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology and I/O doctoral program director at the University of South Florida. He is also director of the NIOSH funded Sunshine Education and Research Center’s Occupational Health Psychology doctoral program. He is the Associate Editor for Point/Counterpoint for Journal of Organizational Behavior, Associate Editor for Work & Stress, and is on the editorial boards of Journal of Applied Psychology and Human Resources Management Review. He has research interests in both content and research methodology. His content research concerns occupational health and safety, including injuries, stress, and workplace violence. His methodology interests involve the connections among measurement, statistics, and inference.

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Bennett J. Tepper is a Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Management and Human Resources in the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University. Tepper received a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology from the University of Miami. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and the Southern Management Association. Tepper’s research interests center on well-being in organizations with a particular emphasis on the role that managerial leadership plays in explaining employee and unit effectiveness. He has published on these and other topics in a variety of scholarly outlets including Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Personnel Psychology. Tepper served as an Associate Editor for Academy of Management Journal from 2010 to 2013 and he currently serves on the editorial boards of that journal as well as Journal of Applied Psychology. Ryan D. Zimmerman is an associate professor in the Management Department at Virginia Tech. He earned his Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from the University of Iowa. Ryan’s research interests include employee recruiting, selection, and turnover, as well as individual differences. He is a recipient, along with two coauthors, of the Academy of Management Human Resources Division’s 2006 Scholarly Achievement Award for the most significant paper in human resource management. He is also a recipient of a 2012 Emerald Management Reviews Citations of Excellence award. Before earning his Ph.D., Ryan worked as a manager, HR specialist, and internal HR consultant.