The impact of procedural and distributive justice on satisfaction and manufacturing performance: a replication of Lindquist (1995) with a focus on the importance of common metrics in experimental design

This paper replicates Lindquist’s (Lindquist, Journal of Management Accounting Research 7:122–147, 1995) seminal research introducing the concepts of justice to the accounting literature. We use organizational justice theory, as did he, to replicate his study and, in doing so, question some findings of partial replications and extensions done over the past 25 years. We do this because work built off his study has challenged some of his findings. These challenges, we believe, have resulted from most researchers using different research metrics than did Lindquist. Many of these extensions have also used a mental-based task, instead of a manual-based one, in their experiments. We believe this constrains the ability to draw inferences and conclusions from this subsequent research. We further believe this constraint extends to much of the experimental research in the social sciences.In our research we replicate exactly Lindquist’s (Lindquist, Journal of Management Accounting Research 7:122–147, 1995) operationalizations of voice and vote and measure dependent outcomes for four of the same conditions he investigated. In contrast to most of other follow-up studies, we find, as did Lindquist, that having a voice only leads to significantly enhanced satisfaction with high-stretch targets, as compared to having a vote only or no input. We also corroborate Lindquist’s (Lindquist, Journal of Management Accounting Research 7:122–147, 1995) result that having a voice only leads to significantly greater satisfaction with the experimental task, as compared to participants with a vote only or no input. Additionally, unlike Lindquist (Lindquist, Journal of Management Accounting Research 7:122–147, 1995), we find participants allowed only a voice significantly outperform participants with a vote only and no input. We thus support Lindquist’s findings of a fair process effect for voice and perceptions of pseudo-participation related to vote.

The “ironic” fair process effect: A perceived fair naturalization procedure spurs anti-immigration attitudes through increased host national identification among naturalized citizens

A growing body of research has shown that naturalized citizens’ attitudes towards immigration worsen following citizenship acquisition. Accordingly, these socially mobile individuals tend to distance themselves from their former immigrant ingroup. The present contribution explains such self–group distancing coping strategy in terms of an “ironic” procedural fairness effect. Study 1 ( N = 566), a survey conducted among naturalized Swiss citizens, showed that fairness perceptions with respect to the naturalization process were indeed associated with stronger anti-immigration attitudes, and that this relationship was mediated by identification with the host nation. Next, two experiments were conducted to demonstrate the causality of the hypothesized mediation model. In Study 2 (Experiment 1; N = 248), fairness of the admission procedure (accurate vs. inaccurate) increased identification with a desirable group. In Study 3 (Experiment 2; N = 141), administration of a national identity prime evoked stronger anti-immigration attitudes. Taken together, our findings highlight a somewhat “dark side” of procedural fairness.

The Fair Process Effect in the Classroom: Reducing the Influence of Grades on Student Evaluations of Teachers

Research findings tend to confirm anecdotal observations that instructors’ teaching evaluations are influenced by students’ grades, making some instructors feel pressured to reduce the academic rigor of their course in an attempt to get higher evaluations. To reduce this pressure, the current study tested whether distributive justice may explain the relationship between grades and student evaluation of teaching (SET) and how the fair process effect may moderate the relationship between distributive justice perceptions regarding grades and SET. Relying on the extant literature of procedural justice, we hypothesized that when students perceive no fair process that determines their grades, then: (a) the relationship between distributive justice perceptions and SET will be stronger and (b) the indirect effect of grades on SET via distributive justice perceptions will be stronger. Conversely, under conditions of strong fair process perceptions, these relationships will be attenuated. Using a survey of undergraduates’ perceptions of course fairness, we found support for our proposed hypotheses. We discuss the implications of our findings for higher education faculty.