A Taxonomy of Organizational Justice Theories

A taxonomy is presented that categorizes theories of organizational justice with respect to two independent dimensions: a reactiveproactive dimension and a process-content dimension.Various theories within each of the four resulting categories are identified.The implications of the taxonomy are discussed with respect to clarifying theoretical interrelationships, tracking research trends, and identifying needed areas of research. Stimulated by conceptualizations of justice in organizations bysuch theorists as Homans (1961), Adams (1965), and Walster, Berscheid, and Walster (1973), organizational researchers devoted considerable attention in the 1960s and 1970s to testing propositions about the distribution of payment and other work-related rewards derived from equity theory (for reviews, see Campbell & Pritchard, 1976; Greenberg, 1982).Although reviews and critiques of equity theory once dominated the pages of organizational journals (e.g., Goodman & Friedman, 1971; Pritchard, 1969; Weick, 1966), more recently it has been the subject of far less attention (Reis, 1986).It would be a mistake, however, to view this trend as an indication that organizational scientists are less interested in matters of justice and fairness in organizations than they used to be.Indeed, concerns about fairness have been expressed in such organizational domains as conflict resolution (Aram & Salipante, 1981), personnel selection (Arvey, 1979), labor disputes (Walton & McKersie, 1965), and wage negotiation (Mahoney, 1975), to name just a few.Although research inspired by equity theory has slowed down greatly, there have emerged a variety of different approaches to justice that are at least as useful in explaining behavior in a broader variety of organizational contexts.Because there has been a proliferation of such newer approaches and because these may be less familiar to organizational scientists, the present paper will categorize various conceptualizations of justice around a taxonomic scheme.This taxonomy will not only offer a parsimonious way of organizing these various conceptualizations, but in so doing, will highlight their interrelationships and their importance to the study of organizations. Dimensions of the TaxonomyThe present taxonomy is derived by combining two conceptually independent dimensions: a reactive-proactive dimension and a processcontent dimension.It is not assumed that these are the only organizing dimensions that may be identified.Indeed, it is possible that different taxonomic schemes may be proposed that are based on completely different conceptual dimensions.However, the dimensions identified in the present taxonomy appear to be very useful ones for organizing a wide range of conceptualizations of interest in the field of organizational behavior. Reactive-Proactive DimensionThe reactive-proactive dimension was suggested by a distinction made by Van Avermaet, McClintock, and Moskowitz (1978), and was used 9