Values and Organizational Justice

Reactions of full-time employees to reward-allocation decisions by managers that were based either on work performance or on seniority were surveyed in former East Germany and in the United Kingdom. Schwartz’s model of universal human values is predicted to moderate the perceived justice of these reward-allocation principles. It was found that self-enhancement versus self-transcendence is a more powerful moderator of justice perceptions compared with openness to change versus conservation values. The study demonstrates the usefulness of values research in explaining perceptions of justice and highlights the importance of values for justice theories.