Purpose This study aims to challenge the equality paradigm in organisational discourse by arguing that equality-as-sameness is too blunt to function as a master principle of organisational justice. It examines how equality has become a privileged moral reference point in organisations and asks how differentiation can be justified, governed and contested without reproducing arbitrary exclusion. Design/methodology/approach The study adopts a reflectivist epistemological stance and develops a theoretical and conceptual critique rather than an empirical test. Drawing on organisational theory, critical management studies and contemporary scholarship on merit, diversity and inclusion, it traces how equality became an organisational reference point through formal, participative and inclusionary translations. Findings The analysis shows that organisations remain structured through hierarchy, role differentiation, selective evaluation and unequal responsibility, even where equality is rhetorically privileged. The study argues that justice in organisations cannot be reduced either to identical treatment or to uncritical faith in meritocratic hierarchy. Instead, the central normative problem is how differentiation is ethically governed. Merit is treated as contested and institutionally mediated, and the study specifies the conditions under which differentiation may remain legitimate, transparent and developmentally accessible without becoming exclusionary or self-reinforcing. Originality/value The study offers a theoretical reframing of organisational justice as the ethical governance of differentiation. It clarifies the distinction between equality, equity, fairness, participation, diversity and hierarchy and advances the concept of accountable differentiation as a more precise framework for rethinking justice, inclusion and legitimacy in contemporary organisations.
Khan et al. (Mon,) studied this question.