关键词: 组织公正, 动态变化, 公正轨迹, 公正变化性

Abstract: Time plays an important role in the process of justice effect. However, most traditional organizational justice research takes a cross-sectional approach to examining the relationships between fairness and individuals’ attitudes. Recently, researchers have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on work outcomes. Based on the time frame of the research, we classify the research into two categories: the shorter time frame research and the longer time frame research. The shorter time frame research investigated the fluctuations of justice over a shorter time frame (i.e. 5-7 working days). Whereas, the longer time frame research investigated the fluctuations of justice over a longer time frame (i.e. over 10 months). The shorter time frame research has taken a dynamic person-centric view, and has shown that justice perceptions are variable and exert time-dependent influence on work outcomes. Moreover, the shorter time frame research found that the justice variability impacts the individuals’ attitudes and behavior. The longer time frame research examined the impacts of justice trajectories (i.e., levels and trends of individual fairness perceptions over time) on work outcomes. Research has shown that the justice trajectories explain additional variance in work outcomes. The research in this area has drawn on different theories to explain the mechanisms underlying the temporal dynamics of justice effect. For the shorter time frame research, based on the ego depletion theory, daily fluctuations in justice affect changes individuals’ regulatory resources, which in turn affect individuals’ attitudes and behaviors. Moreover, drawing on uncertainty management theory, justice variability is another source of employee’s uncertainty, which negating the benefits of general justice perceptions. For the longer time frame research, on the basis of fairness heuristic theory and gestalt characteristics theory, employees may utilize their justice trajectories as a heuristic when they make sense of the leaders’ current behaviors. Furthermore, following the logic of social exchange theory, employees will evaluate an improving (declining) justice trajectory as a signal of the leaders’ increasing (decreasing) contributions to the exchange relationship. This evaluation may strengthen (weaken) the reciprocal relations and induce positive (negative) outcomes. There are some important avenues for future research. First, future research may tease out the nature of the temporal dynamics of justice. It would be advisable in future research to analyze the full range of justice dimensions’ variation over time, and to link their variation over time to general fairness perceptions. It also would be useful for future research to investigate the relationship between the shorter and the longer change. Second, future research may extend this research area by investigating the possible antecedents of temporal dynamics of justice. Future research may focus on different loci that determine the justice perceptions and its variation: the actor (the individual adhering/violating justice rules), the receiver (the individual perceiving fairness), and the actor-receiver dyad. Third, future research may identify the potential moderators of the temporal dynamics of justice. On one hand, researchers would consider the “threshold effects”. That is, the perceptions of fairness may change rapidly at some time point, or after some phase-shifting events. On the other hand, employees’ reactions to justice may be based not only on current justice experience, but also on the justice variation over time. Hence, future research would explore when employees rely on current justice experience and when they rely on justice variation.

Key words: organization justice, temporal dynamics, justice trajectories, justice variability