Seeing the forest or the trees of organizational justice: Effects of temporal perspective on employee concerns about unfair treatment at work
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Publication type
FT ranked journal articlePublication Year
2011Journal
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision ProcessesPublication Volume
116Publication Issue
1Publication Begin page
17Publication End page
31
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What events do employees recall or anticipate when they think of past or future unfair treatment at work? We propose that an employee’s temporal perspective can change the salience of different types of injustice through its effect on cognitions about employment. Study 1 used a survey in which employee temporal focus was measured as an individual difference. Whereas greater levels of future focus related positively to concerns about distributive injustice, greater levels of present focus related positively to concerns about interactional injustice. In Study 2, an experimental design focused employee attention on timeframes that differed in temporal orientation and temporal distance. Whereas distributive injustice was more salient when future (versus past) orientation was induced, interactional injustice was more salient when past orientation was induced and at less temporal distance. Study 3 showed that the mechanism underlying the effect of employee temporal perspective is abstract versus concrete cognitions about employment.Knowledge Domain/Industry
People Management & Leadershipae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.obhdp.2011.05.008