EMPLOYER TREATMENT OF EMPLOYEES

DURING A COMMUNITY CRISIS: THE ROLE

OF PROCEDURAL AND DISTRIBUTIVE
JUSTICE
Steve Harvey
Williams School of Business and Economics, Bishops University
Victor Y. Haines III
School of Industrial Relations, University of Montreal
ABSTRACT: This study applies organizational justice principles to human re-
source decisions made during a crisis situation. Three-hundred and sixty-six
working individuals of ice storm affected households responded to a telephone
survey that included measures of interactional, procedural and distributive jus-
tice, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Conrmatory Factor
Analysis suggested collapsing the interactional and procedural justice measures
into one measure of procedural treatment. Overall, there was considerable sup-
port for the relevance of procedural justice and its interaction with distributive
justice in predicting the work attitudes of employee following a disaster. Multiple
regression analyses revealed that perceptions of procedural justice most strongly
predicted job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Consistent with
existing theory, an interaction between distributive and procedural was found to
predict job satisfaction. The predicted interaction was not detected for organi-
zational commitment.
KEY WORDS: organizational justice; natural disasters; work attitudes.
Organizational justice reactions have been shown to be positively
related to employee trust in supervisors (Konovsky & Pugh, 1994) and in
management (Alexander & Ruderman, 1987), perceived organizational
support (Moorman, Blakely, & Niehoff, 1998), job satisfaction (Alexander
Address correspondence to Steve Harvey, Williams School of Business and Economics,
Bishops University, Lennoxville, Quebec, Canada. E-mail: Sharvey@UBISHOPS.CA
We would like to acknowledge the capable research assistance of Paula Warnholtz and the
nancial assistance from the Senate Research Committee at Bishops University.
Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol. 20, No. 1, Fall 2005 (2005)
DOI: 10.1007/s10869-005-6983-z
53
0889-3268/05/0900-0053/0 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
& Ruderman, 1987; Folger & Konovsky, 1989; Tansky, 1993), leader-
member exchange (Konovsky & Pugh, 1994; Manogram, Stauffer, &
Conlon, 1994), commitment to decisions (Kim & Mauborgne, 1996), and
citizenship behaviors (Farh, Earley, & Lin, 1997; Farh, Podsakoff, &
Organ, 1990; Konovsky & Pugh, 1994; Moorman, 1991; Moorman et al.,
1998; Moorman, Niehoff, & Organ, 1993; Niehoff & Moorman, 1993;
Organ & Moorman, 1993; Skarlicki & Latham, 1996), thus supporting
the importance of fairness perceptions for the development of effective
work attitudes and behaviors. Such perceptions of fairness seem critical
during a social or natural disaster when employees and management are
faced with extreme conditions that threaten their livelihood and that of
the community. During these difcult times, management must make
business decisions that affect employees who are also attempting to cope
with the crisis. The premise of this study is that these extraordinary
decisions have an impact on employee work attitudes and that this
inuence can be understood by means of theory on organizational justice.
The specic role that organizations play in helping employees cope
with crises created by social or natural disasters has received limited
research attention (Pearson & Clair, 1998; Sanchez, Korbin, & Viscarra,
1995). The study of organizational behavior has been focused on the best
practices of everyday challenges with less attention to relatively rare
occurrences of employee assistance practices during extraneous disas-
ters. However, with recent world shocks, organizations are realizing that
they may have to react to events with ramications beyond their
immediate control. Theory on how to approach such occurrences is
clearly in need of development and empirical examination.
There is some work to suggest that psychological justice principles
(e.g., Thibaut & Walker, 1975) may provide a useful framework for
understanding how people react to organizational decisions affecting
them during a time of community crisis. A study by Sanchez et al. (1995)
examining the impact of corporate support towards employees in the
aftermath of a hurricane disaster sheds some light on what we might
expect. They found evidence that tangible corporate support meeting
employees primary needs can have an important impact on work-related
attitudes and tension. Not all anticipated relationships were supported,
however. One reason cited for this is that their measures of support were
not sensitive to the likely importance of emotional support and the
quality of support. This observation suggests that the procedural and
interactional aspects of the organizations involvement in the crisis
management are also important. Indeed, it reinforces the idea that it is
not just what a management does during a disaster that counts; how
management goes about deciding and communicating its support are
critical factors in determining positive reactions to the decisions in times
of disaster. We explore this set of specic predictions in this study within
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 54
the framework of relevant justice concepts distributive (the what) and
procedural (the how) justice. We also consider the potential role of
interactional justice as an extension to procedural justice.
As with the Sanchez et al. (1995) study, we examined the role of
corporate support in a disaster circumstance, but specically through the
theoretical lens of psychological justice principals (Thibaut & Walker,
1975). The disaster studied is in the aftermath of an enormous ice storm
that rendered millions of Canadians without electric power (and thus
primary heat) for at least 2 weeks in the middle of a harsh Canadian
winter. The whole southern part of the Canadian province of Quebec was
paralyzed for weeks due to power lines that were damaged beyond simple
repair. Whole power transportation and transformation networks had to
be rebuilt leaving entire residential and employment communities
without power for weeks.
The relevance of justice theory to this type of problem is that it
places a theoretical framework on practical concerns initially identied
in the Sanchez et al. (1995) disaster study. Justice concepts t the
disaster situation because they seek to explain tangible support through
distributive justice as well as emotional support and quality of support
through procedural and interactional justice. To the degree that these
concepts can be shown to t the circumstances of an actual disaster
increases condence in its particular application to similar events.
Transportability of justice concepts to a disaster setting are less at issue
than understanding the potential peculiarities of their application. The
study of organizational justice has not always turned up xed patterns of
relationships between variables across settings. For example, the nd-
ings of lab and eld studies have not always been in agreement (Chohen-
Charash & Spector, 2001), nor have patterns of interactions among the
justice concepts (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998). Accordingly, examination
of these concepts within a newer eld setting is useful both to organi-
zational justice theory and the specic area of application.
In the following, we consider how organizational justice can apply to
the disaster situation. The predictions are related to the work attitudes
job satisfaction and organizational commitment, both of which have re-
ceived extensive attention in organizational studies of justice (e.g.,
Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001).
In the organizational justice literature, distributive justice has a
content focus and is dened as employee perceptions of the fairness of
the outcomes received (Adams, 1965; Greenberg, 1990). This source of
organizational justice describes the allocation of resources and opportu-
nities, such as pay. Accordingly, the issue is about fair receipt of some
valued outcome under the control of the organization (though the
circumstance that created the situation may not). In a time of social
or natural disaster this could included, among other things, the
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 55
organizations policy or ad hoc decision with respect to pay during
shutdown or time-off from work to handle family, home and shelter
concerns. Failure to receive what is considered fair may then contribute
to the employees development of a negative attitude towards the orga-
nization. In theory this can be explained through the notion of a
psychological contract (Rousseau, 1995). Specic psychological repre-
sentations or implicit expectations of what constitutes fair employer
employee exchanges are held by the employee and ultimately can affect
work attitudes and behavior negatively if there is breach of this tacit
contract (ie., expectations). In the case of disaster relief, employees might
expect the organization to fulll a perceived moral obligation towards
them (e.g., give time-off; advance pay), a fair exchange for their loyalty to
the organization. Should they not receive the assistance expected, it
would be predicted that job satisfaction and commitment to the employer
could be compromised, particularly given that the event is salient enough
to have a lasting impact on their memory and related feelings. Empiri-
cally, there is strong evidence to support such a proposition. The link
between distributive justice and job satisfaction is supported by an
extensive literature and two meta-analyses (e.g., Cohen-Charash &
Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). For
example, one of these analyses reports a corrected population correlation
of 0.56 between the two variables with a corrected population standard
deviation of 0.09 (Colquitt et al., 2001). Therefore, we expect in this study
that those employees who report receiving equitable support from the
organization during the ice storm would be more satised with their jobs.
A similar effect is expected with respect to distributive justice and
commitment. The same meta-analysis reports a corrected correlation of
0.51 (and standard deviation of 0.13) between these variables (Colquitt
et al., 2001). By commitment we are referring to the affective form,
characterized by an emotional and identication based attachment to the
organization (Meyer & Allen, 1997). In his study, Sanchez et al. (1995)
found that commitment was strongest among those employees who re-
ceived a tangible support from the employer during the disaster. In other
words, consistent with the distributive justice model, what employees
received during the recovery effort from the employer was probably
important in shaping their later commitment to the organization. In
explaining the development of commitment, Meyer and Allen (1997) ar-
gue that such actions by the organization are interpreted as supportive
by employees, which is thought to be an important determinate for
developing higher affective commitment towards an organization. We
expect in this study that those employees who reported receiving equi-
table support from the organization during the ice storm will show
greater affective commitment towards the organization.
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 56
Procedural justice has a process focus and is dened as the appli-
cation of fair rules in decisions regarding ones outcomes (Folger &
Greenberg, 1985; Leventhal & Fry, 1980; Thibaut & Walker, 1975).
Accordingly, the procedural justice principle adds the element that fair-
ness is also experienced through the way in which outcomes are deter-
mined and distributed. To the extent that methods used in assigning the
outcome or otherwise arriving at a decision are seen as fair leads to in-
creased sense of justice and favorable work-related attitudes (Folger &
Cronpanzno, 1998). Procedures may make less equitable distributions
more palatable or even be themselves more satisfactory by way of the
communicated thoughtfulness towards the recipient. In relation to the
development of organizational commitment, the process utilized by
the decision maker also is a sign of organizational supportiveness, perhaps
even more than the distributive elements. As Meyer and Allen (1997)
explain, Employees affective commitment is more strongly inuenced by
how fairly decisions are made than by whether they always get what they
want (p. 48). Hence, we can expect in this disaster study, salient as the
event is, that judgments of increased procedural fairness will positively
relate to later reports of commitment to the organization. Again, the evi-
dence frommeta-analysis results are strongly supportive of a relationship
between procedural justice and commitment with a corrected correlation
of 0.57 and standard deviation of 0.18 (Colquitt et al., 2001).
The connection between procedural justice and job satisfaction also
is expected to be strong for the reasons previously reviewed. The rela-
tionship is among the strongest of those reported with a corrected cor-
relation of 0.62 and standard deviation of 0.18 (Colquitt et al., 2001).
Individuals have expectations of what they want from the employer in a
time of disaster as well as what is considered fair in reaching that out-
come. The procedural element is likely to be particularly important in
this case due to increased discretion that is brought on by a disaster
situation wherein formal policies and procedures may not exist. Where
formal rules and regulations are not extant as might be the case in
dealing with unforeseen events such as a disaster, the procedural ele-
ment of the decision is likely to taken on greater focus. Accordingly, the
process by which the decision is made has great probability to inuence
employee job satisfaction in this study.
Interactional justice has in recent years emerged as a third compo-
nent in research on organizational justice. It is conceptualized generally
as more focused than procedural justice on the quality of the interper-
sonal treatment one receives (Bies & Moag, 1986; Folger & Cropanzano,
1998). Its relevance to a disaster case is in whether the employees felt
that they were treated in an interpersonally sensitive and ethical man-
ner when decisions were discussed and communicated. There is some
debate as to whether interactional justice is separate from procedural
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 57
justice or simply one component of the construct (Blader & Tyler, 2003;
Folger & Cropanzano, 1998). This debate, however, does not weaken the
fact that features of both concepts can be important in the disaster case
and should therefore be measured. Because of the closeness of these
constructs we expect any effects related to interactional justice to par-
allel the relationships predicted for procedural justice. The main ques-
tion in this study was whether interactional justice would form a
separate predictive construct, and if so, how it then relates to the
interactive inuences discussed in the next section.
The literature is now clear that distributive justice and procedural
justice are expected to interact in their inuence (Brockner & Wiesen-
feld, 1996). Many studies have found an interaction (Brockner et al.,
1994; Cropanzo & Folger, 1989; Greenberg, 1986; Landy, Barnes-Farell,
& Cleveland, 1980; Martin & Nagao, 1989; McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992;
Ployhart & Ryan, 1998; Sheppard & Lewicki, 1987; Skarlicki & Folger,
1997; Tyler, Rasinski, & McGraw, 1985) and there is some suggestion
that it occurs because of underlying trust that is created between the
parties (Brockner & Siegel, 1996). Others have reported three way
interactions implicating distributive, procedural and interactional justice
(e.g., Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). While it is clear that interactions are
routine, less clear is the pattern that they will take. Chen, Brockner, and
Greenberg (2002) have, among others, pointed out that various patterns
of interactions have emerged in justice research to date. Two common
forms of interactions show that high procedural justice can (a) enhance
the effects of favorable outcomes on employees reactions or (b) serve to
diminish positive reactions to favorable outcomes (e.g., Chen et al.,
2002). Given the newness of this studys context, whereas an interaction
is expected between procedural and distributive justice, and perhaps
interactional justice, in predicting job satisfaction and organizational
commitment, the specic nature or pattern of these interactions are not
predicted. The resulting pattern(s) will be explored graphically as rec-
ommended by Aiken and West (1991).
The hypotheses canbe cast across two regressionmodels involving the
two work attitudes job satisfaction and organizational commitment. In
each model there are three potential main effects (distributive, procedural
and interactional justice) and the interactions between these predictors.
METHOD
Sample
The sample of 366 working individuals was randomly drawn from
the French speaking population of Brossard, Quebec, a suburban
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 58
community south of Montreal. This community was targeted for two
reasons. First, the area was affected by the downing of hydro-electric
power for a period of up to 2 weeks; hence peoples work and residential
lives were equally likely to be affected by the crisis for an extended period
of time. Second, as a suburb of Montreal we increased the likelihood that
individuals surveyed came from a wide variety of occupational groups.
Respondents included 169 men and 197 women. They had on average
11.8 years of experience in their current job.
Measures
The measures of organizational justice were generated for this study
by developing composite items from the literature deemed appropriate for
a telephone survey. Items were rst listed and then chosen based on how
well they t the current disaster circumstances. The retained items were
then translated fromEnglish to French by the authors and further rened
through a pilot test. Responses were provided on a four point scale
ranging from (roughly translated) totally agree to totally disagree. All
items are reproduced in English in Appendix I. The nal survey included
2 items measuring distributive justice (a = 0.93) and 5 items measuring
procedural justice (a = 0.91). As described below, a conrmatory factor
analysis supported a two dimensional structure over a three dimensional
model. The two-factor model has the interactional justice items subsumed
within the measure of procedural justice. Because of their interrelated-
ness, the collapse of these two concepts into one measure of procedural
justice is not uncommon (Blader & Tyler, 2003). Henceforth the measure
of procedural justice includes items reecting both procedural and
interactional justice and is referred to as procedural justice.
Using a conrmatory factor analysis approach, we rst assessed the
t of the data to a single factor baseline model, then a two factor model
(distributive & procedural) and nally a three factor model (distributive,
procedural & interactional). These models were then evaluated for rel-
ative t using a X
2
difference
test (Bollen, 1989). Standard indices suggest
an acceptable t of the data to the baseline single-factor model. The data
also t the two-factor model well and provided a signicant improvement
over the one-factor model with a signicant X
2
difference
between these two
models. The data t the three-factor model well, but this model failed to
show a signicant improvement over the two-factor model. On the basis
of these analyses, we determined that the data best t a two-factor model
with the two distributive items loading as predicted on one factor and the
interactional and procedural justice items on the second factor.
The measure of commitment was a seven item French translation of
the Mowday et al. (1979) organizational commitment measure (see Saga,
Guerin, & Wils, 1998). It is mainly a measure of affective commitment.
The resulting a coefcient in this study was 0.87. Satisfaction was
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 59
measured by one item created for the purpose of this study. It asked
respondents to indicate how satised they are with their work in general.
It has been shown that a global index of overall job satisfaction is a valid
measure of general job satisfaction (Scarpello & Campbell, 1983). All
items for commitment and satisfaction were measured with the same
response scale used for the justice items.
Procedure
The data were collected through a professional rm experienced with
telephone interviews. The interviews were conducted 4 months after the
end of the ice storm crisis through a period of 1 week. At random, they
contacted potential respondents froma list of residents withinthe targeted
area and asked them if they would participate in a study being conducted
by the two authors. The purpose of the study was explained and those that
were working adults and who agreed to participate completed the inter-
view. The interview took an average 10 min with nearly 80% of those
contacted agreeing to participate. The questionnaire began with the items
inquiring about the employers treatment of employees during the ice
storm, followed by the questions on organizational commitment, job sat-
isfaction and some demographic items. This ordering was chosen to ensure
that participants felt comfortable with the announced purpose of the
questionnaire and thus stay with us throughout the completion of the
questionnaire. Whereas this might encourage later responses on the
dependent measures and inate bivariate relationships between the
variables, the reverse effect of the dependent variables priming the justice
measures is equally possible and this would ineither case work against the
main hypotheses of nding and examining interaction terms. Interactions
are very sensitive to high correlations between predictors and are less
likely to emerge under such conditions (Aguinis, 1995; Cortina, 2002). For
this purpose, the main effects can be compared to those inthe literature for
some insight on this issue.
The authors also took measures to ensure that all participation was
voluntary and that information was kept condential. A pilot study was
rst conducted with a sample of 20 respondents in order to verify
the item wording and protocol. As a result, a few minor instruction
adjustments were made for the main study.
RESULTS
Descriptive statistics and the inter-correlations for all of the study
variables are presented in Table 1. As anticipated, all study variables
show signicant positive inter-correlations in the appropriate direction.
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 60
The a coefcients presented in the diagonal for each measure indicate
relatively high estimates of internal consistency. Following recommen-
dations by Aiken and West (1991) all predictor variables for the analyses
to follow were centered as means of reducing effects associated with
highly correlated predictors.
Two hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the
proposed hypotheses. The regression sample size was somewhat reduced
for the two analysis (n = 285 & n = 301 versus n = 366) due to missing
data and the use of the more conservative listwise deletion procedure.
Comfort of respondent was paramount to us and several may have felt
unable or unwilling during the telephone interview to judge their em-
ployer over the phone to a stranger on certain procedural justice ques-
tions, though they did complete other questions.
The results of the regression analyses are presented in Table 2. In
each case, the main effects (procedural and distributive justice) were
entered at the rst step. The predicted interaction was entered in the
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics and Inter-Correlation of the Study Variables
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4
1. Distributive 3.4 0.91 0.93
2. Procedural 3.4 0.77 0.80 0.91
3. Satisfaction 3.6 0.61 0.34 0.40
4. Commitment 3.5 0.57 0.48 0.58 0.63 0.87
Note: All correlations are signicant at the p<0.05, 2-tailed level. Numbers in the
diagonal are a coefcients. All items are based on a four point scale. Distributive Justice 2
items; Procedural Justice 5 items; Satisfaction 1 item; Commitment 7 items.
Table 2
Summary of Hierarchical Regression Analyses
Variables Job Statisfaction Commitment
Step 1
Distributive 0.10 0.04
Procedural 0.31* 0.55*
R
2
0.16* 0.35*
Step 2 (Full Model)
Distributive 0.20* 0.09
Procedural 0.38* 0.35*
DP 0.20* 0.09
R
2
0.18* 0.35*
R
2
change
0.02* 0.003
*Signicance of standardized b weights at the p<0.05 or better or signicant R
2
change.
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 61
second step. As anticipated, procedural justice accounted for signicant
variance in job satisfaction (b = 0.31) at the rst step. Distributive justice
was signicant in predicting job satisfaction only at the second step
(b = 0.20). Entering the interaction term of distributive and procedural
justice at the second step also showed a signicant increment in R
2
for
the prediction of job satisfaction (DR
2
= 0.02).
The second analysis results indicate that only procedural justice ac-
counted for signicant variance in organizational commitment (b = 0.55).
Neither distributive justice nor the interaction term entered on the sec-
ond step lead to predicted variance in organizational commitment
(p>0.2). Hence, the hypotheses relative to organizational commitment
received only partial support by way of the main effect of procedural
justice.
The interaction effect of distributive and procedural justice on job
satisfaction is represented in Figure 1. The interaction is plotted as de-
scribed by Aiken and West (1991) to model the simple slope effect of
distributive justice on job satisfaction corresponding here to both high
(+1SD) and low ()1SD) levels of procedural justice. The pattern is sug-
gestive of an effect occurring at higher levels of procedural justice
high procedural justice
high procedural justice
low procedural justice
low procedural justice
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
1
Low DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE High
J
o
b

S
a
t
i
s
f
a
c
t
i
o
n
high procedural justice
low procedural justice
2
Figure 1
Interaction of Distributive and Procedural Injustice Relative to Job
Satisfaction
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 62
wherein the simple slope is most pronounced. Job satisfaction is highest
when both distributive and procedural justices are reported to be high.
DISCUSSION
It was predicted based on theory that the justice concepts would
generalize to a natural disaster situation in helping to predict the longer
term implications that organizational decisions might have on employee
attitudes. General support was found for some but not all of these pre-
dictions in this study. Specically, it was clearly supported that per-
ceptions of procedural fairness of the human resource decisions made
during a natural disaster predict the later work attitudes of job satis-
faction and organizational commitment. The magnitude of the rela-
tionships in this study judged against a meta-analysis of these
constructs (Colquitt et al., 2001) suggests that organizational commit-
ment was predicted at comparable levels by both distributive and pro-
cedural justice. Job satisfaction was by this same comparison predicted
at lower magnitude, but within the bounds of what could be expected.
However, the predicted interactive inuence of procedural and distrib-
utive justice on the work attitudes was only supported for job
satisfaction.
Under ordinary conditions we might reasonably expect an effect that
connects a specic event/decision and the satisfaction associated with the
specic event/decision. One might predict, for example, that a decision to
not pay employees during the downtime of the crisis would be received
with some stated dissatisfaction by the employees. That an interaction
emerged as signicant under conditions of relating a specic event (ice
storm) to a broader work attitude (job satisfaction) is noteworthy. At the
fundamental level, this supports the possibility that crisis situations can
have a broader impact on work attitudes.
This study extends previous ndings on the matter of job satis-
faction and organizational justice (e.g., Cohen-Charash & Spector,
2001) to the context of crisis situations. Previous research on the
organizational response to helping employees in the aftermath of a
natural disaster pointed to the likelihood that emotional support and
the quality of support are key elements to the perceived effectiveness
of any assistance (Sanchez et al., 1995). Support for this is found in
this study when we consider the role played by procedural justice. This
moderating effect of procedural justice is consistent with suggestions
by others (Sanchez et al., 1995) that emotional support during a crisis
may be important. The highest satisfaction was associated with situ-
ations high in both distributive and procedural justice. One could ar-
gue that interactional justice is in fact the component of procedural
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 63
justice that is most responsible for this type of effect because of the
interpersonal nature of emotional support. Given the overlapping
character of these constructs in our study we cannot clearly tease out
this effect for examination but the results are encouraging of such a
proposition.
The implications for research on crisis management in organizations
is that organizational justice theory can probably serve as a framework
for making decisions relative to employees in times of disaster. This
research supports the suggestion that event specic decisions can be
shown to relate to important, global work attitudes about ones employer
within a framework of organizational justice. Moreover, it supports the
notion that it is not just what the employer does that counts but probably
also how the decision is made and communicated. This study has given
some insight into how the justice concepts relate to certain work atti-
tudes, but as previous research in the area of organizational justice
seems to suggest (e.g., Folger & Cropanzano, 1998), we cannot assume
that organizational justice concepts will apply uniformly across problem
areas. What is also clear is that more research is required to explain how
specically the variables of interest relate to work attitudes. For exam-
ple, procedural justice seemingly took on a critical role in the ndings of
this study. What we need to examine is whether this observation is un-
ique to this study, disasters in general or to the types of interventions
taken by the employer. Alternatively we need to consider that retro-
spective accounts may be a problem that leads participants to blurring
distinctions between these constructs in their responding.
That the moderating variable hypothesis was not supported in the
organizational commitment model deserves some consideration. At face
value this would suggest that procedural justice does not moderate the
relationship between distributive justice and organizational commit-
ment. However, several rival explanations seem quite plausible and pose
a more conservative interpretation in this one study. It should be noted
in tandem with these considerations though that procedural justice did
account for signicant variance as a main effect variable, close to double
that found for job satisfaction. This is an important statistical reason
why nding an interaction effect for commitment would be more difcult
than nding one for job satisfaction in this study the variance ac-
counted for by the main effects towards commitment was comparatively
sizeable. This type of problem is not uncommon in organizational
behavior and management studies and places them at a disadvantage for
nding signicant relationships that might actually exist (Aguinis,
1995). We believe this might be a problem in this study that future re-
search may want to correct. A related consideration regards problems
associated with nding moderating effects when the predictor variables
involved are highly correlated (Cortina, 2002). This too may have acted to
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS AND PSYCHOLOGY 64
reduce the likelihood of nding the interaction. We addressed the issue in
this study by following the recommendation of Aiken and West (1991)
and centered all predictor variables prior to entry into the regression
analyses.
Although the high correlation between constructs may be construed
as a methodological hindrance, one must also consider potential sub-
stantive reasons for this strong association. The high correlation (0.80) is
not atypical when we compare it to the corrected correlation of 0.67 with
a standard deviation of 0.23 reported in a meta-analysis by Colquitt
et al. (2001). Moreover, the high correlation between the three forms of
justice may reect that, in a crisis situation, any organizational support
is appreciated and highly considered by the recipient. Fairness in pro-
cedures, treatment and outcome may mesh into an overall perception
that an employers actions demonstrated caring and compassion and
reinforce a sense of dignity for the employee. As Folger (1993) noted with
an example of compensation, all aspects of the agents conduct, whether
or not they have direct bearing on employee compensation or the means
for determining compensation, can carry implicit messages about whe-
ther the agent views the employee as someone worthy of that minimal
level of respect to which all humans should be entitled (pp. 174175). As
noted earlier, an apparent dominance of procedural justice predicting
the work attitudes in this study may be a reection of this convergence.
Indeed, this overlapping variance likely explains why distributive justice
emerges as signicant in a second and not rst step of the regression
analysis. Entering the interaction term likely created a suppression
effect.
In addition to statistical and measurement questions, future
research can extend these ndings in several ways. One interesting ve-
nue would be to categorize and then examine actual forms of human
resource interventions within the justice framework. For instance, are
there differences between justice perceptions associated with monetary
(e.g., benets, pay, and expenses) versus non-monetary benets (e.g., use
of vacation time, time-off replacement)? This study did not discriminate
the practices and therefore could have overlooked critical variance and
effects due to the type of human resource intervention examined. Indeed,
there should be an attempt to gather data from various sources (e.g.,
organizations formal decisions) so as to minimize problems such as
common method variance which cannot be ruled out as having some
inuence in this type of study. Though nding an interaction does abate
some concern with common method variance being the sole source of
inuence. Moreover, a longitudinal study examining the issues as they
unfold and reactions that are associated with each could help better
understand how a particular crisis and its handling by management
might eventually contribute to changes in work attitudes. This would be
STEVE HARVEY AND VICTOR Y. HAINES III 65
particularly useful within rms wherein baseline measures of employee
attitudes might already exist and thus serve to compare pre and post-
crisis. Finally, researchers should continue to examine for the possibility
of separate procedural and interactional justice effects in future research
on disaster management. The measures may prove to be more sensitive
when combined with the previous issue of examining separate
interventions is heeded.
APPENDIX A
Organizational Justice Items for Ice Storm Study
During the Ice storm
1. My employer offered me all of the help and support I deserved. (D)
2. The help and support offered by my employer was fair. (D)
3. My employer was honest and ethical in discussions with me. (I)
4. My employer gave me an opportunity to express my opinion. (P)
5. My employer made an effort to act fairly. (P)
6. I had an opportunity to talk with my employer about appropriate
support. (P)
7. My employer acted in an appropriate manner. (I)
Note: Items directly translated back from French. D Distributive jus-
tice item; I interactive justice item; P procedural justice item.
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