Distributive Justice Index

Abstract

The Distributive Justice Index (DJI) is a specialized psychological scale originally developed by Price and Mueller in 1986 to measure an employee’s perception of fairness regarding the distribution of organizational rewards. Specifically, the scale assesses the degree to which rewards received (such as money, recognition, and facilities) are perceived to be commensurate with performance inputs, including effort, experience, and education. High Distributive Justice is perceived when employee contributions are appropriately rewarded and deficiencies are sanctioned. The original six-item scale was later modified by Mansour-Cole and Scott (1998) to provide a comparative assessment of perceived fairness relative to co-workers in the immediate work environment, broadening its utility within organizational research.

The DJI has demonstrated utility as a reliable and valid measure in organizational psychology, frequently utilized in studies examining variables such as Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, and employee turnover. Although it is a short and easy-to-use self-report instrument, researchers acknowledge its susceptibility to social desirability bias.

Keywords

Distributive Justice Index, Organizational Justice, Reward Systems, Employee Perception, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Fairness, Workplace Measurement

Authors

James L. Price, Charles W. Mueller, Mansour-Cole, Scott

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Distributive Justice Index (DJI) is to quantitatively assess the perceived fairness of reward allocation within an organization. It aims to determine if employees feel that the outcomes they receive are equitable relative to the inputs they provide, such as their effort, professional experience, and educational background.

The subsequent modification of the scale by Mansour-Cole and Scott (1998) further refined its purpose, allowing researchers to specifically gauge an employee’s perception of fairness in comparison to their immediate co-workers, thereby focusing on internal equity perceptions within the work situation.

Construct

The DJI primarily measures the psychological construct of Distributive Justice. This concept, central to organizational fairness theory, refers to an individual’s perception of the fairness of outcomes or rewards they receive. In a workplace context, high distributive justice is achieved when employees believe that the distribution of resources—including pay, promotions, recognition, and physical facilities—is directly tied to meritocratic criteria (performance inputs) rather than arbitrary factors.

The items of the scale operationalize this construct by requiring respondents to evaluate the relationship between their specific contributions (e.g., responsibility, effort, dealing with stress) and the rewards they are granted. The modified version of the scale extends this focus to include comparative fairness judgments against peers.

Validity

The Distributive Justice Index has demonstrated strong evidence of convergent and discriminant validity across multiple studies. Distributive justice, as measured by the DJI, showed significant positive correlations with several key organizational variables, including Job Satisfaction, Procedural Justice, interactive justice, and various organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), specifically courtesy, altruism, sportsmanship, and conscientiousness (Moorman, 1991).

Further validation studies confirmed positive correlations with employee sense of control, pay satisfaction, employee age, and organizational commitment. Critically, analyses by DeConinck, Stilwell, and Brock (1996) utilized Confirmatory Factor Analysis to establish that distributive justice is empirically distinct from four dimensions of the Pay Satisfaction Questionnaire (satisfaction with benefits, last raise, pay level and structure, and administration of the pay plan), confirming its unique measurement contribution.

Reliability

The Distributive Justice Index exhibits high internal consistency reliability. Across multiple studies utilizing the scale, Coefficient Alpha values consistently demonstrated acceptable to excellent reliability, ranging from .75 to .94 (Mansour-Cole & Scott, 1998; McFarlin & Sweeney, 1992; Moorman, 1991; Sweeney & McFarlin, 1993).

Factor Analysis

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) conducted by Sweeney and McFarlin (1993) provided strong empirical support for the scale’s structural integrity. Their findings confirmed that the construct of Distributive Justice, as measured by the DJI, is essentially one-dimensional, with the items loading onto a single factor as theoretically expected. These analyses were also crucial in establishing the discriminant validity of the scale, demonstrating that distributive justice is empirically distinct from procedural justice, confirming that these are separate psychological constructs within organizational fairness research.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-Report Questionnaire / Psychometric Scale

Format: Multi-item, 5-point Likert-type scale.

Language Available: Available in a variety of languages (specific list not provided in source).

Population Group: Employees and organizational members.

Age Group: Typically adults in the workforce.

Population Details: Used across various organizational settings to assess perceptions of reward equity.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate their agreement or the extent to which they feel fairly rewarded based on their inputs, using anchored response options (e.g., 1 = rewards are not distributed at all fairly to 5 = rewards are very fairly distributed).

Keywords

Organizational Justice, Equity Theory, Reward Distribution, LMX, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Pay Satisfaction, Scale Validation, Psychometrics, Coefficient Alpha

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not provided in source material.

Correspondence Address: Not provided in source material.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The original items were published in 1986 by Price and Mueller in the Handbook of Organizational Measurement. The items are reprinted with permission from Pittman Publishing. The modified items were published in 1998 by Mansour-Cole and Scott in the journal Personnel Psychology and are reproduced with permission. Researchers intending to use the scale should consult the original sources regarding current permissions and any associated fees.

Test Year (Original): 1986

Test Year (Modification): 1998

Reference’s

• Price J., & Mueller, C. (1986). Handbook of organizational measurement. Marshfield, MA: Pittman. (Original items, p. 124).
• Mansour-Cole, D. M., & Scott, S. G. (1998). Hearing it through the grapevine: The influence of source, leader-relations, and legitimacy on survivors’ fairness perceptions. Personnel Psychology, 51(1), 25-54. (Modified items, p. 37).
• McFarlin, D. B., & Sweeney, P. D. (1992). Distributive and procedural justice as predictors of satisfaction with personal and organizational outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 35(3), 626–637.
• Moorman, R. H. (1991). Relationship between organizational justice and organizational citizenship behaviors: Do fairness perceptions influence employee citizenship? Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(6), 845–855.
• Sweeney, P. D., & McFarlin, D. B. (1993). Workers’ evaluations of the “ends” and the “means”: An examination of four models of distributive and procedural justice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 55(1), 23–40.
• DeConinck, J. B., Stilwell, C. D., & Brock, L. (1996). The relationship between job satisfaction and sales force control systems. Journal of Business Research, 35(3), 227–234.

Items of the Distributive Justice Index

Original items and instructions: Fairness in the following questions means the extent to which a person’s contributions to [the organization] are related to the rewards received. Money, recognition, and physical facilities are examples of rewards. Responses are obtained on a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = rewards are not distributed at all fairly, 2 = very little fairness, 3 = some fairness, 4 = quite fairly distributed, and 5 = rewards are very fairly distributed.

1. To what extent are you fairly rewarded considering the responsibilities that you have?
2. To what extent are you fairly rewarded taking into account the amount of education and training that you have had?
3. To what extent are you fairly rewarded in view of the amount of experience that you have?
4. To what extent are you fairly rewarded for the amount of effort that you put forth?
5. To what extent are you fairly rewarded for the work that you have done well?
6. To what extent are you fairly rewarded for the stresses and strains of your job?

Modified items and instructions:

In this section, we are interested in how fair you feel your current work situation is as compared to your co-workers. Responses are obtained using a 5- point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5= strongly agree.

1. I feel that my current job responsibilities are fair
2. Overall, the rewards I receive here now are quite fair
3. I consider my current workload to be quite fair
4. I think that my current level of pay is fair
5. My current work schedule is fair