Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational Policy

Abstract

The Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational Policy measure is a specialized psychological instrument developed by Grover (1991) designed to quantify employee perceptions of fairness regarding specific organizational policies. It focuses specifically on policies related to parental leave immediately following the birth of a child. This nine-item scale serves as a model for assessing fairness beliefs directed toward sensitive, family-related organizational provisions, integrating concepts of distributive and procedural justice within a workplace context.

Keywords

Organizational justice, Fairness Perceptions, Parental Leave, Employee attitudes, Organizational Policy, Deservingness, Institutional Responsibility, Work-Family Balance.

Authors

Steven L. Grover

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Purpose

The primary purpose of the scale is to measure how employees perceive the fairness of organizational policies that grant parents leave following childbirth. Unlike general measures of organizational justice, this instrument targets a specific, high-stakes policy area—family-related benefits—to understand employee attitudes toward resource allocation and institutional support.

The scale aims to differentiate between several facets contributing to overall fairness judgment. Specifically, it assesses general perceptions of policy fairness, beliefs about parental deservingness for the benefit, and judgments regarding the organization’s institutional responsibility to provide such support. This multi-faceted approach provides researchers with a nuanced understanding of employee acceptance or rejection of specific organizational provisions.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of Fairness Perceptions related to a specific Organizational Policy. This construct is operationalized through three distinct sub-dimensions, totaling nine items:

• Fairness Perceptions (2 items): Direct assessment of the perceived equity of the policy.
• Parental Deservingness (3 items): Assessment of whether parents are perceived as morally or practically entitled to the leave benefit.
• Institutional Responsibility (4 items): Assessment of the extent to which the organization should be responsible for providing and funding such benefits.

These components collectively capture the complex cognitive and emotional judgments employees make when evaluating organizational actions that affect different groups within the workforce (i.e., parents versus non-parents).

Validity

The validity of the measure was established through correlational analysis demonstrating meaningful associations with related attitudinal and demographic variables (Grover, 1991). Fairness perceptions showed positive correlations with several key indicators.

Specifically, higher levels of perceived fairness were associated with positive attitudes toward both male and female employees who took parental leave. Furthermore, perceptions of fairness were significantly linked to demographic factors such as being female and being of childbearing age, suggesting that employees personally affected by the policy area tend to hold stronger opinions. The measure also correlated positively with a greater likelihood of employees planning to have additional children and a greater likelihood of intending to take parental leave themselves.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the scale was found to be exceptionally high. The Coefficient alpha (Cronbach’s alpha) reported for the overall fairness perceptions score was 0.95 (Grover, 1991). This high value indicates excellent reliability, suggesting that the nine items consistently measure the underlying construct of fairness perceptions related to the organizational policy.

Factor Analysis

A factor analysis conducted on the nine items of the scale revealed a clear, unidimensional structure. The analysis produced a single factor, suggesting that despite the measure being designed with three theoretical sub-dimensions (fairness, deservingness, and institutional responsibility), the items converge strongly onto one overarching construct: the general fairness perception of the parental leave policy. This finding supports the use of a single, aggregated score for this instrument in applied research settings.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological scale

Format: Nine items scored on a 7-point Likert-type scale.

Language Available: English (Original research)

Population Group: Employees/Organizational personnel

Age Group: Adult (Working age population)

Population Details: Employees likely within organizational settings where formalized parental leave policies exist, potentially focusing on faculty members or professional staff based on item wording.

Test Methodology: Survey methodology utilizing a structured response format where respondents indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with policy-related statements.

Keywords

Psychometric scale, Organizational behavior, Work-life balance, Employee benefits, Organizational justice, Coefficient alpha, Unidimensionality, Organizational Policy.

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Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The original items were published in the appendix of the 1991 journal article. Permission for reproduction of the items was granted by the American Psychological Association (APA), which holds the copyright. Users intending to utilize the scale must seek appropriate permissions from the APA or the author, Steven L. Grover, for academic or commercial use.

Test Year: 1991

Reference’s

• Grover, S. L. (1991). Predicting the perceived fairness of parental leave policies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76(2), 247-255. Items were taken from the appendix, p. 255. Copyright© 1991 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

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Items of the Fairness Perceptions of an Organizational Policy

Responses are obtained using a 7-point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree somewhat, 3 = disagree a little, 4 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = agree a little, 6 = agree somewhat, and 7 = agree strongly.

Fairness perception items:

1. Paying faculty members for having babies is not fair to non­ childbearing faculty members (R)
2. Every parent deserves the right to paid leave when a child is born
3. It is everyone’s, including non-parents, responsibility to provide for children, and a parental leave policy helps to accomplish this task
4. It is not [the organization’s] responsibility to provide paid time off to new parents (R)
5. Having a child is a strain on parents, and they deserve the aid of parental leave
6. Children are a necessary part of society and it is the responsibility of large institutions like [organization] to help in the effort
7. Those who choose not to have children should subsidize those who choose to have children under a parental leave program
8. In the past, employees have borne children without the benefit of special leave, and therefore it is not fair to offer parental leave to new parents (R)
9. Having a baby is a personal choice and provisions for that event should be made by the family, rather than by the employer (R)

Items denoted with (R) are reverse scored.