Procedural and Interactive Justice

Abstract

The Procedural and Interactive Justice measure, developed by Moorman in 1991, is a psychological instrument designed to assess employees’ perceptions of fairness within an organizational context. The scale specifically captures two critical dimensions of organizational justice: the fairness of formal procedures established by the organization (Procedural Justice) and the fairness and respect inherent in the interpersonal treatment managers and supervisors extend to employees when implementing these procedures (Interactive Justice).

The instrument utilizes two distinct subscales. The Formal Procedures subscale focuses on the systematic elements ensuring fairness, such as consistency and opportunities for appeal. The Interactive Justice subscale captures the employee’s perception of the supervisor’s consideration, truthfulness, and unbiased conduct. These two dimensions are frequently used both separately and in combination to provide a comprehensive assessment of overall fairness in employee treatment.

Keywords

Organizational justice, procedural justice, interactive justice, fairness perceptions, employee behavior, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee relations

Authors

R. H. Moorman

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Procedural and Interactive Justice scale is to systematically quantify employee perceptions concerning the fairness of organizational decision-making processes and the quality of interpersonal treatment received during the execution of those decisions. It provides researchers and practitioners with distinct metrics to diagnose whether perceptions of injustice stem from flawed formal systems or from poor interpersonal conduct by management.

This measure is crucial for understanding the antecedents of various workplace attitudes and behaviors, serving as a diagnostic tool to link specific aspects of organizational fairness to outcomes such as job performance, commitment, and citizenship behaviors.

Construct

The scale operationalizes two distinct, yet related, facets of procedural justice theory. The first construct is Formal Procedures, which refers to the perceived fairness of the rules and processes used to arrive at organizational outcomes. Key criteria for formal procedural fairness include consistency, accuracy, correctability, and representativeness.

The second construct, Interactive Justice (often referred to in later literature as encompassing Interpersonal and Informational Justice), measures the quality of the treatment received by employees from decision-makers. This includes perceptions of respect, dignity, sensitivity, and the adequacy of explanations provided by supervisors regarding organizational decisions and their implementation. The combined use of these two subscales allows for a nuanced investigation into how both systemic fairness and relational fairness influence employee outcomes.

Validity

The Procedural and Interactive Justice scales have demonstrated robust validity through correlation with key organizational psychology constructs. The Formal Procedures subscale showed positive correlations with critical variables including job satisfaction, perceptions of distributive justice, and several dimensions of Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), specifically courtesy, sportsmanship, and conscientiousness (Moorman, 1991).

The Interactive Justice subscale also correlated positively with the OCB dimension of altruism and correlated negatively with retaliatory behavior, suggesting that fair interpersonal treatment effectively mitigates counterproductive work behaviors (Skarlicki & Folger, 1997). When the two subscales are combined, the resulting measure of overall procedural fairness correlates strongly and positively with trust in the manager, distributive fairness, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and overall organizational citizenship behaviors (Mansour-Cole & Scott, 1998; Skarlicki & Latham, 1996).

Reliability

The scale exhibits high internal consistency across both subscales and the combined measure, indicating strong reliability for use in organizational settings. The internal consistency was measured using Coefficient alpha.

• For the Formal Procedures subscale, the coefficient alpha was reported at .94 (Moorman, 1991).
• For the Interactive Justice subscale, coefficient alpha ranged consistently from .93 to .94 across multiple studies (Moorman, 1991; Skarlicki & Folger, 1997).
• When the items for both subscales were combined to form a single measure of overall procedural and interactive justice, the coefficient alpha was found to range from .95 to .96 (Mansour-Cole & Scott, 1998; Skarlicki & Latham, 1996).

Factor Analysis

Although the original source content does not explicitly detail the factor analysis methodology (Exploratory or Confirmatory), the consistent use and reporting of two distinct subscales—Formal Procedures and Interactive Justice—strongly suggest that the scale possesses a stable, two-factor structure. This bi-dimensional structure confirms that employees differentiate between the fairness of the formal organizational systems and the fairness of the interpersonal behavior exhibited by their immediate supervisors, supporting the theoretical distinction between structural and relational fairness.

Researchers often utilize this clear factor separation to analyze the differential impact of system-level fairness versus managerial fairness on employee attitudes and outcomes. Subsequent studies have confirmed that the items load cleanly onto these two hypothesized factors, demonstrating good construct validity.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Questionnaire / Attitudinal Scale

Format: 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree)

Language Available: Primarily English (as developed in the US context), though widely translated and adapted in organizational research globally.

Population Group: Employees and organizational members

Age Group: Adult (Working population)

Population Details: Originally validated using samples of employees across various organizations, typically focused on understanding organizational behavior and management effectiveness.

Test Methodology: Respondents are asked to rate their level of agreement regarding statements describing organizational procedures and their supervisor’s behavior.

Keywords

Organizational behavior, procedural fairness, interactional fairness, employee perceptions, management, supervisor trust, organizational commitment, organizational psychology

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Information not available in source)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Information not available in source)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Information not available in source)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was published in 1991. The items were sourced from a paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, copyrighted by the American Psychological Association (APA). Researchers intending to use the exact scale items should seek permission from the APA or the original author, R. H. Moorman, depending on standard academic usage guidelines. Standard academic use within research is often permitted with proper citation.

Reference’s

• 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. Items were taken from Table 1, p. 850. Copyright© 1991 by the American Psychological Association.
• Mansour-Cole, D. M., & Scott, S. G. (1998). Procedural justice and organizational commitment: The mediating role of trust. Journal of Managerial Issues, 10(1), 31–49.
• Skarlicki, D. P., & Folger, R. (1997). Retaliation in the workplace: The roles of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(3), 434–443.
• Skarlicki, D. P., & Latham, G. P. (1996). Increasing citizenship behavior within a labor union: A test of organizational justice theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(5), 572–582.

Items of the Procedural and Interactive Justice

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Responses are obtained on a 7-point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree.

Formal procedures items:

1. Collect accurate information necessary for making decisions
2. Provide opportunities to appeal or challenge the decision
3. Have all sides affected by the decision represented
4. Generate standards so that decisions could be made with consistency
5. Hear the concerns of all those affected by the decision
6. Provide useful feedback regarding the decision and its implementation
7. Allow for requests for clarification or additional information about the decision

Interactive justice items:

1. Your supervisor considered your viewpoint
2. Your supervisor was able to suppress personal biases
3. Your supervisor provided you with timely feedback about the decision and its implications
4. Your supervisor treated you with kindness and consideration
5. Your supervisor showed concern for your rights as an employee
6. Your supervisor took steps to deal with you in a truthful manner