Is Justice the Same for Everyone? Examining Fairness Items Using Multiple-group Analysis
Byrne, Z. S., & Miller, B. K. (2009). Is Justice the Same for Everyone? Examining Fairness Items Using Multiple-group Analysis. Journal of Business and Psychology, 24 (1): 51-64.
Abstract: Purpose The
purpose of this study was to examine whether fairness assessed in a
widely used multisource instrument written by practitioners possessed a
similar factor structure as fairness measured in academic literature,
and whether different groups based on their relationship to the ratee
(e.g., peers, subordinates, supervisors) perceived a similar structure
to the construct.
Design/methodology/approach Multisource
data were collected for 141 managers from a variety of organizations
across the United States, who participated in a leadership development
program offered by Personnel Decisions International (PDI), a global
management consulting firm.
Findings The
study results show that fairness measured with a widely used
multisource instrument indeed assesses the same construct as that
examined in the academic literature. Peers, subordinates, and
supervisors perceived fairness similarly, whereas self-reports of
fairness differed, suggesting that they function as a systematic source
of variance in the measurement of fairness.
Implications The
findings in this study demonstrate that leaders can be confident that
their constituents are all conceptualizing fairness the same way, such
that differences are meaningful and not due to differences in the
understanding of the items in the instrument.
Originality/value The
proliferation of the use of multisource feedback instruments in
leadership development programs has facilitated the assessment of the
fairness of managers. This study shows that perceptions of fairness of
the manager as reported by his or her constituencies (e.g., peers,
supervisor, subordinates) change very little as a function of who is
doing the perceiving, which heretofore has not been shown.
(Something interesting I found)Posted: Monday, April 20, 2009
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